Ultimately we've only got humanity to work with. It's only clay we've got.

The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision.

Where iss it, where iss it: my Precious, my Precious? It's ours, it is, and we wants it.

It is ever so with the things that Men begin: there is a frost in Spring, or a blight in Summer, and they fail of their promise.

Not everyone who wanders is lost.

Many folk like to know beforehand what is to be set on the table; but those who have laboured to prepare the feast like to keep their secret; for wonder makes the words of praise louder.

It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass.