The most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.

Shall we mourn here deedless forever a shadow-folk mist-haunting dropping vain tears in the thankless sea

True courage is about knowing not when to take a life, but when to spare one.

I'd got hobbits on my hands hadn't I?

I was talking aloud to myself. A habit of the old: they choose the wisest person present to speak to

May the wind under your wings bear you where the sun sails and the moon walks.

Eastward the dawn rose, ridge behind ridge into the morning, and vanished out of eyesight into guess; it was no more than a glimmer blending with the hem of the sky, but it spoke to them, out of the memory and old tales, of the high and distant mountains.