I am wholly in favour of 'dull stodges'. A surprising large proportion prove 'educable': for which a primary qualification is the willingness to do work.

Great heart will not be denied.

Every writer making a secondary world wishes in some measure to be a real maker, or hopes that he is drawing on reality: hopes that the peculiar quality of this secondary world (if not all the details) are derived from Reality, or are flowing into it.

Far, far below the deepest delvings of the dwarves, the world is gnawed by nameless things.

I wish I was at home in my nice hole by the fire, with the kettle just beginning to sing!

It was an evil doom that set her in his path. For she is a fair maiden, fairest lady of a house of queens. And yet I know not how I should speak of her. When I first looked on her and perceived her unhappiness, it seemed to me that I saw a white flower standing straight and proud, shapely as a lily and yet knew that it was hard, as if wrought by elf-wrights out of steel.

And that's the way of a real tale. Take any one that you're fond of. You may know, or guess, what kind of a tale it is, happy-ending or sad-ending, but the people in it don't know. And you don't want them to.