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

Yes, they are elves," Legolas said. "and they say that you breathe so loud they could shoot you in the dark." Sam hastily covered his mouth.

He was tall as a young tree, lithe, immensely strong, able swiftly to draw a great war-bow and shoot down a Nazgûl, endowed with the tremendous vitality of Elvish bodies, so hard and resistant to hurt that he went only in light shoes over rock or through snow, the most tireless of all the Fellowship.

Most people have made this mistake of thinking Middle-earth is a particular kind of earth or is another planet of the science fiction sort but it's just an old fashioned word for this world we live in, as imagined surrounded by the Ocean.

I've always been impressed that we are here, surviving, because of the indomitable courage of quite small people against impossible odds.

The birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus means that one day everything sad will come untrue.

Things will go as they will, and there is no need to hurry to meet them.