The real risks for any artist are taken in pushing the work to the limits of what is possible, in the attempt to increase the sum of what it is possible to think. Books become good when they go to this edge and risk falling over it -when they endanger the artist by reason of what he has, or has not, artistically dared.

Believe in your own eyes and you'll get into a lot of trouble, hot water, a mess.

He knew what he knew: that the real world was full of magic, so magical worlds could easily be real.

I don't think I've ever quite grown out of it, actually. There was a point where I could recite some of those Elvish verses - which I've mercifully forgotten. But I can still, if really pushed, recite the text of the inside of the ruling ring in the language of Mordor.

Nobody ever recognizes themselves unless they are not the character. There are many people who have claimed to be in my books, but unfortunately they were usually people that I didn't know.

I'm not saying I am never going to fall in love again, but there is no need to marry.

Doubt, it seems to me, is the central condition of a human being in the twentieth century.