55 Inspiring Quotes From Tolkien

J.R.R. Tolkien, the beloved author behind masterpieces such as "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit," has captivated readers for generations with his rich storytelling, profound wisdom, and unparalleled imagination. His works are not only tales of adventure but also treasures troves of insights into life, courage, friendship, and resilience. Whether you are journeying through Middle-earth for the first time or are a seasoned traveler of Tolkien's worlds, these inspiring quotes will ignite your spirit and offer fresh perspectives. Join us as we explore a curated collection of 55 of Tolkien's most inspiring quotes, each one a testament to his enduring legacy and the timeless power of his words.

1. “I have claimed that Escape is one of the main functions of fairy-stories, and since I do not disapprove of them, it is plain that I do not accept the tone of scorn or pity with which 'Escape' is now so often used. Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls?” - J.R.R. Tolkien

2. “It's the job that's never started as takes longest to finish.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

3. “I am in fact, a hobbit in all but size” - J.R.R. Tolkien

4. “His rage passes description - the sort of rage that is only seen when rich folk that have more than they can enjoy suddenly lose something that they have long had but have never before used or wanted.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

5. “¡Es que no soy ningun hombre viviente! Lo que tus ojos ven es una mujer. Soy Éowyn hija de Eomund. Pretendes impedir que me acerque a mi señor y pariente. ¡Vete de aqui si no eres una criatura inmortal! Porque vivo o espectro oscuro, te traspasare con mi espada si lo tocas!” - J.R.R. Tolkien

6. “¿A qué le teméis, Señora?-le preguntó Aragorn.-A una jaula. A vivir encerrada detrás de barrotes, hasta que la costumbre y la vejez acepten el cautiverio, y la posibilidad y aún el deseo de llevar a cabo grandes hazañas se hayan perdido para siempre.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

7. “Aw, fudge,' floated down to me, as a couple of golden eyes peered over a third-floor window ledge. 'You're a freaking dhampir. Why are you reading Tolkien?'I shrugged, then had to dodge the potted geranium he threw at me. 'After five hundred years, you've read just about everything. Besides, he had hella world-building skills.” - Karen Chance

8. “Well, you can go on looking forward," said Gandalf. "There may be many unexpected feasts ahead of you.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

9. “Where now are the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing?Where is the harp on the harpstring, and the red fire glowing?Where is the spring and the harvest and the tall corn growing?They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the meadow;The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow.Who shall gather the smoke of the deadwood burning,Or behold the flowing years from the Sea returning?” - J.R.R. Tolkien

10. “Bilbo’s Last SongDay is ended, dim my eyes,But journey long before me lies.Farewell, friends! I hear the call.The ship's beside the stony wall.Foam is white and waves are grey;Beyond the sunset leads my way.Foam is salt, the wind is free;I hear the rising of the Sea.Farewell, friends! The sails are set,The wind is east, the moorings fret.Shadows long before me lie,Beneath the ever-bending sky,But islands lie behind the SunThat I shall raise ere all is done;Lands there are to west of West,Where night is quiet and sleep is rest.Guided by the Lonely Star,Beyond the utmost harbour-bar,I’ll find the heavens fair and free,And beaches of the Starlit Sea.Ship, my ship! I seek the West,And fields and mountains ever blest.Farewell to Middle-earth at last.I see the Star above my mast!” - J.R.R. Tolkien

11. “Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible, and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they evidently prefer.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

12. “He is a great enough magician to tap our most common nightmares, daydreams and twilight fancies, but he never invented them either: he found them a place to live, a green alternative to each day's madness here in a poisoned world. We are raised to honor all the wrong explorers and discoverers - thieves planting flags, murderers carrying crosses. Let us at last praise the colonizers of dreams.” - Peter S. Beagle

13. “Under the Mountain dark and tallThe King has come unto his hall!His foe is dead,the Worm of Dread,And ever so his foes shall fall.The sword is sharp, the spear is long,The arrow swift, the Gate is strong;The heart is bold that looks on gold;The dwarves no more shall suffer wrong.The dwarves of yore made mighty spells,While hammers fells like ringing bellsIn places deep, where dark things sleep,In hollow halls beneath the fells.-from The Hobbit (Dwarves Battle Song)” - J.R.R. Tolkien

14. “It [discovering Finnish] was like discovering a wine-cellar filled with bottles of amazing wine of a kind and flavour never tasted before. It quite intoxicated me.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

15. “Your talk of sniffling riders with invisible noses has unsettled me.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

16. “Tolkien, who created this marvellous vehicle, doesn't go anywhere in it. He just sits where he is. What I mean by that is that he always seems to be looking backwards, to a greater and more golden past; and what's more he doesn't allow girls or women any important part in the story at all. Life is bigger and more interesting than The Lord of the Rings thinks it is.” - Philip Pullman

17. “His grief he will not forget; but it will not darken his heart, it will teach him wisdom.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

18. “They made for his noise far quicker than he had expected. They were frightfully angry. Quite apart from the stones no spider has ever like being called Attercop, and Tomnoddy of course, is insulting to anybody.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

19. “But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Éowyn I am, Éomund's daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

20. “J. R. R. Tolkien, the near-universally-hailed father of modern epic fantasy, crafted his magnum opus The Lord of the Rings to explore the forces of creation as he saw them: God and country, race and class, journeying to war and returning home. I’ve heard it said that he was trying to create some kind of original British mythology using the structure of other cultures’ myths, and maybe that was true. I don’t know. What I see, when I read his work, is a man trying desperately to dream.Dreaming is impossible without myths. If we don’t have enough myths of our own, we’ll latch onto those of others — even if those myths make us believe terrible or false things about ourselves. Tolkien understood this, I think because it’s human nature. Call it the superego, call it common sense, call it pragmatism, call it learned helplessness, but the mind craves boundaries. Depending on the myths we believe in, those boundaries can be magnificently vast, or crushingly tight.” - N.K. Jemisin

21. “And once upon a time I wondered: Is writing epic fantasy not somehow a betrayal? Did I not somehow do a disservice to my own reality by paying so much attention to the power fantasies of disenchanted white men?But. Epic fantasy is not merely what Tolkien made it.This genre is rooted in the epic — and the truth is that there are plenty of epics out there which feature people like me. Sundiata’s badass mother. Dihya, warrior queen of the Amazighs. The Rain Queens. The Mino Warriors. Hatshepsut’s reign. Everything Harriet Tubman ever did. And more, so much more, just within the African components of my heritage. I haven’t even begun to explore the non-African stuff. So given all these myths, all these examinations of the possible… how can I not imagine more? How can I not envision an epic set somewhere other than medieval England, about someone other than an awkward white boy? How can I not use every building-block of my history and heritage and imagination when I make shit up?And how dare I disrespect that history, profane all my ancestors’ suffering and struggles, by giving up the freedom to imagine that they’ve won for me.” - N.K. Jemisin

22. “Gandalf never had this kind of problem. He had exactly this problem, actually, standing in front of the hidden Dwarf door to Moria. Remember when . . . I sighed. Sometimes my inner monologue annoys even me. “Edro, edro,” I muttered. “Open.” I rubbed at the bridge of my nose and ventured, “Mellon.” Nothing happened. The wards stayed. I guessed the Corpsetaker had never read Tolkien. Tasteless bitch.” - Jim Butcher

23. “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.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

24. “Quentin had an obsolete sailing ship that had been raised from the dead. He had psychotically effective swordsman and an enigmatic witch-queen. It wasn't the Fellowship of the Ring, but then again he wasn't trying to save the world from Sauron, he was trying to perform a tax audit on a bunch of hick islanders…” - Lev Grossman

25. “What would a racist call werewolves? Wargs? She kind of liked that one, but suspected that racist bastards didn't read Tolkien.” - Patricia Briggs

26. “Do you dislike your role in the story, your place in the shadow? What complaints do you have that the hobbits could not have heaved at Tolkien? You have been born into a narrative, you have been given freedom. Act, and act well until you reach your final scene.” - N.D. Wilson

27. “Farewell," they cried, "Wherever you fare till your eyries receive you at the journey's end!" That is the polite thing to say among eagles."May the wind under your wings bear you where the sun sails and the moon walks," answered Gandalf, who knew the correct reply.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

28. “The cry that 'fantasy is escapist' compared to the novel is only an echo of the older cry that novels are 'escapist' compared with biography, and to both cries one should make the same answer: that freedom to invent outweighs loyalty to mere happenstance, the accidents of history; and good readers should know how to filter a general applicability from a particular story.” - Tom Shippey

29. “‎Entre las historias de dolor y de ruina que nos llegaron de la oscuridad de aquel entonces, hay sin embargo algunas en las que en medio del llanto resplandece la alegría, y a la sombra de la muerte hay una luz que resiste…” - J.R.R. Tolkien

30. “No ames demasiado la obra de tus manos ni las invenciones de tu corazón.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

31. “To be a convincing story, you've got to know what you're talking about. In EVERY detail."-Rayner Unwin” - Jeff Shanley

32. “And in that very moment, away behind in some far corner of the city, a cock crowed. Shrill and clear he crowed reckoning nothing of wizardry or war, welcoming only the morning that in the sky far above the shadows of death was coming with the dawn.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

33. “Human stories are practically always about one thing, really, aren't they? Death. The inevitability of death. . .. . . (quoting an obituary) 'There is no such thing as a natural death. Nothing that ever happens to man is natural, since his presence calls the whole world into question. All men must die, but for every man his death is an accident, and even if he knows it he would sense to it an unjustifiable violation.' Well, you may agree with the words or not, but those are the key spring of The Lord Of The Rings” - J.R.R. Tolkien

34. “And there's no sex, hardly any love stuff at all, in Middle Earth, which always made me think, yes, the world would be better off without it.” - Jo Walton

35. “Sempre,sempre le strade vanno avanti,su rocce e sotto piante, a costeggiareantri che di ogni luce son mancanti,lungo ruscelli che non vanno al mare,sopra la neve che d'inverno cade,in mezzo ai fiori felici dell'estate,sopra la pietra e prati di rugiadesotto montagne di lune inondate.Sempre,sempre le strade vanno avantisotto le nubi e la volta stellata,ma i piedi incerti,nel cammino errantivolgono infine alla dimora amata.Gli occhi che han visto spade e fiamme ardentied in sale di pietra orrori ignoti,guardano infine i pascoli ridentie gli alberi ed i colli tanto noti” - Tolkein

36. “I will not give you counsel, saying do this, or do that. For not in doing or contriving, nor in choosing between this course and another, can I avail; but only in knowing what was and is, and in part also what shall be.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

37. “He did not go much further, but sat down on the cold floor and gave himself up to complete miserableness, for a long while. He thought of himself frying bacon and eggs in his own kitchen at home - for he could feel inside that it was high time for some meal or other; but that only made him miserabler.” - J. R. R. Tolkien

38. “An author cannot of course remain wholly unaffected by his experience, but the ways in which a story-germ uses the soil of experience are extremely complex, and attempts to define the process are at best guesses from evidence that is inadequate and ambiguous.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

39. “I should like to save the Shire, if I could - though there have been times when I thought the inhabitants too stupid and dull for words, and have felt that an earthquake or an invasion of dragons might be good for them. But I don't feel like that now. I feel that as long as the Shire lies behind, safe and comfortable, I shall find wandering more bearable: I shall know that somewhere there is a firm foothold, even if my feet cannot stand there again.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

40. “I did not buy a book called Lord Foul's Bane by Stephen Donaldson, which has the temerity to compare itself, on the front cover, to 'Tolkien at his best.' The back cover attributes the quote to the Washington Post, a newspaper whose quotations will always damn a book for me from now on. How dare they? And how dare the publishers? It isn't a comparison anyone could make, except to say 'Compared to Tolkien at his best, this is dross.' I mean you could say that even about really brilliant books like A Wizard of Earthsea. I expect Lord Foul's Bane (horrible title, sounds like a Conan book) is more like Tolkien at his worst, which would be the beginning of The Simarillion.The thing about Tolkien, about The Lord of the Rings, is that it's perfect.” - Jo Walton

41. “But, said Lewis, myths are lies, even though lies breathed through silver.No, said Tolkien, they are not....just as speech is invention about objects and ideas, so myth is invention about truth.We have come from God (continued Tolkien), and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Indeed only by myth-making, only by becoming a 'sub-creator' and inventing stories, can Man aspire to the state of perfection that he knew before the Fall. Our myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily towards the true harbour, while materialistic 'progress' leads only to a yawning abyss and the Iron Crown of the power of evil.You mean, asked Lewis, that the story of Christ is simply a true myth, a myth that works on us in the same way as the others, but a myth that really happened? In that case, he said, I begin to understand.” - Humphrey Carpenter

42. “When I say "narrative", I do not mean simply the plot, I mean considerably more. Plots and their shapes--the bare outlines of stories--were something I know J.R.R. Tolkien himself was interested in. When I was an undergraduate, I went to a course of lectures he gave on the subject--at least, I think that was the subject, because Tolkien was all but inaudible. He evidently hated lecturing, and I suspect he also hated giving his thoughts away.” - Diana Wynne Jones

43. “Books ought to have good endings.How would this do: and they all settled down and lived together happily ever after?” - J.R.R. Tolkien

44. “I totally geeked when I discovered (while in college) that Tolkien had a published version of 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight', so that's my favorite version. I think I have 3 or 4 copies on my bookshelf” - Virginia Chandler

45. “It is a lovely language,but it takes a very long time to say anything in it,unless it is worth taking a long time to say,and to listen to.-Treebeard/Fangorn” - J.R.R. Tolkien

46. “Don't put a lump of rock under my elbow again!” - J.R.R. Tolkien

47. “Did he say:"Hullo,Pippin!This is a pleasant surprise!"?No,indeed!He said:"Get up,you tom-fool of a Took!Where,in the name of wonder,in all this ruin is Treebeard?I want him.Quick"-Pippin Took” - J.R.R. Tolkien

48. “You could fire a machine gun randomly through the pages of Lord of the Rings and never hit any women.” - Neil Gaiman

49. “I am reading The Lord of the Rings. I suddenly wanted to. I almost know it by heart, but I can still sink right into it. I know no other book that is so much like going on a journey. When I put it down to this, I feel as if I am also waiting with Pippin for the echoes of that stone down the well.” - Jo Walton

50. “I met a lot of things on the way that astonished me. Tom Bombadil I knew already; but I had never been to Bree. Strider sitting in the corner at the inn was a shock, and I had no more idea who he was than had Frodo. The Mines of Moria had been a mere name; and of Lothloriene no word had reached my mortal ears till I came there. Far away I knew there were the Horselords on the confines of an ancient Kingdom of Men, but Fanghorn Forest was an unforeseen adventure. I had never heard of the House of Eorl nor of the Stewards of Gondor. Most disquieting of all, Saruman had never been revealed to me, and I was as mystefied as Frodo at Gandalf's failure to appear on September 22.J.R.R. Tolkien, in a letter to W.H. Auden, June 7, 1955” - Tolkien

51. “While persistence offers no guarantees, it does give 'luck' a chance to operate.” - Tom Shippey

52. “These folk are hewers of trees and hunters of beasts; therefore we are their unfriends, and if they will not depart we shall afflict them in all ways that we can.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

53. “Tres Anillos para los Reyes Elfos bajo el cielo. Siete para los Señores Enanos en palacios de piedra. Nueve para los Hombres Mortales condenados a morir. Uno para el Señor Oscuro, sobre el trono oscuro en la Tierra de Mordor donde se extienden las Sombras. Un Anillo para gobernarlos a todos. Un Anillo para encontrarlos, un Anillo para atraerlos a todos y atarlos en las tinieblas en la Tierra de Mordor donde se extienden las Sombras.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

54. “Frodo gave a cry, and there was, fallen upon his knees at the chasm's edge. But Gollum, dancing like a mad thing, held aloft the ring, a finger still thrust within its circle. "Precious, precious, precious!" Gollum cried. "My Precious! O my Precious!" And with that, even as his eyes were lifted up to gloat on his prize, he stepped too far, toppled, wavered for a moment on the brink, and then with a shriek he fell. Out of the depths came his last wail precious, and he was gone.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

55. “Gandalf and Pippin came to Merry's room, and there they found Aragorn standing by the bed. 'Poor old Merry!' cried Pippin, and he ran to the bedside, for it seemed to him that his friend looked worse and a greyness in his face, as if a weight of years and sorrow lay upon him; and suddenly a fear seized Pippin that Merry would die. 'Do not be afraid,' Aragorn said, 'I came in time, and I have called him back. He is weary now, and grieved, and he has taken a hurt like the lady Eowyn, daring to smite that deadly thing. But these evils can be amended, so strong and gay a spirit is in him. His grief he will not forget; but it will not darken his heart, it will teach him wisdom.' Then Aragorn laid his hand on Merry's head, and passing his hand gently through the brown curls , he touched the eyelids, and called him by name. And when the fragrance of athelas stole through the room, like the scent of orchards, and of heather in the sunshine full of bees, suddenly Merry awoke, and he said: 'I am hungry. What is the time?' 'Past supper-time now,' said Pippin; 'though I daresay I could bring you something, if they will let me.' 'They will indeed," said Gandalf, . 'And anything else that this Rider of Rohan may desire, if it can be found in Minas Tirith, where his name is in honour." 'Good!' said Merry. 'Then I would like supper first, and after that a pipe.” - J.R.R. Tolkien