“But to Sam the evening deepened to darkness as he stood at the Haven; and as he looked at the grey sea he saw only a shadow in the waters that was soon lost in the West. There he stood far into the night, hearing only the sigh and murmur of the waves on the shores of Middle-Earth, and the sound of them sank deep into his heart.”

“To the sea, to the sea! The white gulls are crying,The wind is blowing, and the white foam is flying.West, west away, the round sun is falling, Grey ship, grey ship, do you hear them calling, The voices of my people that have gone before me? I will leave, I will leave the woods that bore me;For our days are ending and our years failing.I will pass the wide waters lonely sailing.Long are the waves on the Last Shore falling,Sweet are the voices in the Lost Isle calling,In Eressea, in Elvenhome that no man can discover,Where the leaves fall not: land of my people forever!”

“He loved mountains, or he had loved the thought of them marching on the edge of stories brought from far away; but now he was borne down by the insupportable weight of Middle-earth. He longed to shut out the immensity in a quiet room by a fire.”

“It seemed to him that he had stepped through a high window that looked on a vanished world. A light was upon it for which his language had no name. All that he saw was shapely, but the shapes seemed at once clear cut, as if they had been first conceived and drawn at the uncovering of his eyes, and ancient as if they had endured for ever. He saw no colour but those he knew, gold and white and blue and green, but they were fresh and poignant, as if he had at that moment first perceived them and made names for them new and wonderful. In winter here no heart could mourn for summer or for spring. No blemish or sickness or deformity could be seen in anything that grew upon the earth. On the land of Lorien there was no stain.”

“The world was young, the mountains green,No stain yet on the Moon was seen,No words were laid on stream or stoneWhen Durin woke and walked alone.He named the nameless hills and dells;He drank from yet untasted wells;He stooped and looked in Mirrormere,And saw a crown of stars appear,As gems upon a silver thread,Above the shadow of his head.The world was fair, the mountains tall,In Elder Days before the fallOf mighty kings in NargothrondAnd Gondolin, who now beyondThe Western Seas have passed away:The world was fair in Durin's Day.A king he was on carven throneIn many-pillared halls of stoneWith golden roof and silver floor,And runes of power upon the door.The light of sun and star and moonIn shining lamps of crystal hewnUndimmed by cloud or shade of nightThere shone for ever fair and bright.There hammer on the anvil smote,There chisel clove, and graver wrote;There forged was blade, and bound was hilt;The delver mined, the mason built.There beryl, pearl, and opal pale,And metal wrought like fishes' mail,Buckler and corslet, axe and sword,And shining spears were laid in hoard.Unwearied then were Durin's folk;Beneath the mountains music woke:The harpers harped, the minstrels sang,And at the gates the trumpets rang.The world is grey, the mountains old,The forge's fire is ashen-cold;No harp is wrung, no hammer falls:The darkness dwells in Durin's halls;The shadow lies upon his tombIn Moria, in Khazad-dûm.But still the sunken stars appearIn dark and windless Mirrormere;There lies his crown in water deep,Till Durin wakes again from sleep.-The Song of Durin”

“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.”

“Faerie is a perilous land, and in it are pitfalls for the unwary and dungeons for the overbold...The realm of fairy-story is wide and deep and high and filled with many things: all manner of beasts and birds are found there; shoreless seas and stars uncounted; beauty that is an enchantment, and an ever-present peril; both joy and sorrow as sharp as swords. In that realm a man may, perhaps, count himself fortunate to have wandered, but its very richness and strangeness tie the tongue of a traveller who would report them. And while he is there it is dangerous for him to ask too many questions, lest the gates should be shut and the keys be lost.”