“It's amazing how large the things are that it's possible to overlook.”

“The thing about Tolkien, about The Lord of the Rings, is that it's perfect. It's this whole world, this whole process of immersion, this journey. It's not, I'm pretty sure, actually true, but that makes it more amazing, that someone could make it all up. Reading it changes everything.”

“You know, class is like magic. There's nothing there you can point to, it evaporates if you try to analyse it, but it's real and it affects how people behave and makes things happen.”

“Class is entirely intangible, and the way it affects things isn't subject to scientific analysis, and it's not supposed to be real but it's pervasive and powerful. See; just like magic.”

“There are some awful things in the world, it's true, but there are also some great books.”

“It's wrong for libraries to have limited budgets.”

“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.”