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J. R. R. Tolkien
66 quotes
“You can make the Ring an allegory of our own time, if you like: an allegory of the inevitable fate that awaits all attempts to defeat evil power by power. But that is only because all power magical or mechanical does always so work.”
J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) first seen 1947 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: No. 109: To his publisher (31 July 1947)
“'Power' is an ominous and sinister word in all these tales, except as applied to the gods.”
J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) first seen 1951 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: No. 131: To Milton Waldman (c. 1951)
“The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like 'religion', to cults or practices, in the imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism.”
J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) first seen 1953 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: No. 142: To his friend Robert Murray, S.J. (December 1953)
“Nothing has astonished me more (and I think my publishers) than the welcome given to The Lord of the Rings. But it is, of course, a constant source of consolation and pleasure to me. And, I may say, a piece of singular good fortune, much envied by some of my contemporaries. Wonderful people still buy the book, and to a man 'retired' that is both grateful and comforting.”
J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) first seen 1955 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: No. 165: To Houghton Mifflin Co. (30 June, 1955); also quoted in 'Tolkien on Tolkien' in Diplomat magazine (October 1966).
“It was just as the 1914 War burst on me that I made the discovery that 'legends' depend on the language to which they belong; but a living language depends equally on the 'legends' which it conveys by tradition. … Volapuk, Esperanto, Ido, Novial, &c &c are dead, far deader than ancient unused languages, because their authors never invented any Esperanto legends...”
J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) first seen 1956 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: No. 180: To a Mr. Thompson (incomplete draft of a letter, 1956).
“Most important, perhaps, after Gothic was the discovery in Exeter College library, when I was supposed to be reading for Honour Mods, of a Finnish Grammar. It was like discovering a complete wine-filled cellar filled with bottles of an amazing wine of a kind and flavor never tasted before. It quite intoxicated me; and I gave up the attempt to invent an 'unrecorded' Germanic language, and my 'own language' – or series of invented languages – became heavily Finnicized in phonetic pattern and structure. That is of course long past now.”
J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) first seen 1955 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: No. 163: To W. H. Auden (1955)
“Years before I had rejected as disgusting cynicism by an old vulgarian the words of warning given me by old Joseph Wright. 'What do you take Oxford for, lad?' 'A university, a place of learning.' 'Nay, lad, it's a factory! And what's it making? I'll tell you. It's making fees. Get that in your head, and you'll begin to understand what goes on.' Alas! by 1935 I now knew that it was perfectly true. At any rate as a key to dons' behaviour. Quite true, but not the whole truth. (The greater part of the truth is always hidden, in regions out of the reach of cynicism.)”
J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) first seen 1963 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: No. 250: To Christopher Tolkien (1 November 1963)
“The unpayable debt that I owe to him [C. S. Lewis] was not "influence" as it is ordinarily understood, but sheer encouragement. He was for long my only audience. Only from him did I ever get the idea that my "stuff" could be more than a private hobby. But for his interest and unceasing eagerness for more I should never have brought The L. of the R. to a conclusion.”
J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) first seen 1965 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: No. 276: To Dick Plotz, 'Thain' of the Tolkien Society of America (12 September 1965)
“The significance of a myth is not easily to be pinned on paper by analytical reasoning. It is at its best when it is presented by a poet who feels rather than makes explicit what his theme portends; who presents it incarnate in the world of history and geography, as our poet has done. Its defender is thus at a disadvantage: unless he is careful, and speaks in parables, he will kill what he is studying by vivisection, and he will be left with a formal or mechanical allegory, and what is more, probably with one that will not work. For myth is alive at once and in all its parts, and dies before it can be dissected.”
J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) first seen 1936 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" (1936), p. 14
“In Paradise perchance the eye may stray from gazing upon everlasting Day to see the day-illumined, and renew from mirrored truth the likeness of the True. Then looking on the Blessed Land 'twill see that all is as it is, and yet made free: Salvation changes not, nor yet destroys, garden nor gardener, children nor their toys. Evil will not see, for evil lies not in God's picture but in crooked eyes, not in the source but in malicious choice, and not in sound but in the tuneless voice. In Paradise they no more look awry; and though they make anew, they make no lie. Be sure they still will make, not being dead, and poets shall have flames upon their head, and harps whereon their faultless fingers fall: there each shall choose for ever from the All.”
J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We find it difficult to conceive of evil and beauty together. The fear of the beautiful fay that ran through the elder ages almost eludes our grasp. Even more alarming: goodness is itself bereft of its proper beauty. In Faërie one can indeed conceive of an ogre who possesses a castle hideous as a nightmare (for the evil of the ogre wills it so), but one cannot conceive of a house built with a good purpose – an inn, a hostel for travellers, the hall of a virtuous and noble king – that is yet sickeningly ugly. At the present day it would be rash to hope to see one that was not – unless it was built before our time.”
J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Gospels contain a fairy-story, or a story of a larger kind which embraces all the essence of fairy-stories. ... But this story has entered History and the primary world; ... It has pre-eminently the "inner consistency of reality." There is no tale ever told that men would rather find was true, and none which so many sceptical men have accepted as true on its own merits. For the Art of it has the supremely convincing tone of Primary Art, that is, of Creation. ...this story is supreme; and it is true. Art has been verified. God is the Lord, of angels, and of men — and of elves. Legend and History have met and fused.”
J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Evangelium has not abrogated legends; it has hallowed them, especially the "happy ending." The Christian has still to work, with mind as well as body, to suffer, hope, and die; but he may now perceive that all his bents and faculties have a purpose, which can be redeemed. So great is the bounty with which he has been treated that he may now, perhaps, fairly dare to guess that in Fantasy he may actually assist in the effoliation and multiple enrichment of creation. All tales may come true; and yet, at the last, redeemed, they may be as like and unlike the forms that we give them as Man, finally redeemed, will be like and unlike the fallen that we know.”
J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by 'arisch'. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. ... But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people. ... I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride.”
J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) first seen 1938 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: One of two draft letters (25 July, 1938) written for Stanley Unwin to select as a response to his German publishers inquiry about his ancestry. The other letter refused to answer altogether on his ancestry; since the qu…
“Well, the first War of the Machines seems to be drawing to its final inconclusive chapter — leaving, alas, everyone the poorer, many bereaved or maimed and millions dead, and only one thing triumphant: the Machines. As the servants of the Machine are becoming a privileged class, the Machines are going to be enormously more powerful. What's their next move? I was prob most moved by Sam's disquisition on the seamless web of story, and by the scene where Frodo goes to sleep on his breast, and the tragedy of Gollum who at that moment came within a hair of repentance - but for one rough word from Sam.”
J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) first seen 1945 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: No. 96: To his son Christopher (30 January 1945)
“I am doubtful myself about the undertaking. Part of the attraction of the L.R. is, I think, due to the glimpses of a large history in the background: an attraction like that of viewing far off an unvisited island, or seeing the towers of a distant city gleaming in a sunlit mist. To go there is to destroy the magic, unless new unattainable vistas are again revealed. Also many of the older legends are purely 'mythological', and nearly all are grim and tragic: a long account of the disasters that destroyed the beauty of the Ancient World, from the darkening of Valinor to the Downfall of Númenor and the flight of Elendil.”
J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) first seen 1963 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: No. 247: To Colonel Worskett (20 September 1963)