It is perilous to study too deeply the arts of the Enemy, for good or for ill. But such falls and betrayals, alas, have happened before.
And no one was ill, and everyone was pleased, except those who had to mow the grass.
Don’t you let go!
The sky was clear and the stars were growing bright. ‘It’s going to be a fine night,’ he said aloud. ‘That’s good for a beginning. I feel like walking.
Say rather that the Ring has no power over him. He is his own master. But he cannot alter the Ring itself, nor break its power over others. And now he is withdrawn into a little land, within bounds that he has set, though none can see them, waiting perhaps for a change of days, and he will not step beyond them.
All tales may come true; and yet, at the last, redeemed, they may be as like and as unlike the forms that we give them as Man, finally redeemed, will be like and unlike the fallen that we know.
They have left us fruit and drink, and bread,’ said Pippin. ‘Come and have your breakfast. The bread tastes almost as good as it did last night. I did not want to leave you any, but Sam insisted.
For it is said in old lore, ‘The hands of the king are the hands of a healer.’ And so the rightful king could ever be known.
This only was wanting. Now comes the night.
This was an evil choice. Which way should he choose? And if both led to terror and death, what good lay in choice?
We like the dark,” said all the dwarves. “Dark for dark business! There are many hours before dawn.
Torment in the dark was the danger that I feared, and it did not hold me back. But I would not have come, had I known the danger of light and joy.
Ring a ding dillo del! derry, del, my hearties! If you come soon you’ll find breakfast on the table. If you come late you’ll get grass and rain-water!
No one, I fancy, would discredit a story that the Archbishop of Canterbury slipped on a banana skin merely because he found that a similar comic mishap had been reported of many people, and especially of elderly gentlemen of dignity.
He was going to learn about sheep, and the high pasturages, and look at a wider sky, and walk ever further and further towards the Mountains, always uphill. Beyond that I cannot guess what became of him. Even little Niggle in his old home could glimpse the Mountains far away, and they got into the borders of his picture; but what they are really like, and what lies beyond them, only those can say who have climbed them.
I wish Merry was here,” he heard himself saying, and quick thoughts raced through his mind, even as he watched the enemy come charging to the assault. “Well, well, now at any rate I understand poor Denethor a little better. We might die together, Merry and I, and since die we must, why not? Well, as he is not here, I hope he’ll find an easier end. But now I must do my best.
O! Sweet is the sound of falling rain, and the brook that leaps from hill to plain; but better than rain or rippling streams is Water Hot that smokes and steams.
Soft as butter they can be, and yet sometimes as tough as old tree-roots.
What a mess are we in now! We! I only wish it was we: it is horrible being all alone.
The treasure is likely to be your death, though the dragon is no more!