Yesterday was Tolkien’s birthday–gives me another excuse to talk hobbits and Middle Earth.

“I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.”
J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“It’s a dangerous business going out your front door.”
J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”
J. R. R. Tolkien

“This is the hour of the Shire-folk, when they arise from their quiet fields to shake the towers and the counsels of the Great.” -Elrond

“My friends, you had horses, and deeds of arms, and the free fields; but she, born in the body of a maid, had a spirit and courage at least the match of yours… who knows what she spoke to the darkness, alone, in the bitter watches of the night, when all her life seemed shrinking, and the walls of her bower closing in about her, a hutch to trammel some wild thing in?”-Gandalf

“…And now leave me in peace for a bit! I don’t want to answer a string of questions while I’m eating. I want to think!”
“Good Heavens!” said Pippin. “At breakfast?”

“I will take the ring, though I do not know the way.” -Frodo