Why should a man be scorned, if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if, when he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls? The world outside has not become less real because the prisoner cannot see it. In using Escape in this way the critics have chosen the wrong word, and, what is more, they are confusing, not always by sincere error, the Escape of the Prisoner with the Flight of the Deserter. Just so a Party-spokesman might have labeled departure from the misery of the Führer's or any other Reich and even criticism of it as treachery .... Not only do they confound the escape of the prisoner with the flight of the deserter; but they would seem to prefer the acquiescence of the "quisling" to the resistance of the patriot.

— J.R.R. Tolkien

Why was I chosen?'' Such questions cannot be answered,' said Gandalf. 'You may be sure that it was not for any merit that others do not possess. But you have been chosen, and you must therefore use such strength and heart and wits as you have.

— J.R.R. Tolkien

Wise men speak only of what they know

— J.R.R. Tolkien

Wizards are always troubled about the future.

— J.R.R. Tolkien

Yes, I am here. And you are lucky to be here too after all the absurd things you've done since you left home.

— J.R.R. Tolkien

Yes, I am white now,' said Gandalf. 'Indeed I am Saruman, one might almost say, Saruman as he should have been.

— J.R.R. Tolkien

Yes" Said Gandalf; "for it will be better to ride back three together than one alone. Well, here at last, dear friends, on the shores of the Sea comes the end of our fellowship in Middle-earth. Go in peace! I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.

— J.R.R. Tolkien

Yet at the last Barn was slain by the Wolf that came from the gates of Ang band, and he died in the arms of Tinfoil. But she chose mortality, and to die from the world, so that she might follow him; and it is sung that they met again beyond the Sundering Seas, and after a brief time walking alive once more in the green woods, together they passed, long ago, beyond the confines of this world. So it is that Luthier Tinfoil alone of the Elf-kindred has died indeed and left the world, and they have lost her whom they most loved.

— J.R.R. Tolkien

You can trust us to stick to you through thick and thin – to the bitter end. And you can trust us to keep any secret of yours – closer than you yourself keep it. But you cannot trust us to let you face trouble alone, and go off without a word. We are your friends, Frodo. Anyway: there it is. We know most of what Gandalf has told you. We know a good deal about the ring. Furthermore, we are horribly afraid–but we are coming with you; or following you like hounds.

— J.R.R. Tolkien

You certainly usually find something if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after.

— J.R.R. Tolkien