This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, a light from the shadows shall spring; renewed shall be blade that was broken, the crownless again shall be king.
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
All the same, I should like it all plain and clear, said he obstinately, putting on his business manner (usually reserved for people who tried to borrow money off him), and doing his best to appear wise and prudent and professional and live up to Gandalf's recommendation. Also I should like to know about risks, out-of-pocket expenses, time required and remuneration, and so forth--by which he meant: What am I going to get out of it ? and am I going to come back alive?
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
At first the beauty of the melodies and of the interwoven words in elven-tongues, even though he understood them little, held him in a spell, as soon as as he began to attend to them. Almost it seemed that the words took shape, and visions of far lands and bright things that he had never yet imagined opened out before him; and the firelit hall became like a golden mist above the seas of foam that sighed upon the margins of the world. Then the enchantment became more and more dreamlike, until he felt that an endless river of swelling gold and silver was flowing over him, too multitudinous for its pattern to be comprehended; it became part of the throbbing air about him, and it drenched and drowned him. swiftly he sank under its shining weight into a deep realm of sleep.
Abuse | Experience | Life | Life | Little | Means | Men | Problems | Suicide | Trust | Work | World | Learn |
J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly
Accidents, try to change them -it's impossible. The accidental reveals man.
Compassion | Family | Learn |
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
Every writer making a secondary world wishes in some measure to be a real maker, or hopes that he is drawing on reality: hopes that the peculiar quality of this secondary world (if not all the details) are derived from Reality, or are flowing into it.
Man |
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
And here he was, a little halfling from the Shire, a simple hobbit of the quiet countryside, expected to find a way where the great ones could not go, or dared not go. It was an evil fate.
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
And now leave me in peace for a bit I don't want to answer a string of questions while I am eating. I want to think''Good Heavens' said Pippin. 'At breakfast?
Democracy is the only game in town. The problem is [when] people start to believe that it is not a game worth playing.
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
Any corner of that county (however fair or squalid) is in an indefinable way 'home' to me, as no other part of the world is. There was a willow hanging over the mill-pool and I learned to climb it. It belonged to a butcher on the Stratford Road, I think. One day they cut it down. They didn't do anything with it: the log just lay there. I never forgot that.
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
Better mistrust undeserved than rash words.
J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly
Nearly everything possible has been done to spoil this game: the heavy financial interests... the absurd publicity given to every feature of it by the Press... but the fact remains that it is not yet spoilt, and it has gone out and conquered the world.
Compassion | Effort | God | History | Hope | Little | Need | People | Policy | Religion | Right | Will | God |
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
But Sam turned to Bywater, and so came back up the Hill, as day was ending once more. And he went on, and there was yellow light, and fire within; and the evening meal was ready, and he was expected. And Rose drew him in, and set him in his chair, and put little Elanor upon his lap.
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
But it may be the hard part of a friend to rebuke a friend's folly.
Acceptance | Desire | Men | Parents | Resignation |
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
Clothes are of but little loss, if you escape from drowning.
Computer | Energy | Right | Technology |
J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly
Western man is schizophrenic.
J. B. S. Haldane, fully John Burdon Sanderson Haldane
From the fact that there are 400,000 species of beetles on this planet, but only 8,000 species of mammals, he [Haldane] concluded that the Creator, if He exists, has a special preference for beetles.
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
At the hill?s foot Frodo found Aragorn, standing still and silent as a tree; but in his hand was a small golden bloom of elanor, and a light was in his eyes. He was wrapped in some fair memory: and as Frodo looked at him he knew that he beheld things as they had been in this same place. For the grim years were removed from the face of Aragorn, and he seemed clothed in white, a young lord fall and fair; and he spoke words in the Elvish tongue to one whom Frodo could not see. Arwen vanimelda, namarie! He said, and then he drew a breath, and returning out of his thought he looked at Frodo and smiled. `Here is the heart of Elvendom on earth,? he said, `and here my heart dwells ever, unless there be a light beyond the dark roads that we still must tread, you and I. Come with me!? And taking Frodo?s hand in his, he left the hill of Cerin Amroth and came there never again as a living man.
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
And lastly there is the oldest and deepest desire, the Great Escape: the Escape from Death. Fairy-stories provide many examples and modes of this.... Fairy-stories are made by men not by fairies. The Human-stories of the elves are doubtless full of the Escape from Deathlessness.