This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
J. B. S. Haldane, fully John Burdon Sanderson Haldane
In the development and the maintenance of a living organism the coordination is very clear. The development of each part can be shown to be dependent on that of other parts, including the immediate environment; and the more closely development and maintenance are studied the more evident does this become. But the particular manner in which the parts and the environment influence one another is such that the specific structure and activities of the organism are maintained. They are unmistakably developed and maintained as a whole, and this is what we mean when we say that the organism lives a specific life. The conception of its life enables us to predict the general behavior of its parts so long as it is alive, and in particular it enables us to predict the general manner of its reproduction from a rudimentary part of the same organism? it is this co-ordinated maintenance that we call life.
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
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
And in the darkness bind them.
Conversation | Man | Ugly | Will |
J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly
Our trouble is that we drink too much tea. I see in this the slow revenge of the Orient, which has diverted the Yellow River down our throats.
J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly
It had the old double keyboard, an entirely different set of keys for capitals and figures, so that the paper seemed a long way off, and the machine was as big and solid as a battle cruiser. Typing was then a muscular activity. You could ache after it. If you were not familiar with those vast keyboards, your hand wandered over them like a child lost in a wood. The noise might have been that of a shipyard on the Clyde. You would no more have thought of carrying one of those grim structures as you would have thought of travelling with a piano.
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
An author cannot of course remain wholly unaffected by his experience, but the ways in which a story-germ uses the soil of experience are extremely complex, and attempts to define the process are at best guesses from evidence that is inadequate and ambiguous.
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
If you mean you think it is my job to go into the secret passage first, O Thorin Thrain?s son Oakenshield, may your beard grow ever longer, he said crossly, say so at once and have done!
Man |
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
If people were in the habit of referring to 'King George's council, Winston and his gang,' it would go a long way to clearing thought, and reducing the frightful landslide into Theyocracy.
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
In account after account of exorcisms the demonic voices will propound nihilism of one variety or another.
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
I wonder if people will ever say, Let's hear about Frodo and the Ring. And they'll say, Yes, that's one of my favorite stories. Frodo was really courageous, wasn't he, Dad? Yes, m'boy, the most famousest of hobbits. And that's saying a lot.
Man |
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
It matters little who is the enemy, if we cannot beat off his attack.
Friends |
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
In those days of our tale, there were still some people who had both elves and heroes of the North for ancestors and Elrond, the master of the house, was their chief. He was as noble and as fair in face as an elf lord, as strong as a warrior, as wise as a wizard, as venerable as a king of dwarves and as kind as summer.
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
I?ll bet I?m the first person to compare Bill Johnson to an old elf!
Man |
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
I would rather share one lifetime with you than face all the Ages of this world alone.
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
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. My great-great-grandfather came to England in the eighteenth century from Germany: the main part of my descent is therefore purely English, and I am an English subject?which should be sufficient. 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, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
If you want to know what cram is, I can only say that I don?t know the recipe; but it is biscuitish, keeps good indefinitely, is supposed to be sustaining, and is certainly not entertaining, being in fact very uninteresting except as a chewing exercise.
Man |
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
In one thing you have not changed, dear friend,
Friends |
J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
In this hour, I do not believe that any darkness will endure.
Man |