The Two Towers (The Lord of the Rings, #2)

by J.R.R. Tolkien

‘But after that we must guess the riddles, if we are to choose our course rightly,’ answered Aragorn. ‘Maybe there is no right choice,’ said Gimli.

‘Give me your name, horse-master, and I will give you mine, and more besides,’ he said.

‘I would cut off your head, beard and all, Master Dwarf, if it stood but a little higher from the ground,’ said Éomer.

‘Come, you shall sit behind me, friend Gimli,’ said Legolas. ‘Then all will be well, and you need neither borrow a horse nor be troubled by one.’

‘There are some things that it is better to begin than to refuse, even though the end may be dark.

‘Hullo, Pippin!’ he said. ‘So you’ve come on this little expedition, too? Where do we get bed and breakfast?’

‘Almost felt you liked the Forest! That’s good! That’s uncommonly kind of you,’ said a strange voice. ‘Turn round and let me have a look at your faces. I almost feel that I dislike you both, but do not let us be hasty.

It is a lovely language, but it takes a very long time to say anything in it, because we do not say anything in it, unless it is worth taking a long time to say, and to listen to.

I am not altogether on anybody’s side, because nobody is altogether on my side, if you understand me:

But if we stayed at home and did nothing, doom would find us anyway, sooner or later.

Few can foresee whither their road will lead them, till they come to its end.’

The Dark Lord has Nine. But we have One, mightier than they: the White Rider. He has passed through the fire and the abyss, and they shall fear him. We will go where he leads.’

A king will have his way in his own hall, be it folly or wisdom.’

to crooked eyes truth may wear a wry face.’

‘I am Strider and Dúnadan too, and I belong both to Gondor and the North.’

‘One who cannot cast away a treasure at need is in fetters.

‘Understand one another? I fear I am beyond your comprehension.

‘The treacherous are ever distrustful,’

He cannot be both tyrant and counsellor. When the plot is ripe it remains no longer secret.

Perilous to us all are the devices of an art deeper than we possess ourselves.

No, the burned hand teaches best. After that advice about fire goes to the heart.’

‘If there is only one way, then I must take it. What comes after must come.’

You will never get it back. But the desire of it may betray you to a bitter end.

It had always been a notion of his that the kindness of dear Mr. Frodo was of such a high degree that it must imply a fair measure of blindness. Of course, he also firmly held the incompatible belief that Mr. Frodo was the wisest person in the world (with the possible exception of Old Mr. Bilbo and of Gandalf).

‘I love him. He’s like that, and sometimes it shines through, somehow. But I love him, whether or no.’

‘Go back, Faramir, valiant Captain of Gondor, and defend your city while you may, and let me go where my doom takes me.’

but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend: the city of the Men of Númenor; and I would have her loved for her memory, her ancientry, her beauty, and her present wisdom.

We are truth-speakers, we men of Gondor. We boast seldom, and then perform, or die in the attempt.

‘it was said to me by Elrond Halfelven that I should find friendship upon the way, secret and unlooked for. Certainly I looked for no such friendship as you have shown. To have found it turns evil to great good.’

‘but where there’s life there’s hope,

The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo: adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of a sport, as you might say. But that’s not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been just landed in them, usually – their paths were laid that way, as you put it.

‘Don’t leave me here alone! It’s your Sam calling. Don’t go where I can’t follow!