The Return of the King (The Lord of the Rings, #3)

by J.R.R. Tolkien

‘But you come with tidings of grief and danger, as is your wont, they say.’ ‘Because I come seldom but when my help is needed,’ answered Gandalf.

‘The mightiest man may be slain by one arrow,’

The Darkness has begun. There will be no dawn.’

‘There go three that I love, and the smallest not the least,’

But I am of the House of Eorl and not a serving-woman. I can ride and wield blade, and I do not fear either pain or death.’ ‘What do you fear, lady?’ he asked. ‘A cage,’ she said. ‘To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.’

‘Gandalf! He always turns up when things are darkest.

He was a captain that men would follow, that he would follow, even under the shadow of the black wings.

But in desperate hours gentleness may be repaid with death.’

‘There never was much hope,’ he answered. ‘Just a fool’s hope, as I have been told.

Let us remember that a traitor may betray himself and do good that he does not intend.

‘But if I should return, think better of me!’ ‘That depends on the manner of your return,’

‘Better to burn sooner than late, for burn we must. Go back to your bonfire! And I? I will go now to my pyre.

‘But no living man am I! You look upon a woman.

‘The houses of the dead are no places for the living.

‘Authority is not given to you, Steward of Gondor, to order the hour of your death,’

‘Then in the name of the king, go and find some old man of less lore and more wisdom who keeps some in his house!’ cried Gandalf.

‘My lord, you called me. I come. What does the king command?’

‘For who would lie idle when the king has returned?’

Few other griefs amid the ill chances of this world have more bitterness and shame for a man’s heart than to behold the love of a lady so fair and brave that cannot be returned.

His grief he will not forget; but it will not darken his heart, it will teach him wisdom.’

‘For all those who come to know him come to love him after their own fashion,

Everyone that he cared for had gone away into the gloom that hung over the distant eastern sky; and little hope at all was left in his heart that he would ever see any of them again.

‘The perishing is more likely, and will be a lot easier anyway,’

As far as he could see, there was only one possible course for him to take:

And I’m so tired. And the Ring is so heavy, Sam. And I begin to see it in my mind all the time, like a great wheel of fire.’

‘Where there’s a whip there’s a will, my slugs.

‘I’ll get there, if I leave everything but my bones behind,’ said Sam. ‘And I’ll carry Mr. Frodo up myself, if it breaks my back and heart. So stop arguing!’

‘I am glad that you are here with me,’ said Frodo. ‘Here at the end of all things, Sam.’

‘It is a long way, is it not, from Bree, where you did not like the look of me? A long way for us all, but yours has been the darkest road.’

‘It needs but one foe to breed a war, not two, Master Warden,’ answered Éowyn. ‘And those who have not swords can still die upon them. Would you have the folk of Gondor gather you herbs only, when the Dark Lord gathers armies?

I would not have this world end now, or lose so soon what I have found.’

‘Do not scorn pity that is the gift of a gentle heart,

‘Since the day when you rose before me out of the green grass of the downs I have loved you, and that love shall not fail.

‘Many folk like to know beforehand what is to be set on the table; but those who have laboured to prepare the feast like to keep their secret; for wonder makes the words of praise louder.

‘I have wished thee joy ever since first I saw thee. It heals my heart to see thee now in bliss.’

‘Alas! there are some wounds that cannot be wholly cured,’

My time is over: it is no longer my task to set things to rights, nor to help folk to do so.

‘I can add some more, if you’d like it,’ said Sam. ‘Calling your Chief Names, Wishing to punch his Pimply Face, and Thinking you Shirriffs look a lot of Tom-fools.’

But see here, Master Sandyman, I’ve a score to pay in this village, and don’t you make it any longer with your jeering, or you’ll foot a bill too big for your purse.’

It is useless to meet revenge with revenge: it will heal nothing.

‘But you will be healed. You were meant to be solid and whole, and you will be.’

when things are in danger: some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them.

I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.’