Hobbit Quotes

“It's the job that's never started as takes longest to finish.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

“So comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their endings.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt,
Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt,
It lies behind stars and under hills,
And empty holes it fills,
It comes first and follows after,
Ends life, kills laughter.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

“I am in fact, a hobbit in all but size”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“Saruman believes it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love. Why Bilbo Baggins? Perhaps because I am afraid, and he gives me courage.”
― Peter Jackson

“Farewell," they cried, "Wherever you fare till your eyries receive you at the journey's end!" That is the polite thing to say among eagles.

"May the wind under your wings bear you where the sun sails and the moon walks," answered Gandalf, who knew the correct reply.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Annotated Hobbit: The Hobbit, Or, There and Back Again

“Frodo: I can't do this, Sam.
Sam: I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness, and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end, because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines, it'll shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.
Frodo: What are we holding on to, Sam?
Sam: That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo...and it's worth fighting for.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“Under the Mountain dark and tall
The King has come unto his hall!
His foe is dead,
the Worm of Dread,
And ever so his foes shall fall.

The sword is sharp, the spear is long,
The arrow swift, the Gate is strong;
The heart is bold that looks on gold;
The dwarves no more shall suffer wrong.

The dwarves of yore made mighty spells,
While hammers fells like ringing bells
In places deep, where dark things sleep,
In hollow halls beneath the fells.

-from The Hobbit (Dwarves Battle Song)”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“Being a cheerful hobbit, he had not needed hope, as long as despair could be postponed.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

“And what would you do, if an uninvited dwarf came and hung his things up in your hall without a word of explanation?”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

“Is everything sad going to come untrue?”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“I don't think I know your name.'
'Yes, yes my dear sir and I do know your name Mr. Bilbo Baggins. And you do know my name, though you don't remember that I belong to it. I am Gandalf, and Gandalf means me.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

“They made for his noise far quicker than he had expected. They were frightfully angry. Quite apart from the stones no spider has ever like being called Attercop, and Tomnoddy of course, is insulting to anybody.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

“In the Wide World the Wood-elves lingered in the twilight of our Sun and Moon, but loved best the stars; and they wandered in the great forests that grew tall in lands that are now lost. They dwelt most often by the edges of the woods, from which they could escape at times to hunt, or to ride and run over the open lands by moonlight or starlight; and after the coming of Men they took ever more and more to the gloaming and the dusk. Still elves they were and remain, and that is Good People.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

“But even as hope died in Sam, or seemed to die, it was turned to new strength. Sam's plain hobbit-face grew stern, almost grim, as the will hardened in him, and he felt though all his limbs a thrill, as if he was turning into some creature of stone and steel that neither despair nor weariness nor endless barren miles could subdue.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

“And then he bent his own neck and put the chain upon it, and at once his head was bowed to the ground with the weight of the Ring, as if a great stone had been strung on him. But slowly, as if the weight became less, or new strength grew in him, he raised his head, and then with a great effort got to his feet and found that he could walk and bear his burden.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

“Not all who wander are lost.
(Not all who are lost, wander)”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“The fruit was so plentiful that young hobbits very nearly bathed in strawberries and cream; and later they sat on the lawns under the plum-trees and ate, until they had made piles of stones like small pyramids or the heaped skulls of a conqueror, and then they moved on. And no one was ill, and everyone was pleased, except those who had to mow the grass.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

“I am in fact a Hobbit (in all but size). I like gardens, trees and unmechanized farmlands; I smoke a pipe, and like good plain food (unrefrigerated), but detest French cooking; I like, and even dare to wear in these dull days, ornamental waistcoats. I am fond of mushrooms (out of a field); have a very simple sense of humour (which even my appreciative critics find tiresome); I go to bed late and get up late (when possible). I do not travel much. I love Wales (what is left of it, when mines, and the even more ghastly sea-side resorts, have done their worst), and especially the Welsh language.”
― Humphrey Carpenter, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien

“Who are you, and what d'you think you're doing?' said the ruffian- leader.

Farmer Cotton looked at him slowly. 'I was just going to ask you that,' he said. 'This isn't your country, and you're not wanted.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“I am not coming to the Shire. You must settle its affairs yourselves; that is what you have been trained for. Do you not yet understand? My time is over: it is no longer my task to set things to rights, nor to help folk to do so. And as for you, my dear friends, you will need no help. You are grown up now. Grown indeed very high; among the great you are, and I have no longer any fear at all for any of you.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

“IF HE CAN'T SEE WHERE HE IS, THEN HE CAN'T TALK ABOUT WHERE HE IS”
― Tim Heidecker

“I have it under pretty good authority that Peter Jackson is familiar with this book, and is currently preparing not one, not two, not three, not four, but over a hundred separate movies based on the characters in the Silmarillion”
― Gregg Turkington

“Gandalf and Thorin each took one of these; and Bilbo took a knife in a leather sheath. It would have made only a tiny pocket-knife for a troll, but it was as good as a short sword for the hobbit.
"These look like good blades," said the wizard, half drawing them and looking at them curiously. "They were not made by any troll, nor by any smith among men in these parts and days; but when we can read the runes on them, we shall know more about them.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

“Gandalf looked at him. "My dear Bilbo!" he said. "Something is the matter with you! You are not the hobbit that you were.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

“I am like a burglar that can’t get away, but must go on miserably burgling the same house day after day.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

“I think The Lord of the Rings is in itself a good deal better than The Hobbit, but it may not prove a very fit sequel. It is more grown up—but the audience for which The Hobbit was written has done that also. The readers young and old who clamoured for 'more about the Necromancer are to blame, for the N. is not child's play.

Letter 35
To [Publishers] C. A. Furth, Allen & Unwin”
― Humphrey Carpenter, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien

“Well, there you are: a hobbit amongst the Urukhai. Keep up your hobbitry in heart, and think that all stories feel like that when you are in them. You are inside a very great story!

Letter 66
From a letter to Christopher Tolkien”
― Humphrey Carpenter, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien

“It was a terrible battle. The most dreadful of all Bilbo's experiences, and the one which at the time he hated most -- which is to say it was the one he was most proud of, and most fond of recalling long afterwards, although he was quite unimportant in it.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

“... si buscas compañia, ten cuidado en cómo eliges. Y ten aún más cuidado con lo que dices, hasta a tus amigos más íntimos. El enemigo tiene muchos espías y muchas maneras de enterarse.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring