J.R.R. Tolkien Quotes

“Tolkien preferred the still, small voice of Elijah to the resounding horns of Sinai. Accordingly, his commitment to myth as his medium was dogged. He repeatedly denied that The Lord of the Rings was allegory. The reason is this: allegory intends that this particular thing in the story is meant to be that particular thing known outside the story. In a way, it is coercive, forcing the reader to see things in a certain way. For example, Lewis’s lion in the Narnia books, Aslan, is meant to be understood by the reader as a representation of Christ. Tolkien, in fact, was annoyed with Lewis for engaging in allegory, which he found heavy-handed. (Lewis, for his part, denied that his Narnia books were only allegory.) He believed myth to be a more artistically subtle device. Tolkien did not, for instance, intend his War of the Ring to be a battle of good versus evil. He didn’t see matters in such black-and-white terms and did not believe in absolute evil. During the Great War, he didn’t view the Germans as all bad and the English as all good. In the Lord of the Rings, even Sauron, like Lucifer, did not start as evil. Evil for Tolkien was a personal battle within each and every individual. A battle might be won or lost, but the war was unending.”
― Wyatt North, J.R.R. Tolkien: A Life Inspired

“Evil for Tolkien was a personal battle within each and every individual. A battle might be won or lost, but the war was unending.”
― Wyatt North, J.R.R. Tolkien: A Life Inspired

“Tolkien believed doggedly in the old-fashioned notion that the purpose of philology was to read literature and that literature couldn’t be properly studied without philology.”
― Wyatt North, J.R.R. Tolkien: A Life Inspired

“Tolkien believed doggedly in the old-fashioned notion that the purpose of philology was to read literature and that literature couldn’t be properly studied without philology. Tolkien did not consider himself to be well read in English literature, per se; it didn’t interest him. It had always been the form and shape of words that intrigued him.”
― Wyatt North, J.R.R. Tolkien: A Life Inspired

“Prior to World War II, in 1938, a German publisher was preparing to release a German-language version of The Hobbit and sent Tolkien a letter of inquiry asking him to validate his Aryan origins. In fact, the name “Tolkien” is believed to be German. The family seems to have had its roots in Saxony (modern-day Germany) but had been in England since the 18th century, when it became fervently English. As a matter of fact, while he was a boy at King Edward's School, young Ronald had helped line the route for the coronation parade of King George V. Still, Tolkien could easily have fallen back upon his father’s Germanic ancestry. Instead, he took the moral high ground. Angered, he pointed out that “Aryan” was a linguistic term, not a racial one. He then expressed regret that he had no ancestors among the “gifted” Jewish people, although he was pleased to point out that he had many Jewish friends. He was bitterly opposed to the “ignoramus” of a German leader who had usurped and perverted the northern European cultural heritage he so loved.”
― Wyatt North, J.R.R. Tolkien: A Life Inspired

“When World War II found his son Christopher in the R.A.F., Tolkien wrote to him that he couldn’t be more horrified if a hobbit had learned to ride a Nazgul in order to liberate the Shire.”
― Wyatt North, J.R.R. Tolkien: A Life Inspired

“He also viewed Lewis’s Narnia books as slap-dash and superficially conceived.”
― Wyatt North, J.R.R. Tolkien: A Life Inspired

“At the same time, he struggled with the sequel to The Hobbit, or “the new hobbit” as the Inklings called it. Tolkien felt that writing exposed his innermost self to the world, and it wasn’t easy for him.”
― Wyatt North, J.R.R. Tolkien: A Life Inspired

“Tolkien’s best-known writings were The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, but he also wrote other works, including The Silmarillion, Father Giles of Ham, Mr. Bliss, Roverandom, and the scholarly The Monsters and the Critics.”
― Wyatt North, J.R.R. Tolkien: A Life Inspired

“Reuel” had been Ronald’s father’s middle name and was his and his brother Hilary’s as well. The name means “friend of God” in Hebrew, and he esteemed it so highly that he would pass it on as a middle name to all his eventual four children.”
― Wyatt North, J.R.R. Tolkien: A Life Inspired

“was fascinated by a 9th-century poem by the Anglo-Saxon poet Cynewulf, whose religious poem Christ included the Old English word for the known inhabited world: middangeard, translated as “Middle-earth.” The poem makes reference to a being called Earendal, who is the brightest of angels above Middle-earth and is sent to humans.”
― Wyatt North, J.R.R. Tolkien: A Life Inspired