Latest J. R. R. Tolkien Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• People remember Longfellow wrote Hiawatha, quite forget he was a Professor of Modern Languages!

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  People, Language, Remember

  Source: www.tolkienlibrary.com

• I'm a Roman Catholic! A devout Roman Catholic.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Catholic, Roman Catholic

  Source: www.tolkienlibrary.com

• At my age I'm exactly the kind of person who has lived through one of the most quickly changing periods known to history. Surely there could never be in seventy years so much change.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Years, Age, Kind

  Source: www.tolkienlibrary.com

• Very potent influence on myself has been Finnish.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Influence, Finnish, Has Beens

  Source: www.tolkienlibrary.com

• I should have said Welsh has always attracted me. By its style and sound more than any other, ever though I first only saw it on coal trucks, I always wanted to know what it was about.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Should Have, Style, Saws

  Source: www.tolkienlibrary.com

• The dwarves of course are quite obviously, couldn't you say that in many ways they remind you of the Jews? Their words are Semitic obviously, constructed to be Semitic. Hobbits are just rustic English people, made small in size because it reflects (in general) the small reach of their imagination - not the small reach of their courage or latent power.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Dwarves, People, Imagination

  Source: www.tolkienlibrary.com

• Ultimately we've only got humanity to work with. It's only clay we've got.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Humanity, Clay

  Source: www.tolkienlibrary.com

• Most people have made this mistake of thinking Middle-earth is a particular kind of earth or is another planet of the science fiction sort but it's just an old fashioned word for this world we live in, as imagined surrounded by the Ocean.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Mistake, Ocean, Thinking

  Source: www.tolkienlibrary.com

• I'd got hobbits on my hands hadn't I?

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Hands

  Source: www.tolkienlibrary.com

• Slight changes simply make a blur.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Blur

  Source: www.tolkienlibrary.com

• If your first Christmas tree is a wilting eucalyptus and if you're normally troubled by heat and sand... then, to have just at the age when imagination is opening out, suddenly find yourself in a quiet Warwickshire village, I think it engenders a particular love of what you might call central Midlands English countryside. Based on good water, stones and elm trees and small quiet rivers and so on, and of course, rustic people about.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Thinking, Rivers, Imagination

  Source: www.tolkienlibrary.com

• I don't feel any guilt complex about The Lord of the Rings.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Guilt, Lord, Feels

  Source: www.tolkienlibrary.com

• I'm in a position where it doesn't matter what people think of me now.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Thinking, People, Matter

  Source: www.tolkienlibrary.com