I feel as if I was inside a song, if you take my meaning.’ ‘I thought that Elves were all for moon and stars: but this is more elvish than anything I ever heard tell of. The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udûn. ‘I am servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. The orcs stood still, and a dead silence fell. ‘I will take the Ring,’ he said, ‘though I do not know the way.’ There lies our hope, if hope it be. To walk into peril - to Mordor. We must send the Ring to the Fire.’ We must take a hard road, a road unforeseen. ‘He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.’ They are quite different from what I expected - so old and young, and so gay and sad, as it were.’ ‘It don’t seem to matter what I think about them. ‘They seem a bit above my likes and dislikes, so to speak,’ answered Sam slowly. ‘Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger.’ Be sure that he took so little hurt from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began his ownership of the Ring so. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need. ‘What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature, when he had a chance!’ ‘Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.’ ‘So do I,’ said Gandalf, ‘and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. ‘I wish it need not have happened in my time,’ said Frodo. “I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.” You may know, or guess, what kind of a tale it is, happy-ending or sad-ending, but the people in it don’t know. But those aren’t always the best tales to hear, though they may be the best tales to get landed in! I wonder what sort of a tale we’ve fallen into?” “I wonder,” said Frodo, “But I don’t know. You know, coming home, and finding things all right, though not quite the same like old Mr Bilbo. We hear about those as just went on, and not all to a good end, mind you at least not to what folk inside a story and not outside it call a good end. And if they had, we shouldn’t know, because they’d have been forgotten. But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn’t. Folk seem to have been just landed in them, usually their paths were laid that way, as you put it. But that’s not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. 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. Frodo, adventures, as I used to call them. The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. But so our path is laid.” “Yes, that’s so,” said Sam, “And we shouldn’t be here at all, if we’d known more about it before we started. “I don’t like anything here at all.” said Frodo, “step or stone, breath or bone. Well-preserved indeed! Why, I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean: like butter that has been scraped over too much bread. I don’t look it, but I am beginning to feel it in my heart of hearts. “It’s the job that’s never started as takes longest to finish.” In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.” One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them. “Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky, Seven for the Dwarf-lords in halls of stone, Nine for Mortal Men, doomed to die, One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.” “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. “If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.” Below are some choice book quotes, illustrated by frames from the film versions. Like most card-carrying fantasy geeks, I am a big Lord of the Rings (and Hobbit) fan.
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