J. R. R. Tolkien Quotes About Magic

Quotes about: Magic

• The mind that thought of light, heavy, grey, yellow, still, swift, also conceived of magic that would make heavy things light and able to fly, turn grey lead into yellow gold, and the still rock into a swift water. If it could do the one, it could do the other; it inevitably did both. When we can take green from grass, blue from heaven, and red from blood, we have already an enchanter's power.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Powerful, Light, Rocks

  "On Fairy-Stories". Andrew Lang Lecture at the University of St. Andrews on March 08, 1939. "Essays presented to Charles Williams", 1947.

• I look East, West, North, South, and I do not see Sauron; but I see that Saruman has many descendants. We Hobbits have against them no magic weapons. Yet, my gentlehobbits, I give you this toast: To the Hobbits. May they outlast the Sarumans and see spring again in the trees.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Spring, Giving, Tree

• 'Celtic' is a magic bag, into which anything may be put, and out of which almost anything may come. Anything is possible in the fabulous Celtic twilight, which is not so much a twilight of the gods as of the reason.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Twilight, Magic, Bags

  "English and Welsh". Lecture at the University of Oxford on October 21, 1955. "The Monsters and the Critics, and Other Essays". Book edited by Christopher Tolkien, 1983.

• Their 'magic' is Art, delivered from many of its human limitations.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Art, Magic, Humans

  J.R.R. Tolkien (2014). “The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien”, p.146, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• Much evil must befall a country before it wholly forgets the Elves, if once they dwelt there.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Country, Evil, Magic

  "The Fellowship of the Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings".

• There is little or no magic about them, except the ordinary everyday sort which helps them to disappear quietly and quickly when large stupid folk like you and me come blundering along, making a noise like elephants which they can hear a mile off.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Stupid, Elephants, Magic

  J.R.R. Tolkien (2012). “The Hobbit”, p.8, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• What really happens is that the story-maker proves a successful 'sub-creator'. He makes a Secondary World which your mind can enter. Inside it, what he relates is 'true': it accords with the laws of that world. You therefore believe it, while you are, as it were, inside. The moment disbelief arises, the spell is broken; the magic, or rather art, has failed. You are then out in the Primary World again, looking at the little abortive Secondary World from outside.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Art, Believe, Successful

  J.R.R. Tolkien (2012). “Tales from the Perilous Realm”, p.351, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin