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grows like a seed in the dark out of the leaf-mould of the mind: out of all that has been seen or thought or read, that has long ago been forgotten, d...more

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I have claimed that Escape is one of the main functions of fairy-stories, and since I do not disapprove of them, it is plain that I do not accept the ...more

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I met a lot of things on the way that astonished me. Tom Bombadil I knew already; but I had never been to Bree. Strider sitting in the corner at the i...more

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If you're going to have a complicated story, you must work to a map; otherwise you can never make a map of it afterwards.

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I wisely started with a map.

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Have you thought of an ending?""Yes, several, and all are dark and unpleasant.""Oh, that won't do! Books ought to have good endings. How would this do...more

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For it is now to us itself ancient; and yet its maker was telling of things already old and weighted with regret, and he expended his art in making ke...more