Edith Bratt: Things aren't beautiful because of how they sound. They're beautiful because of what they mean.
J.R.R. Tolkien (Young): It's Keen, sir.

English Master: What?

J.R.R. Tolkien (Young): It's pronounced Tolkeen, sir. Not Tol-Kine. Sorry.

English Master: Sit down. As we are so sensitive about pronunciation this morning, perhaps you could all be so good as to take out our Chaucers. Mr. Tol-*Keen* can keep up as best he can.
[last lines]

J.R.R. Tolkien: Hobbit
Edith Bratt: I love Wagner's Rheingold.

Robert Gilson: Christopher finds those too long.

Christopher Wiseman: No, I don't.

Robert Gilson: Well, nobody blames you. It shouldn't take six hours to tell a story about a magic ring.
J.R.R. Tolkien: I made stories, legends. After all, what is language for? It's not just the naming of things, is it? It's the lifeblood of a culture, a people.
Professor Wright: Could you write five thousand words on the influence of Norse elements in Gawain?

J.R.R. Tolkien: Yes, absolutely. When would you like it by?

Professor Wright: This evening.
Professor Wright: A child points, and is taught a word. Tree. Later, he learns to distinguish this tree from all the others. He learns its particular name. He plays under the tree. He dances around it. Stands beneath its branches, for shade or shelter. He kisses under it, sleeps under it, he weds under it. He marches past it on his way to war, and limps past it on his journey home. A king is said to have hidden in this tree. A spirit may dwell within its bark. Its distinctive leaves are carved onto the tombs and monuments of his landlords. Its wood might have built the galleons that saved his ancestors from invasion. And all this, the general and the specific, the national and the personal, all this, he knows, and feels, and summons somehow, however faintly, with the utterance of a single sound. 'Oak.' Saxon word. Proto-Germanic. Cognates in Old Norse. 'Eik.' Language is never nonsense. Language is meaning. History. Layer upon layer upon layer. And a word without meaning is -- what? Merely a sound.
Edith Bratt: I don't have a hat.

J.R.R. Tolkien: It's all right. They all look ridiculous anyway.
Mabel Tolkien: Let us begin, Ronald: The earth began to shake with the weight of the dragon as he crawled to the water, and a cloud of venom flew before him as he snorted and roared! But Sigurd waited till the dragon had crawled over the pit and then he thrust his sword under his left shoulder and right into his heart. The dragon lashed his tail till stones broke and trees crashed about him. And then he spoke, as he died, and said, "Whoever thou art that hast slain me, this gold shall be thy ruin and the ruin of all who own it." Sigurd said, "I would touch none of it, if even by losing it, I should never die. But all men die and no brave man lets death frighten him from his desire."
Hilary Tolkien (Young): I believe you now sound like a drunken peacock, you duffer.
Father Francis: Well, boys, I was right. She's an enormous beast, with great scaly feet and the most prominent pair of tusks I've ever seen. She's chewing, on what I can only assume is the femur of a small boy. On the other hand, there is cake.
Robert Gilson (Young): Gentlemen. A thought. You know what the trouble is with all these legends Tolkien reads?

J.R.R. Tolkien (Young): Enlighten me, Robbie.

Robert Gilson (Young): They don't have any women in them. I'm not talking about pale, shivering maidens sitting in towers. I'm talking about plump, *red-blooded* women... The women of Southern Europe. Women with large flagons of wine on their heads.
Robert Gilson (Young): I can die in any way the Fates choose, that's not up to me. But what is within my power is to decide how I live. Courageously or timidly.
Christopher Wiseman (Young): Now what do we do?

Robert Gilson (Young): We change the world.

Geoffrey Smith (Young): Oh, good. Something simple.

Robert Gilson (Young): Through art, you clown. Through the power of art.

J.R.R. Tolkien (Young): Brothers, will you join your comrades in this act of changing the world?

Robert Gilson (Young), Geoffrey Smith (Young), Christopher Wiseman (Young): We will.
Edith Bratt: A word isn't beautiful just because of its sound. "Cellar door." It's the marriage of sound and meaning, the door to the cellar, a place where something magical and mysterious might happen.
Edith Bratt: Hand. That might be a beautiful word.

J.R.R. Tolkien: Yes, it is.

Edith Bratt: But it means so much more because of what we associate it with. Touch.
J.R.R. Tolkien: To taste it - is to possess the power of sight. Sight beyond sight. Sight into the deepest, darkest parts of the human heart. It's a hungry, potent magic. A magic beyond anything anyone has ever felt before.
Robert Gilson: I don't believe in examinations. I write what I think. And if they want to give me a mark, it's up to them.

Edith Bratt: What a revolutionary approach.
Edith Bratt: I have a passion for Wagner! I *want* to talk about him. To discuss. To debate!
Christopher Wiseman: It's Greek, in a way. The love of comrades.
Robert Gilson: If Tolkien is betraying the brotherhood with a blank, I'm going to show you something utterly degenerate.

[shows some drawings of nude women]

Geoffrey Smith: This cannot be good.

Christopher Wiseman: Heavens above.

Robert Gilson: Copied, unfortunately. And what I need is life models. Not much chance of that, of course.
J.R.R. Tolkien: Don't be an ass, Wiseman.
J.R.R. Tolkien: I can't get into my stride. I feel - unfocused.

Christopher Wiseman: You know what I think that's a symptom of?

J.R.R. Tolkien: Constipation?

Christopher Wiseman: Ha-ha-ha. Love. Requited or otherwise.
J.R.R. Tolkien: There's a word in old German, it has no translation in English; but, it means a gift offered fearfully in the wake of an argument. Drachenfutter. Literally, "Dragon Food."

Edith Bratt: So now I'm a dragon?
Edith Bratt: Wagner wrote it in four acts. It starts with a ring, a magical ring which can rule the world and which is forged by a dwarf.

J.R.R. Tolkien: It's Alberich. Well, I have picked up the odd bit of German mythology.

Edith Bratt: But to harness the ring's power, you first have to renounce love.

J.R.R. Tolkien: Oh. A very sensible exchange, in my opinion.

Edith Bratt: Well, that's because you're a coldhearted Viking.
Christopher Wiseman: Operas can be considered long and laborious but for my music, whatever the length, it is imperative that it has heart. A sensation of intoxication.
J.R.R. Tolkien: I can't fail it again. And you know what will happen if I don't get into Oxford. I could become a priest, but I don't think a life of celibacy is what either of us had in mind.
Edith Bratt: Oh, for God's sake, Ronald. Don't be so dramatic. It doesn't matter.

J.R.R. Tolkien: No, don't say that. Of course, it matters.

Edith Bratt: I don't know why you're taking it so hard. Things are just returning - to normal, that's all. To reality.
Edith Bratt: I let myself believe that there were happy endings for people like us. But there aren't. There can't be.
Beryl: It's not very nice to talk about another lady when you're with someone.

J.R.R. Tolkien: No, you're absolutely right. I apologize, Myrtle.

Beryl: It's Beryl.
Robert Gilson: What you need to understand, Tolkien, you poor lawless orphan, is that we are your brothers. Through everything.

Geoffrey Smith: Yes, absolutely.

Christopher Wiseman: Exactly.

Robert Gilson: This is more than - just a friendship. It's an alliance. An invincible alliance.
J.R.R. Tolkien: Hail Earendel, brightest of angels sent unto men. Hail Earendel...
Geoffrey Smith: To love someone, who, for whatever reason, cannot return your feelings is painful. But if you listen to the poets, perhaps there's a kind of beauty to that love. It burns. Bright. And it's never tainted by reality or by - overuse. It's as clear and fierce today as it was the very first day it began. And there's beauty to that, I think. At least, that's what I cling to, anyway.
Professor Wright: Languages never steal.
J.R.R. Tolkien: I'd like to change to your class. To study philology.

Professor Wright: To my class?

J.R.R. Tolkien: Yes. Yes, I'm Tolkien, Ronald Tolkien. I stood outside your window and shouted obscenities in a kind of bastardized Finnish.

Professor Wright: And you consider that a recommendation?
J.R.R. Tolkien: Professor, since childhood, I have been fascinated with language. Obsessed with it. I've invented my own. Full, complete languages. Look. This is, it's - everything.

[presents a notebook]

J.R.R. Tolkien: From the Breost-hord. My heart. The treasure of the breast.

Professor Wright: And the drawings?

J.R.R. Tolkien: I made stories. Legends. After all, what is language for? It's not just the naming of things, is it? It's the lifeblood of a culture, a people.
Professor Wright: The way you follow the rhythms of the poetry, your sensitivity to it. I have to tell you, Mr. Tolkien, I've never come across anything like it. Never.
J.R.R. Tolkien: You are the most remarkable spirit I have ever met. You have courage and resourcefulness, talent, you're proud, maddeningly, wonderfully, so; and you are cunning and vibrant and completely alive. You deserve every happiness you find. No. No, you don't. You don't deserve happiness, that's not what I - What I mean is, you deserve much more. You deserve magic.
Father Francis: I spend my every afternoon with mothers, widows. What can I say to them? Your sons have died in the war to end all wars.

J.R.R. Tolkien: What do you say?

Father Francis: Words are useless. Modern words, anyway. I speak the liturgy. There's a comfort, I think, in distance. Ancient things.
Hilary Tolkien: Remember how mother made us kiss the trees?

J.R.R. Tolkien: And listen to them talk.

Hilary Tolkien: What dark magic was that?
John Tolkien Jnr. (Child): What's it about?

J.R.R. Tolkien: It's about journeys. Adventures. Magic, of course. Treasure. And love. It's about all kinds of things, really. It's hard to say. I suppose - I suppose it's about quests, to a certain extent. The journeys we take to prove ourselves. About courage. Fellowship. It's about fellowship. Friendship.
Mabel Tolkien: Boys, listen to me. Do you know what impecunious circumstances are?

J.R.R. Tolkien (Young): They're what we're in?

Mabel Tolkien: When I was a little girl, all the new novels began like this: a family of good and brave people who suddenly find themselves in impecunious circumstances...

J.R.R. Tolkien (Young): How did they escape?

Mabel Tolkien: By coming across some marvelous treasure. Or else, by marrying well.

Hilary Tolkien (Young): I'm not marrying anyone!

Mabel Tolkien: Well, it'll have to be the treasure then - won't it?

J.R.R. Tolkien (Young): But, um, people don't find treasure, mother. Not in real life.

Mabel Tolkien: There's no fooling you, is there, John Ronald? Let's just say there's treasure, and there's *treasure* - and leave it at that.
J.R.R. Tolkien: I'm sorry, Geoff.

Geoffrey Smith: No, it's not your fault.

J.R.R. Tolkien: No, it is. If it wasn't for me, you'd be in the arms of the delightful Mary by now.

Geoffrey Smith: Please. The moment I showed any interest, she started talking about her sweetheart.

Tolkien Quotes

Extended Reading

Tolkien short comments

Chase 2022-04-23 07:03:37

Mass production biography, painless, no need.
Destini 2022-04-24 07:01:17

I admit that there are flaws in the film, but I really like the "vigor" of Nizi's biopic. The brotherhood of TCBS makes people have no resistance at all, so I saw that Tolkien handed the poem collection to Geoffrey's mother at the end, Barrows is still there, but no matter how hard it is to reunite TCBS, I really cry, it's not like a teenage tour... In fact, I choose The two lines of war + friendship are enough. If the love line and the teacher-student line are mixed in, it will definitely lead to unclear primary and secondary. It would be better if the director knew how to cut complexity. Besides, what else would Miss Collins do except be in a daze like a little princess? On the contrary, if the teacher-student line can be expanded a little, it should look good.