“Then something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking-stick.”

Brenda @ Daily Mayo wrote about songs inspired by The Hobbit, “The Battle of the Five Armies” will be in theaters in a couple weeks, and one of my current reads, The Hobbit and Philosophy, happens to be one of my 10 fave book covers this year.  All of this has inspired me to dedicate this Thursday’s Quotables to my all time favorite book.

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”

My all time favorite first line.  You just know something fantastic and magical is contained in this book after reading that one sentence.

“There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something. You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after.”

“Go back?” he thought. “No good at all! Go sideways? Impossible! Go forward? Only thing to do! On we go!” So up he got, and trotted along with his little sword held in front of him and one hand feeling the wall, and his heart all of a patter and a pitter.”

These two quotes are a strange comfort to me because sometimes they’re very fitting to my life.  I’m sure the first one is relatable to everyone, especially avid readers.  Every time I walk into a bookstore with my long list of books I’d like to get, I almost always leave with something else entirely.  The second quote is for all those scary new beginnings when I’ve stepped far outside my comfort zone to try something new and I have no idea if I’m going to be successful or flail around like an idiot and fall flat on my face.  It’s also for those times when I face the great unknown.  I experienced both of those feelings when I left my steady paycheck and what had been my life for 8 years, moved to a new town and became a full-time college student at the age of 32.

“I come from under the hill, and under the hills and over the hills my paths led. And through the air. I am he that walks unseen… I am the clue-finder, the web-cutter, the stinging fly. I was chosen for the lucky number… I am he that buries his friends alive and drowns them and draws them alive again from the water. I came from the end of bag, but no bag went over me… I am the friend of bears and the guest of eagles. I am Ring-winner and Luckwearer; and I am Barrel-rider…”

This quote is important to me because it took me many years to understand it’s ok to speak of my accomplishments, even the ones that seem insignificant, because those are the ones that usually are all but small.  Tooting my own horn from time to time isn’t the same as being a braggart, and if I don’t do it, the chances are no one else will do it for me.

There are so many more.  The entire book is full of them, but I’ll end with this one:

“May the hair on [your] toes never fall out!”