Jonathan | ExploringTolkien.com

Stephen Colbert is going to write a movie about the six missing chapters from Jackon's The Fellowship of the Ring film. Really. Colbert is admittedly a huge Tolkien fan, and he knows his lore. But the well for stories is so much deeper than just filling in the gaps from Jackson's films--with this and the hunt for Gollum we're just getting footnote films. Nothing new, just more info. My bet is this will be a flashback of the Hobbit's telling their kids this story. I'm skeptical.

"What a dreadful, fear-darkened, sorrow-laden world we live in--especially for those who have also the burden of age, whose friends and all they especially care for are afflicted in the same way." ~ J.R.R. Tolkien, November 1969

"I don't think Tom [Bombadil] needs philosophizing about, & is not improved by it. I put him in because I had already 'invented' him independently & wanted an 'adventure' on the way. But I kept him in because he represents things otherwise left out." ~ J.R.R. Tolkien, Sep

"I have just received a copy of C.S.L.'s latest: Studies in Words. Alas! His ponderous silliness is becoming a fixed manner. I am deeply relieved to find I am not mentioned." ~ J.R.R. Tolkien, September 1960

"I have very little interest in serial literary history, and no interest at all in the history or present situation of the English 'novel'. My work is not a 'novel', but an 'heroic romance' a much older and quite different variety of literature." ~ J.R.R. Tolkien, October

"The particular 'desire' [of 'science and technology'] of the Eregion Elves - an 'allegory' if you like of a love of machinery, and technical devices - is also symbolised by their special friendship with the Dwarves of Moria." ~ J.R.R. Tolkien, Sept 1954

"The particular branch of the High-Elves concerned, the Noldor or Loremasters, were always on the side of 'science & technology': they wanted to have the knowledge that Sauron genuinely had, & those of Eregion refused the warnings of Gilgalad & Elrond." ~J.R.R. Tolkien, Sept

Peter Jackson is trying to get the rights for The Silmarillion and Unfinished tales. But after The Hobbit and War of the Rohirrim, and now The Hunt for Gollum and Stephen Colbert's involvement... I don't think I'll ever be excited about another Jackson led Middle-earth film. Here's what he said: "So those two books were gone, but then Christopher Tolkien sort of edited and published other Tolkien books, Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales. I mean, there's a lot more Tolkien writing which would actually make great, great movies that were subsequently edited and released by Christopher, but he just absolutely would not let any--the mere idea of a film happen. So those rights have never been available. But Christopher passed away recently two or three years ago now. And the younger Tolkiens, the sort of this next next generation now the running the estate and they're much more open to talking. So I know the Warners combination of Warners and us have been talking to some of the younger members who are now part of the board about the possibility of actually licensing the rights to some of the other books."

"I am grieved to tell you that my wife died this morning. Her courage & determination carried her through to what seemed the brink of recovery, but a sudden relapse occurred which she fought for nearly three days in vain. She died at last in peace." ~ J.R.R. Tolkien, Nov 1971

"Of the others only Gandalf might be expected to master [Sauron]--being an emissary of the Powers and a creature of the same order, an immortal spirit taking a visible physical form." ~ J.R.R. Tolkien, September 1963

"Make your communion in circumstances that affront your taste. Choose a gabbling priest or a vulgar friar; & a church full of a bourgeois crowd, ill-behaved children, dirty youths, women w/hair both unkempt & uncovered. Go to Communion w/them (& pray for them)." ~ Tolkien, 1963

"This remarkable book makes its appearance at a disadvantage. Nothing but a great masterpiece could survive the bombardment of praise directed at it from the blurb... The Fellowship of the Ring is an extraordinary book." ~ Edwin Muir, August 1954

"Thank you for your kind letter. I am however now an old man struggling to finish his work. Every task however small diminishes my chance of publishing The Silmarillion. I hope you understand why I feel it impossible to spend time commenting on myself or my works." ~Tolkien, 19

"[The Balrogs] were supposed to have been all destroyed in the overthrow of Thangorodrim, [Morgoth's] fortress. But one escaped & took refuge under the the Misty Mountains. Is is observable that only the Elf knows what it is, & doubtless Gandalf." ~ JRR Tolkien, 1954

"I was of course given Hans Andersen when quite young. I read them myself often. Actually I disliked him intensely; and the vividness of that distaste is the chief thing that I carried down the years in connexion with his name." ~ J.R.R. Tolkien, November 1961

"Tom Bombadil is not an important person - to the narrative. He is just an invention (who 1st appeared in the Oxford Magazine about 1933), & he represents something that I feel important, though I would not be prepared to analyze the feeling precisely." ~ JRR Tolkien, April 195

"It is plain that there would be for Ents no re-union in 'history'--but ents and their wives being rational creatures would find some 'earthly paradise' until the end of this world: beyond which the wisdom neither of Elves nor Ents could see." ~ J.R.R. Tolkien, June 1972

"Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give that to them?" ~ Gandalf, The Fellowship of the Ring

"But there are, I fear, no hobbits in The Silmarillion (or history of the Three Jewels), little fun or earthiness but mostly grief and disaster." ~ J.R.R. Tolkien, January 1961

"The 'Tale of Lúthien Tinúviel and Beren'... was founded on a small wood with a great undergrowth of 'hemlock' (no doubt many other related plants were also there) near Roos in Holderness, where I was for a while on the Humber Garrison." ~ J.R.R. Tolkien, July 1964

"I am not happy about the title 'the Two Towers'. It must if there is any real reference in it to Vol II refer to Orthanc & the Cirith Ungol. But since there is so much made of the opposition of the Dark Tower & Minas Tirith, that seems misleading." ~ J.R.R. Tolkien, January