[SDG]

What are lines of dialogue from Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia stand out to you as the most memorable, the most quotable, the most significant?

Actually, I have a vested interest in favorite lines from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe particularly as well as The Lord of the Rings, but there's no reason why this thread can't be bigger than my own private interests at the moment, so it's open to all Narnia books as well as the whole LOTR.

The point of the thread, though, is lines from the books, not from any big or small screen versions to date. That's not to say don't pick lines that are in a screen version, but don't be restricted by that.

One last note: I'm interested in lines of dialogue, i.e., lines said by the characters, not by the narrator.

Here, I'll get the ball rolling with a few choice quotes from the first book in each series.

The Fellowship of the Ring

• "I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."
• "Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand... Deserves it? I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. For even the very wise cannot see all ends."
• "I will take the ring... though I do not know the way."
• "I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the Flame of Anor. You cannot pass. The dark fire will not avail you, Flame of Udun. Go back to the Shadow! You cannot pass."
• "I will go forward free, or I will go back and seek my own land, where I am known to be true of word, though I perish alone in the wilderness... But I will be content, if only Legolas shares my blindness."
• "And now at last it comes! You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All will love me and despair!...I pass the test. I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel."
• "There is nothing, Lady Galadriel. Nothing, unless it might be -- unless it is permitted to ask, nay, to name a single strand of your hair, which surpasses the gold of the earth as the stars surpass the gems of the mine. I do not ask for such a gift. But you commanded me to name my desire."
• "I have looked upon that which is fairest. Henceforward I will call nothing fair, unless it be her gift."
• "So you go on. Gandalf, Elrond -- all these folk have taught you to say so. For themselves they may be right. These elves and half-elves and wizards, they would come to grief perhaps. Yet often I doubt if they are wise and not merely timid. But each to his own kind. True-hearted Men, they will not be corrupted. We of Minas Tirith have been staunch through long years of trial. We do not desire the power of wizard-lords, only the strength to defend ourselves, strength in a just cause."

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

• "This must be a simply enormous wardrobe!"
• "Excuse me -- I don't want to be inquisitive -- but should I be right in thinking that you are a Daughter of Eve?"
• "This is the land of Narnia, where we are now; all that lies between the lamp-post and the great castle of Cair Paravel on the eastern sea."
• "Why, it is she that has got all Narnia under her thumb. It's she that makes it always winter. Always winter and never Christmas; think of that!"
• "The whole wood is full of her spies. Even some of the trees are on her side."
• "But what are you? Are you a great overgrown dwarf that has cut off its beard?"
• "How do you know that your sister's story is not true?... A charge of lying against someone whom you have always found truthful is a serious thing, a very serious thing indeed.... Logic! Why don't they teach logic at these schools? There are only three possibilities. Either your sister is telling lies, or she is mad, or she is telling the truth. You know that she doesn't tell lies and it is obvious that she is not mad. For the moment then and unless any further evidence turns up, we must assume that she is telling the truth."
• "They say Aslan is on the move -- perhaps already landed."
• "So you've come at last! At last! To think that ever I should live to see this day!"
• "Lord love you, Son of Adam, what a simple thing to say! Turn him into stone? If she can stand on her two feet and look him in the face it'll be the the most she can do and more than I expect."
• "Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight
  At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,
  When he bears his teeth, winter meets its death
  And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again."
• "Aslan a man! Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea. Don't you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion -- the lion, the great Lion."
• "Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you."
• "She has kept me out for a long time, but I have got in at last. Aslan is on the move. The Witch's magic is weakening."
• "This is no thaw. This is spring. Your winter has been destroyed, I tell you! This is Aslan's doing!"
• "If either of you mention that name again, he shall instantly be killed."
• "Rise up, Sir Peter Fenris-Bane. And whatever happens, never forget to wipe your sword."
• "What? Have I not still my wand? Will not their ranks turn to stone even as they come on?"
• "Tell you? Tell you what is written on that very Table of Stone which stands beside us? Tell you what is written in letters as deep as a spear is long on the World Ash Tree? Tell you what is engraved on the sceptre of the Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea?"
• "And now who has won? Fool, did you think that by all this you would save the human traitor? Now I will kill you instead of him as our pack was and so the Deep Magic will be appeased. But when you are dead what will prevent me from killing him as well? And who will take him out of my hand then? Understand that you have given me Narnia forever, you have lost your own life and you have not saved his. In that knowledge, despair and die."
• "Yes! It is more magic."
• "It means that though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still that she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of Time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and darkness before Time began, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the Table would crack and death itself would work backwards."
• "He doesn't like to be tied down -- and of course he has other countries to attend to. It's quite all right. He'll often drop in. But you mustn't press him. He's wild, you know. Not like a tame lion."

Did I get any of your favorites? If so, second the motion. (It'll be helpful to me. ) If not, nominate your own!

This post has been edited by SDG: 29 November 2005 - 09:19 PM

[Darrel Manson]

I'll second:
"Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you."
and
"He's wild, you know. Not like a tame lion."

[Cunningham]

Where now the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?
Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing?
Where is the hand on the harpstring, and the red fire glowing?
Where is the spring and the harvest and the tall corn growing?
They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the meadow;
The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow.
Who shall gather the smoke of the dead wood burning,
Or behold the flowing years from the Sea's returning?
edit: ^^ from TTT

Also, which you duly noted:

I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the Flame of Anor. You cannot pass. The dark fire will not avail you, Flame of Udun. Go back to the Shadow! You cannot pass.

and

I have looked upon that which is fairest. Henceforward I will call nothing fair, unless it be her gift.

This post has been edited by solishu: 29 November 2005 - 10:49 PM

[Andrew]

Ditto Darrel's choices - those are the two that immediately came to mind for me.

One of my favorite lines in LOTR is to be found in 'The Two Towers': Treebeard's description of Saruman - something to the effect of 'his mind is of metal and wheels...he cares not for growing things' - which seems an ever-more apt description of our world that idolizes technology and mechanical progress, yet disdains life.

[Denny Wayman]

Here's one of my favorites from the VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER. It is where Eustace has tried to get himself free from his dragon skin and failed. Then Alsan "sanctifies" him of his dragon incarnation and "baptizes" him.

"Then the lion said - but I don't know if it spoke - You will have to let me undress you.  I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now.  So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.

"The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart.  And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt.  The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off.  ...Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off - just as I thought I'd done it myself the other three times, only they didn't hurt - and there it was lying on the grass:  only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobby looking than the others had been.  And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been.  Then he caught hold of me - I didn't like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I'd no skin on - and threw me into the water.  It smarted like anything but only for a moment.  After that it became perfectly delicious...

This reminds me of the line in SPITFIRE GRILL where Percy says something like: “Do you suppose there are wounds which go so deep the healing of them hurts as much as the wounding?”

Denny

[Peter T Chattaway]

SDG, having recently seen all three film versions of TLtW&tW (well, not counting the 1967 mini-series, which AFAIK has never been released on video), I can say without a moment's hesitation that the line from all those films that keeps coming back to me is the line from the 1979 cartoon where Aslan says to the Witch: "WELL, his offense was not against YOU." And then, after this, "Let us say I HAVE forgotten it. TELL us, of this Deep Magic." There is something in the booming baritone of Aslan's voice, the ironic humour with which he plays dumb to bait the White Witch, that I really, really like, and it is something that was utterly missing from both live-action versions of this scene. (Do either of the live-action versions keep the "Well" at the beginning of that first quote?)

[stu]

I'm glad you included "Yes! It is more magic". I love that line.

[BethR]

I'll second SDG's motion for

"How do you know that your sister's story is not true?... A charge of lying against someone whom you have always found truthful is a serious thing, a very serious thing indeed.... Logic! Why don't they teach logic at these schools? There are only three possibilities. Either your sister is telling lies, or she is mad, or she is telling the truth. You know that she doesn't tell lies and it is obvious that she is not mad. For the moment then and unless any further evidence turns up, we must assume that she is telling the truth."

and

"Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you."

When I was a child, that line told me more about the nature of Jesus Christ than almost anything I had learned in Sunday School.

I'll add Sam's song from The Return of the King:

In western lands beneath the Sun
the flowers may rise in Spring
the trees may bud, the waters run,
the merry finches sing.
Or there maybe 'tis cloudless night
and swaying beeches wear
the Elven-stars as jewels white
amid their branching hair.

Though here at journey's end I lie
in darkness buried deep,
beyond all towers strong and high,
beyond all mountains steep,
above all shadows rides the Sun
and Stars forever dwell:
I will not say the Day is done,
nor bid the Stars farewell.

[MattPage]

Not exactly profound, but I'd like to add from LWW

"A Lamppost - in the middle of a wood? How funny." (This just seconds after she has just discovered a whole country in a wardrobe)

And I don't have a good available at the moment, but I think my favourite line (assuming it to be original and not just the product of the TV version) is that one of the professors where he says something about if something is improbable it may be the best explanation...or was that Sherlock Holmes...or both?"

Matt

[Darrel Manson]

One of my favorite lines of narration from the Narnia series is when Eustace is introduced. We are told that his name was Eustace Scrubb - and he deserved it.

This post has been edited by Darrel Manson: 30 November 2005 - 11:06 AM

[SDG]

Almost! (Maybe he would have entirely deserved it if his middle name hadn't been Clarence.)

This post has been edited by SDG: 30 November 2005 - 11:21 AM

[BethR]

From The Voyage of the Dawn Treader:

"Please, Aslan," said Lucy, "what do you call soon?"
"I call all times soon," said Aslan...

[MattPage]

I've just started reading LWW again, and I was releived to see that the line I quoted from Lucy above regarding the lamp-post was actually coined by the BBC series, rather than from Lwis himself - the book only implies as much.

As for the professor quote - it's more the whole conversation between him and the elder two pevensies that I was thinking, rather than the quote, which is sherlock holmes.

Must post some Last Battle quotes here soon.

Matt

[BethR]

Definitive proof that the Chronicles are not misogynistic

"That's the worst of girls," said Edmund to Peter and the Dwarf. "They can never carry a map in their heads."

"That's because our heads have something in them," said Lucy.

(Prince Caspian 125)

I've always loved that one