The Hobbit
by J.R.R. Tolkien
(HarperCollins, 2013)
He had a tall pointed blue hat, a long grey cloak, a silver scarf over which his long white beard hang down below his waist, and immense black boots.
Page 6.
Gandalf looked at him from under long bushy eyebrow that stuck out further than the brim of his hat.
Page 6.
We must away, ere break of day,
To claim our long-forgotten gold.
Page 18.
We must away, ere break of day,
To win our harps and gold form him!
Page 19.
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.
Page 19.
Old Took’s great-grand-uncle Bullroarer, who was so huge (for a hobbit) that he could ride a horse. He charged the ranks of the goblins of Mount Gram in the Battle of the Green Fields, and knocked their king Gollimbul’s head clean off with a wooden club. It sailed a hundred yards through the air and went down a rabbit-hole, and in this way the battle was won and the game of Golf invented at the same moment.
Page 21.
“He looks more like a grocer than a burglar!”
Page 22.
He was only a little hobbit you must remember.
Page 24.
“Your grandfather Thror was killed, you remember, in the mines of Moria by Azog the Goblin.”
Page 29.
His only comfort was he couldn’t be mistaken for a dwarf, as he had no beard.
Page 36.
“I wish I was at home in my nice hole by the fire, with the kettle just beginning to sing.” It was not the last time that he wished that!
Page 37.
Adventures are not pony-rides in May-sunshine.
Page 38.
Elves know a lot and are wondrous folk for news, and know what is going on among the peoples of the land as quick as water flows, or quicker.
Page 57.
It is a strange thing, but things that are good to have and days that are good to spend are soon told about, and not much to listen go; while things that are uncomfortable, palpitating, and even gruesome, may make a good tale, and take a deal of telling anyway.
Page 58.
“Stand by the grey stone when the thrush knocks,” read Elrond, “and the setting sun with the last light of Durin’s Day will shine upon the key-hole.”
Page 61.
Dwarves had not passed that way for many years, but Gandalf had, and he knew how evil and danger had grown and thriven in the Wild, since the dragons had driven men from the lands, and the goblins had spread in secret after the battle of the Mines of Moria.
Page 64.
He saw that across the valley the stone-giants were out, and were hurling rocks at one another for a game, and catching them, and tossing them down into the darkness where they smashed among the trees far below, or splintered into little bits with a bang.
Page 66.
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.
Page 67.
Goblins are cruel, wicked, and bad-hearted. They make no beautiful things, but they make many clever ones.
Page 71.
Gandalf thought of most things; and though he could not do everything, he could do a great deal for friends in a tight corner.
Page 75.
Quite suddenly Dori, now at the back a gain carrying Bilbo, was grabbed from behind in the dark. He shouted and fell; and the hobbit rolled off his shoulders into the blackness, bumped his head on hard rock, and remembered nothing more.
Page 77.
He guessed as well as he could, and crawled along for a good way, till suddenly his hand met what felt like a tiny ring of cold metal lying on the floor of the tunnel. It was a turning point in his career, but he did not know it. He put the ring in his pocket almost without thinking; certainly it did not seem of any particular use at the moment.
Page 78.
Hobbits are not quite like ordinary people. … They can move very quietly, and hide easily, and recover wonderfully from falls and bruises, and they have a fund of wisdom and wise sayings that men have mostly never heard or have forgotten long ago.
Page 80.
It seemed like all the way to tomorrow and over it to the days beyond.
Page 80.
Even in the tunnels and caves the goblins have made for themselves there are other things living unbeknown to them that have sneaked in from outside to lie up in the dark.
Page 81.
When he said gollum he made a horrible swallowing noise in his throat. That is how he got his name, thou he always called himself ‘my precious.’
Page 82.
Riddles were all he could think of. Asking them, and sometimes guessing them, had been the only game he had ever played with other funny creatures sitting in their holes in the long, long ago, before he lost all his friends and was driven away, alone, and crept down, down, into the dark under the mountains.
Page 83.
Gollum brought up memories of ages and ages and ages before, when he lived with his grandmother in a hole in a bank by a river.
Page 85.
He began to get frightened, and that is bad for thinking.
Page 88.
In his hiding-place he kept a few wretched oddments, and one very beautiful thing, very beautiful, very wonderful. He had a ring, a golden ring, a precious ring.
Page 91.
It was a ring of power, and if you slipped that ring on your finger, you were invisible; only in the full sunlight could you be seen, and then only by your shadow, and that would be shaky and faint.
Page 92.
Gollum had brooded for ages on this one thing, and he was always afraid of its being stolen.
Pages 93-94.
As suspicion grew in Gollum’s mind, the light of his eyes burned with a pale flame.
Page 94.
In a moment Gollum was on him. But before Bilbo could do anything, recover his breath, pick himself up, or wave his sword, Gollum passed by, taking no notice of him, cursing and whispering as he ran.
Page 95.
Gollum had no sword. Gollum had not actually threatened to kill him, or tried to yet. And he was miserable, alone, lost. A sudden understanding, a pity mixed with horror, welled up in Bilbo’s heart: a glimpse of endless unmarked days without light or hope of betterment, hard stone, cold fish, sneaking and whispering.
Page 98.
All at once there came a blood-curdling shriek, filled with hatred and despair. Gollum was defeated. He dared go no further. He had lost: lost his prey, and lost, too, the only thing he had ever cared for, his precious.
Page 99.
The wizard, to tell the truth, never minded explaining his cleverness more than once.
Page 107.
“What shall we do, what shall we do!” he cried. “Escaping goblins to be caught by wolves!” he said, and it became a proverb, though we now say “out of the frying-pan into the fire” in the same sort of uncomfortable situations.
Page 112.
Even the wild Wargs (for so the evil wolves over the Edge of the Wild are named) cannot climb trees.
Page 114.
The Wargs and the goblins often helped onr another in wicked deeds.
Page 114.
Sometimes they rode on wolves like men do on horses.
Page 115.
The goblins hated the eagles and feared them, but could not reach their lofty seats, or drive them from the mountains.
Page 118.
Just at that moment the Lord of the Eagles swept down from above, seized him in his talons, and was gone.
Page 121.
Poor little Bilbo was very nearly left behind again!
Page 121.
Bilbo had escaped only just in time!
Page 121.
He is a skin-changer. He changes his skin: sometimes he is a huge black bear, sometimes he is a great strong black-haired man with huge arms and a great beard. … He is not the sort of person to ask questions of.
Page 131.
Have you herd of my good cousin Radagast who lives near the Southern borders of Mirkwood?
Page 134.
“Good-bye! Be good, take care of yourselves - and DON’T LEAVE THE PATH!”
Page 157.
They had to go on and on, long after they were sick for a sight of the sun and of the sky, and longed for the feel of wind on their faces.
Page 159.
The feast that they now saw was greater and more magnificent than before, and at the head of a long line of feasters sat a woodland king with a crown of leaves upon his golden hair, very much as Bombur had described the figure in his dream. The elvish folk were passing bowls from hand to hand and across the fires, and some were harping and many were singing. Their gleaming hair was twined with flowers; green and white gems glinted on their collars and their belts; and their faces and their songs were filled with mirth;
Page 173-174.
The killing of the giant spider, all alone by himself in the dark without the help of th wizard or the dwarves or of anyone else, made a great difference to Mr. Baggins. He felt a different person, and much fiercer and bolder in spite of an empty stomach as he wiped his sword on the grass and put it back into his sheath.
“I will give you a name,” he said to it, “and I shall call you Sting.”
Page 175.
It is horrible being all along.
Page 176.
Bilbo had slipped on his ring before he started. That is why the spiders neither saw nor heard him coning.
Page 176.
Bilbo saw that the moment had come when he must do something.
Page 178.
As a boy he used to practise throwing stones t things, until rabbits and squirrels, and even birds, bot out of his way as quick as lightning if they saw him stoop; and even grown-up he had still spent a deal of his time at quoits, dart-throwing, shooting at the wand, bowls, ninepins and other quiet games of the aiming and throwing sort.
Page 178.
No spider has ever liked being called Attercop, and Tomnoddy, of course, is insulting to anybody.
Page 180.
In the end Bilbo could think of no plan except to let the dwarves into the secret of his ring.
Page 184.
At last, just when Bilbo felt that he could not lift his hand for a single stroke more, the spiders suddenly gave it up, and followed them no more, but went back disappointed to their dark colony.
Page 185.
Though their magic was strong, even in those days they were wary. They differed from the High Elves of the West, and were more dangerous and less wise. For most of them (together with their scattered relations in the hills and mountains) were descended from the ancient tribes that never went to Faerie in the West. There the Light-elves and the Deep-elves and the Sea-elves went and lived for ages, and grew fairer and wiser and more learned, and invented their magic and their cunning craft in the making of beautiful and marvellous things, before some came back into the Wide World. In the Wide World the Wood-elves lingered in the twilight of our Sun and Moon, but loved best the stars; and they wandered in the great forests that grew tall in lands that are now lost. … After the coming of Men they took ever more and more to the gloaming and the dusk. Still elves they were and remain, and that is Good People.
Page 188.
If the elf-king had a weakness it was for treasure, especially for silver and white gems; and though his hoard was rich, he was ever eager for ore, since he had not yet as great a treasure as other elf-lords of old.
Page 189.
Wood-elves were not goblins, and were reasonably well-behaved even to their worst enemies, when they captured them. The giant spiders were the only living things that they had no mercy upon.
Page 190.
In a great hall with pillars hewn out of the living stone sat the Elvenking on a chair of carven wood. On his head was a crown of berries and red leaves, for the autumn was come again. In the spring he wore a crown of woodland flowers. In his hand he held a carven staff of oak.
Page 192.
The Wood-elves, and especially their king, were very fond of wine, though no vines grew in those parts. The wine, and other goods, were brought from far away, from their kinsfolk in the South or from the vineyards of Men in distant lands.
Page 198.
Luck of an unusual kind was with Bilbo.
Page 199.
You cannot count friends that are all packed up in barrels.
Page 207.
It was like trying to ride, without bridle or stirrups, a round-bellied pony that was always thinking of rolling on the grass.
Page 208.
Far away, its dark head in a torn cloudy, there loomed the Mountain! … Bilbo had come far and through many adventures to see it, and now he did not like the look of it in the least.
Page 211.
The elf-road through the wood which the dwarves had followed on the advice of Beorn now came to a doubtful and little used end at the eastern edge of the forest.
Page 212.
Some sang too that Thror and Thrain would come back one day and gold would flow in rivers, through the mountain-gates, and all that land would be filled with new song and new laughter.
Page 214.
The Master hesitated and looked from one to the other. The Elvenking was very powerful in those parts and the Master wished for no enmity with him, nor did he think much of old songs, giving his mind to trade and tolls, to cargoes and gold, to which habit he owed his position. Others were of different mind, however, and quickly the matter was settled without him.
Page 220.
The Master … saw there was nothing else for it but to obey the general clamour, for the moment at any rate, and to pretend to believe that Thorin was what he said.
Page 222.
More was guessed than was known.
Page 223.
While the enthusiasm still lasted in the town was the time to get help. It would not do to let everything cool down with delay.
Page 224.
The Master was not sorry at all to let them go. They were expensive to keep, and their arrival had turned things into a long holiday in which business was at a standstill.
Page 224.
The only person thoroughly unhappy was Bilbo.
Page 225.
It was easier to believe in the Dragon and less easy to believe in Thorin.
Page 226.
No sign was there of post or lintel or threshold, nor any sign of bar or bolt or key-hole; yet they did not doubt that they had found the door at last.
Page 231.
The sun sank lower and lower, and their hopes fell. It sank into a belt of reddened cloud and disappeared. The dwarves groaned, but still Bilbo stood almost without moving. The little moon was dipping to the horizon. Evening was coming on. Then suddenly when their hope was lowest a red ray of the sun escaped like a finger through a rent in the cloud. A gleam of light came straight through the opening into the bay ad fell on the smooth rock-face. The old thrush, who had bene watching from a high perch with beady eyes and head cocked on one side, gave a sudden trill. There was a loud crack. A flake of rock split from the wall and fell. A hole appeared suddenly about three feet from the ground.
Pages 235-236.
Dwarves are not heroes, but calculating folk with a great idea of the value of money, some are tricky and treacherous and pretty bad lots; some are not, but are decent enough people like Thorin and Company, if you don’t expect too much.
Page 238.
He as a very different hobbit form the one that had run out without a pocket-handkerchief from Bag-End long ago.
Page 239.
Going on from there was the bravest thing he ever did. The tremendous things that happened afterwards were as nothing compared to it. He fought the real battle in the tunnel alone, before he ever saw the vast danger that lay in wait.
Page 240.
Smaug lay, with wings folded like an immeasurable bat, turned partly on one side, so that the hobbit could see his underparts and his long pale belly crusted with gems and fragments of gold from his long lying on his costly bed.
Pages 240-241.
Bilbo had heard tell and sing of dragon-hoards before, but the splendour, the lust, the glory of such treasure had never yet come home to him.
Page 241.
Dragons may not have much real use for all their wealth, but they know it to an ounce as a rule, especially after long possession.
Page 242.
His rage passes description – the sort of rage that is only seen when rich folk that have more than they can enjoy suddenly lose something that they have long had but have never before used or wanted.
Page 243.
The dragon came.
Page 244.
The door withstood his searching eye, and the little high-walled bay had kept out his fiercest flames.
Page 245.
They could think of no way of getting rid of Smaug – which had always been a weak point in their plans, as Bilbo felt inclined to point out. Then as is the nature of folk that are thoroughly perplexed, they began to grumble at the hobbit, blaming him for what had at first so pleased them: for bringing away a cup and stirring up Smaug’s wrath so soon.
Page 246.
Already they had come to respect little Bilbo. Now he had become the real leader in their adventure. He had begun to have ideas and plans of his own.
Page 247.
No dragon can resist the fascination of riddling talk and of wasting time trying to understand it.
Page 249.
He was in grievous danger of coming under the dragon-spell.
Page 250.
Bilbo of course ought to have been on his guard; but Smaug had rather an overwhelming personality.
Pages 251-252.
“Dazzlingly marvellous! Perfect! Flawless! Staggering!” exclaimed Bilbo aloud, but what the thought inside was: “Old fool! Why, there is a large patch in the hollow of his left breast as bare as a snail out of its shell!”
Page 253.
Fairest of all was the great white gem, which the dwarves had found beneath the roots of the Mountain, the Heart of the mountain, the Arkenstone of Thrain.
Page 258.
The only way out is down.
Page 262.
It was the Arkenstone … there could not be two such gems, even in so marvelous a hoard, even in all the world. Ever as he climbed, the same white gleam had shone before him and drawn his feet towards it. Slowly it grew to a little globe of pallid light. Now as he came near, it was tinged with a flickering sparkle of many colours at the surface, reflected and splintered form the wavering light of his torch. At last he looked down upon it, and he caught his breath. The great jewel shone before his feet of its own inner light, and yet, cut and finished by the dwarves, who had dug it form the heart of the mountain long ago, it took all light that fell upon it and changed it into ten thousand sparks of white radiance shot with glints of the rainbow.
Suddenly Bilbo’s arms went towards it, drawn by its enchantment. His small hand would not close about it, for it was a large and heavy gem; gut he lifted it, shut his eyes, and put it in his deepest pocket.
Pages 264-265.
When the heart of a dwarf, even the most respectable, is wakened by gold and by jewels, he grows suddenly bold, and he may become fierce.
Page 266.
Mr. Baggins kept his head more clear of the bewitchment of the hoard than the dwarves did.
Page 268.
They rested for a while and had such a breakfast as they could, chiefly of cram and water. (If you want to know what cram is, I can only say that I don’t know the recipe; but it is biscuitish, keeps good indefinitely, is supposed to be sustaining, and is certainly not entertaining, being in fact very uninteresting except as a chewing exercise. It was made by the Lake-men for long journeys.)
Page 272.
No one had dared to give battle to him for many an age; nor would they have dared now, if it had not been for the grim-voiced man (Bard was his name), who ran to and f ro cheering on the archers and urging the Master to order them to fight to the last arrow.
Page 277.
The Master himself was turning to his great gilded bost, hoping to row away in the confusion and save himself.
Page 278.
The dragon swooped once more lower than ever, and as he turned and dived down his belly glittered white with sparkling fires of gems in the moon – but not in one place. The great bow twanged. The black arrow sped straight form the string, straight for the hollow by the left breast where the foreleg was flung wide. In it smote and vanished, barb, shaft and feather, so fierce was its flight. With a shriek that deafened men, felled trees and split stone, Smaug shot spouting into the air, turned over and crashed down from on high in ruin.
Page 279.
The air was filled with circling flocks, and their swift-flying messengers flew here and there across the sky.
Pages 283-284.
Under the Master’s direction they began the planning of a new town, designed more fair and large even than before, but not in the same place. They removed northward higher up the shore, for ever after they had a dread of the water where the dragon lay.
Page 285.
He did not reckon with the power that gold has upon which a dragon has long brooded, nor with dwarvish hearts. Long hours in the past days Thorin had spent in the treasury, and the lust of it was heavy on him.
Page 295.
Bilbo, of course, disapproved of the whole turn of affairs. He had by now had more than enough of the Mountain, and being besieged inside it was not at all to his taste.
Page 297.
“The treasure is likely to be your death, though the dragon is no more!”
Page 299.
“This is the Arkenstone of Thrain,” said Bilbo, “the Heart of the Mountain; and it is also the heart of Thorin. He values it above a river of gold. I give it to you. It will aid you in your bargaining.”
Page 303.
“I don’t think I ought to leave my friends like this, after all we have gone through together.”
Page 304.
He was dreaming of eggs and bacon.
Page 305.
“If you don’t like my Burglar, please don’t damage him. Put him down, and listen first to what he has to say!”
Page 308.
“Take it that I have disposed of my share as I wished, and let it go t that!”
Page 308.
So strong was the bewilderment of the treasure upon him, he was pondering whether by the help of Dain he might not recapture the Arkenstone and withhold the share of the reward.
Page 309.
The dwarves are exceedingly strong for their height, but most of these were strong even for dwarves. In battle they wielded heavy two-handed mattocks; but each of them had also a short broad sword at his side and a roundshield slung at his back. Their beards were forked and plaited and thrust into their belts. Their caps ere of iron and they were shod with iron, and their faces were grim.
Page 310.
“The Goblins are upon you! Bolg of the North is coming. O Dain! whose [sic] father you slew in Moria. Behold! the [sic] bats are above his army like a sea of locusts. They ride upon wolves and Wargs are in their train!”
Page 313.
So began a battle that none had expected: and it was called the Battle of the Five Armies, and it was very terrible. Upon one side were the Goblins and the Wild Wolves, and upon the other wre Elves and Men and Dwarves.
Page 313.
The Goblins were the foes of all, and at their coming all other quarrels were forgotten.
Page 314.
The elves were the first to charge. Their hatred for the goblins is cold and bitter.
Page 315.
With cries of “Moria!” and “Dain, Dain!” the [sic] Dwarves of the Iron Hills lunged in, wielding their mattocks, upon the other side; and beside them came the men of the Lake with long swords.
Page 316.
Victory now vanished from hope.
Page 316.
Out leapt the King under the Mountain, and his companions followed him. Hood and cloak were gone; they were in shining armour, and red light leapt from their eyes, In the gloom the great dwarf gleamed like gold in a dying fire.
Page 317.
Wolf and rider fell or fled before them. Thorin wielded his axe with mighty strokes and nothing seemed to harm him.
Page 317.
On all this Bilbo looked with misery. He had taken his stand on Ravenhill among the Elves - partly because there was more chance of escape from that point, and partly (with the more Tookish part of his mind) because if he was going to be in a last desperate stand, he preferred on the whole to defend the Elvenking.
Page 318.
“The Eagles! The Eagles!” he shouted. “the Eagles are coming!”
Page 318.
There stood Gandalf, with his arm in a sling. Even the wizard had not escaped without a wound.
Page 321.
Even with the Eagles they were still outnumbered. In that last hour Beorn himself had appeared - no one knew how or from where. He came alone, and in bear’s shape; and he seemed to have grown almost to giant-size in his wrath.
Page 323.
They buried Thorin deep beneath the Mountain, and Bard laid the Arkenstone upon his breast.
Page 325.
Upon his tomb the Elvenking then laid Orcrist, the elvish sword that had been taken from Thorin in captivity.
Page 325.
Dain son of Nain took up his abode, and he became \king under the Mountain, and in time many other dwarves gathered to his throne in the ancient halls.
Page 325.
“If ever you are passing my way,” said Bilbo, “don’t wait to knock! Tea is at four; but any of you are welcome at any time!”
Page 327.
The dragon was dead, and the goblins overthrown, and their hearts looked forward after winter to a spring of joy.
Page 327.
The wizard and Bilbo would not enter the wood, even though the king bade them stay a while in his halls. They intended to go long the edge of the forest, and round its northern end in the waste that lay between it and the beginning of the Grey Mountains. It was a long and cheerless road, but now that the goblins were crushed, it seemed safer to them than the dreadful pathways under the trees. Moreover Beorn was going that way too.
Page 327.
“May you ever appear where you are most needed and least expected!”
Page 328.
The goblins of the Misty Mountains were now few and terrified, and hidden in the deepest holes they could find; and the Wargs had vanished from the woods, so that men went a broad without fear.
Page 329.
In their day the last goblins were hunted from he Misty Mountains and a new peace came over the edge of the Wild.
Page 329.
“So comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their ending!” said Bilbo, and he turned his back on his adventure. The Tookish part was getting very tired, and the Baggins was daily getting stronger.
Page 330.
Gandalf had bene to a great council of the white wizards, masters of lore and good magic; and that they had at last driven the Necromancer from his dark hold in the south of Mirkwood.
Page 333.
“You are not the hobbit that you were.”
Page 337.
The legal bother, indeed, lasted for years. It was uite a long time before Mr. Baggins was in fact admitted to be alive again.
Page 338.
His magic ring he kept a great secret, for he chiefly used it when unpleasant callers came.
Page 339.
“You don’t really suppose, do you, that all your adventures and escapes were managed by mere luck, just for your sole benefit? You are a very fine person, Mr. Baggins, and I am very fond of you; gut you are only quiet a little fellow in a wide world after all!”
Page 340.