Lothlorien Quotes

Be yourself. Unless you can be a unicorn, In that case, you should always be a unicorn.

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 Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!

I have never been out of my own land before. And if I had known what the world outside was like, I don't think I should have had the heart to leave it.' 'Not even to see fair Lothlorien?' said Haldir. 'The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.

I met a lot of things on the way that astonished me. Tom Bombadil I knew already; but I had never been to Bree. Strider sitting in the corner at the inn was a shock, and I had no more idea who he was than had Frodo. The Mines of Moria had been a mere name; and of Lothloriene no word had reached my mortal ears till I came there. Far away I knew there were the Horselords on the confines of an ancient Kingdom of Men, but Fanghorn Forest was an unforeseen adventure. I had never heard of the House of Eorl nor of the Stewards of Gondor. Most disquieting of all, Saruman had never been revealed to me, and I was as mystefied as Frodo at Gandalf's failure to appear on September 22. J.R.R. Tolkien, in a letter to W.H. Auden, June 7, 1955

The others cast themselves down upon the fragrant grass, but Frodo stood awhile still lost in wonder. It seemed to him that he had stepped through a high window that looked on a vanished world. A light was upon it for which his language had no name. All that he saw was shapely, but the shapes seemed at once clear cut, as if they had been first conceived and drawn at the uncovering of his eyes, and ancient as if they had endured for ever. He saw no colour but those he knew, gold and white and blue and green, but they were fresh and poignant, as if he had at that moment first perceived them and made for them names new and wonderful. In winter here no heart could mourn for summer or for spring. No blemish or sickness or deformity could be seen in anything that grew upon the earth. On the land of Lórien, there was no stain.

If you wanted to go on from the end of The Hobbit I think the ring would be your inevitable choice as the link. If then you wanted a large tale, the Ring would at once acquire a capital letter; and the Dark Lord would immediately appear. As he did, unasked, on the hearth at Bag End as soon as I came to that point. So the essential Quest started at once. But I met a lot of things along the way that astonished me. Tom Bombadil I knew already; but I had never been to Bree. Strider sitting in the corner of the inn was a shock, and I had no more idea who he was than Frodo did. The Mines of Moria had been a mere name; and of Lothlorien no word had reached my mortal ears till I came there. -- (J.R.R. Tolkien to W.H. Auden, June 7, 1955.)

Though he walked and breathed, and about him living leaves and flowers were stirred by the same cool wind as fanned his face, Frodo felt he was in a timeless land that did not fade or change or fall into forgetfulness. When he had gone and passed again into the outer world, still Frodo the wanderer from the Shire would walk there, upon the grass among elanor and niphredil in fair Lothlorien

On two chairs beneath the bole of the tree and canopied by a living bough there sat, side by side, Celeborn and Galadriel. Very tall they were, and the Lady no less tall than the Lord; and they were grave and beautiful. They were clad wholly in white; and the hair of the Lady was of deep gold, and the hair of the Lord Celeborn was of silver long and bright; but no sign of age was upon them, unless it were in the depths of their eyes; for these were keen as lances in the starlight, and yet profound, the wells of deep memory.

We’re late. For a VERY important date

My butt has a maximum drive time of seven hours.

Hey, any idea why Australians speak something that sounds deceptively like English but isn’t? I mean, I’m trying to figure out why I can’t seem to converse with another human being who speaks the same language as I do.

Be a good little Alice and just follow the White Rabbit, okay?

I’m busy trying not to look like anything edible.

Do you ever answer anything in a way that people expect you to?

I think it should be obvious by now that I’m not necessarily interested in reality.

Right, 'the Queen of Hearts.' Sounds to me like you’re just one bitch in a whole pack of cards, baby.

The words ‘drink me’ come to mind. Anyone besides me up for some heavy alcohol consumption?

That’s the thing you girls never get. It doesn't matter if you just woke up, or just got done bawling, or just finished your make-up. When a guy’s all love-sick over a chick, she looks exactly the same to him all the time: perfect.

First, I’d like to point out that I didn’t use ‘one of mine.’ You refused to let me pay for my ice cream cone with a good ol’ fashioned credit card, and you forced your pretend money on me. Secondly, I can’t take any currency seriously that looks like it belongs in a psychedelic-inspired Special Edition Monopoly box.

Don’t make me Alice-nap you, Alice. Because you know I can carry you.

I’m almost afraid to tell you. Let’s put it this way: clean toilets are the least of your problems in this country.

I’ve found that lifting the lid with your foot is the most thorough and least gross path to two minutes of peace of mind.

You can pay for whatever you want, but I just want to warn you that I prefer to stay at places that don’t start or end with the word ‘motel.

Mouse likes to drag you to uninhabited areas with no cell signal—all those places perfect for dying of exposure.

Don’t take this the wrong way, but Australians have a LOT of bitches on their cashola.

I try not to laugh too loud, afraid a bark-like noise will be mistaken by any great whites lurking in the area as the distress call of a juvenile seal.

Locals. They’ll eventually get out. They’re annoyed. Like when Americans go to the lake. And it’s closed. ‘Cause some kid pooped in the water.

Hey…you don’t look like a rabbit.

How was I supposed to know ‘lucked out’ means ‘I got screwed over’ in Australian?

Alice? You didn’t get this far without realizing that you don’t have to cheat to win. You just have to accept that people are easily manipulated.

No thanks…Dodo, was it? I don’t know if I can watch you have performance problems twice in ten days.

I’ll get you and your little dog too?’ You say your girl can’t pay me back? Believe me when I say that that little gift’s just gonna keep right on giving.

Alice, it took big, dumb Talon Dodo thirty seconds to get you so pissed about a poker hand pun that you were about to beat him to death with your cane.

The car doesn’t so much drive as float above the road, like we’re making our way to Sydney in a hovercraft.

If one more person tells me how big this country is, I’m going to go kick a koala.

I believe it went like this—and stop me if I’m wrong, Mousey: ‘Listen, we may not be our own continent and everything, but we have a big country over in America too.

Yeah, well, when they say ‘You know it’s a long way, don’t you?’ what they really mean is: ‘You know it’d be faster if you just rode a kangaroo, don’t you?

Congratulations, Mousey, you’ve managed to insult every marsupial in the country in just under three kilometers.

Seriously, what is the purpose? Maybe I’d feel better about walking around speaking fluent jive if I knew there was a reason for it.

I like it because when people use a lot of poker lingo, it usually means they’ve been playing the game for a while. Which is why I immediately avoid those people.

So ‘fatal’ only kills you two out of three times these days? That’s good to know.

I’m good at being vague and unpredictable. It’s sort of a hard habit to break.

Oh, I have plenty of problems with Rabbit, it’s just that my comfort level with his name is standing in line behind about a hundred more important things.

I don’t think Australians ever use a couple of words when twenty will do just fine.

How do you tactfully spin the term “man-whore” to someone’s sister?

Now see, if it were me, I wouldn’t have led with that. I would’ve gone with something like ‘G’day’ or ‘Wow, aren’t you a little hottie?

Did you think your boyfriend was going to stick around and watch you do THAT? If we weren’t related, I would’ve left too. Actually…is it already too late for me to leave?

He’s a guy. We’re easy and stupid. Just go bat your eyes at him and beg for forgiveness. It’ll take five minutes…three if you wear something low-cut.

I don’t think I heard the same ending you did. Maybe you should tell it again.

I am commanding you, as an older and wiser brother, to get over here, get on this caterpillar, and ride to the top of this mushroom with me.

You’re in the country of the kangaroo and the duck-billed platypus, and you’re asking ‘why is it a mushroom? Because it just IS.

I’m not sure a real man would smoke something that sounds like a mixed drink ice cream cone.

Well then, I guess I’m man enough to admit that I’m trying to get in touch with my inner bitch.

You keep right on building that fence, Faye. See what good it does you.

I hear they’re all infected with chlamydia, which just goes to show that you really can’t tell who’s got the clam. I mean, look at a picture of a koala…tell me you’re not shocked.

Don’t be such a dumbass, Gabe. Koalas don’t travel in herds. They move in heaps. Much like emus move in ripples, and kangaroos travel in photo-ops.

This is from the queen? And you say it’s for a mouse? I’m sorry, sir, but the Pyramid Hotel doesn’t allow any pets except for service animals.

Did you forget a dentist appointment or something, big guy? Where the hell did you hop off to?

Well, I think I speak for everyone when I say that 'Alice Faye picked a peck of pepper for the poor, piping pig in the purple poke.' Wait—is that not what we’re talking about here?

What if it’s a shy fish? Is that a 'coy koi?' What? Don’t hate me because I’m asking the important questions.

Follow me down, Alice Faye Dahl. I know the way.

I believe the phrase you’re looking for is ‘too much money and not enough things to spend it on.

Would you like to hear about the fascinating things lizards can do if you chew off their tails?

So…while we’re sitting here on this luxury yacht enjoying our bread and water, why doesn’t someone tell me the plan?

Didn’t you read the invitation? There’s going to be a game in a little while--the big Twister game in an hour. Make sure you eat plenty of bread.

Did the Ancient Greeks ever write anything funny—like slapstick? I mean, I think I speak for everyone when I say that there’s nothing wrong with a little bit of well-written physical comedy.

I grimace, thinking someone should come up with a new phrase for 'I left the ocean without a kiwi-sized chunk of my lower-left butt cheek' to replace the rather nebulous term 'exploratory bite.

In any other fabric of space-time, my brother would have picked up Dee’s venereal disease-infested koala punt and run it straight down the line of vulgarity, all the way to the touchdown of tastelessness.

When some smart ass asks you if you’re driving, you say, 'Nope, just kicking the tires.’ You have to make sure you actually kick them all on your way around to the passenger side. Otherwise it’s like lying.

Do you really think I’d let him call my sister a ‘bitch?’ Or you for that matter? Talon Hawk’s dumb, but he’s smarter than that…he’d be crawling around on his hands and knees picking his teeth off the tiles.

Because trying to think of how to ask a woman you’ve known for exactly two days if she’d be willing to get into a car with you and take a road trip across the country was something I hadn’t quite worked up to yet.

Australians are descended from a boatload of English convicts, right? So two hundred years in isolation at the bottom of the planet is plenty of time for the language to evolve into some sort of double-speak prison slang.

Yeah, that’s exactly how I feel when I’m around you: confused, but still satisfied.' I freeze, trying to figure out how to cancel it out and replace it with something that sounds a whole lot less like sex and a candy bar ad.

I use the word “man” loosely. A better description would be “the most beautiful specimen of Homo sapiens sapiens with a set of XY chromosomes to grace the planet Earth at this moment, or any other era, epoch, or age in history.

I don’t know what this is for anyway. I mean, let me tell you what I’m never going to say to any human being, ever: ‘I had hunting season off-suit in the pocket, but I've had kicker trouble with that hand often enough to fold it.

After one and a half cocktails, finding the appropriate response is a bit of a challenge. I finally say, 'Thank you for inviting me,' and leave the less desirable 'Want to play strip poker?' in the unscrupulous part of my brain where it belongs.

Fun fact: You may hug koalas in the Australian state of New South Wales, but not in Queensland. So…if you didn’t hug your koala nice and tight before you got here to Sydney, you’re going to be shit out of luck until we go back to Surfer’s Paradise.

Okay then, I suppose you get a pass on poker intimidation for the glasses, little brother. But everyone else is wearing them at the tables too, and they’re all just sitting there, looking all serious, like they’re birthing the Grand Theory of Everything.

My help—it’s not a light switch you can turn on and off. My help starts right now, and after this point you don’t get to tell me that you don’t want it anymore. Understand? You had a chance to walk away, Alice, and you didn’t take it. Now it’s time to play the game.

Like your sweet, affectionate house cat, Alice Dahl is easy to underestimate. It’s not until the songbirds in the yard show up eviscerated on the front porch that you realize you should’ve kept that bell collar on her—because those poor birds never even saw her coming.

Must be the hair then. And the name change. And your new piss-poor attitude. Because every once in a while, I look at you and I don’t see a Baby Doll anymore. I just see Alice Faye Dahl, Poker Champion Badass. With obvious, heavy influences from Ronald McDonald, of course.

Basic economic theory. People behave differently based on how much they think something’s worth. Because everyone got their chips for free, people made huge bets on every hand—no matter what they were holding. People who play with everything on the line—for real—don’t act like that.

I have a totally unhealthy and unrealistic fear of being eaten by a great white shark. This is because I belong to a very specific demographic called American Child Whose Parents Made the Ill-Advised Decision To Allow Her To Watch the Movie Jaws At a Sleepover During Her Formative Years.

Let’s put it this way: you know how we always told you that all those years of tormenting four sisters turned you into a closet sadist? Well, if you ever decide that being a lawyer isn’t bringing you the kind of gratification you were hoping for, then I think I found the perfect job for you.

The question is: will I get used to a menu with kilojoules instead of calories? I mean, I don’t think anyone even knows how many kilojoules are in a calorie. I had to break out a whiteboard this morning and do calculus just to figure out how many calories were in a glass of water Down Under.

Alice, winning means manipulation. It means taking people—people who may have helped you in the past, even people you care about—and using them without hesitation or regret. It means making decisions that would be viewed by any normal-thinking human being as cynical at best and dishonorable at worst

Well, the gondola operator—whose name was ‘Happy,’ I might add—failed to inform me that about sixty seconds into the trip, the floor under the section of car I was standing on was going to slide away.Turns out it was a really useful way of finding out which of the passengers suffers from acute acrophobia.

Alice, you might be the product of the biggest ball of ignorance, confidence, and good fortune the universe has ever manufactured. But if you’re thinking that you can take your results at the virtual tables and your grand tactic of Ignorance Is Bliss, and make that work for the Main Event, forget it—it WON'T.

When she reaches down to touch his shoulder—a gesture only a few species and a million or so years removed from lifting a leg and marking him as her territory with a stream of urine—enough bracelets and bangles to lay track across the Australian Outback slide down her arm and come to a jangling stop at her wrist.

Who are you? Rabbit and Souris call you ‘Alice,’ me and Dee call you ‘Faye.’ I just didn’t know if ‘Alice’ was your poker-playing, Southern Hemisphere name or what. Hey, I’m just trying to fit in here. If I should be introducing myself as ‘Clark,’ I want to know about it sooner rather than later so I don’t embarrass myself.

For the first time, there’s no barrier between us and we make eye contact. All of a sudden, I feel like the character in Raiders of the Lost Ark—the one who watches in horror as the wispy, beautiful angels floating from the Ark of the Covenant morph into howling, homicidal demons. You know, right before he melts like a cheap candle.

I brought you out here because I wanted to share a sunrise with you, and maybe even a sunset. I wanted to see how much I could kiss you between now and the time we dock tomorrow. And if I was really lucky, I was hoping I could lie with you until you fell asleep, until I couldn’t stay awake anymore. And in the morning, we’d wake up, and we’d be together, just like this.

The line from Pulp Fiction—the one Samuel L. Jackson shouts at John Travolta as they’re trying to wash blood off their hands—pops into my head: 'I used the same soap you did and when I dried my hands, the towel didn't look like no fuckin’ maxi-pad!' I almost—almost—share this most quotable of cinematic quotes with him, when I remember it contains The Word. You know: 'maxi-pad.

Suddenly, the giant, three-headed dog that guards the entrance to the Underworld appears next to her—sans two of its heads—and sits down. As a child, we had a neighbor with a Great Dane, and I know they’re about three feet tall at the shoulder. Allow another twelve inches for their T-Rex-sized heads, and you’ve got a dog that this woman could throw a saddle on and ride like a pony.

Once the principals in their party are seated, with those lower on the totem pole left to grumble and move on to find another table, our once-cozy booth transforms into a damp fusion of vacuous wretchedness, with the three women all complaining alternately about their wet hair/clothes and their respective distance from Talon, while the man himself is trying to maneuver his Paul Bunyan frame way too close to me.

. I’ve watched about a dozen tourists almost get hit by cars since I’ve been here. I barely made it to the beach alive the other day. I mean, no one knows what they’re doing. They swing their heads back and forth like they’re mounted on a door hinge, but they don’t even know what they’re looking for, not really. Cars just come at you from all sorts of unnecessary directions here, and we’re all probably going to get killed.

...once I realized that Australia’s top highway speed of 110 kilometers per hour was the same as going 65 in the U.S., all my hardened American enthusiasm for speed went limp until it felt like the car was hardly moving at all. Even worse, most stretches of the highway are restricted to 60 kilometers per hour, which is how fast Americans go when we’re, like, passing a stopped school bus disembarking small children, or driving through a herd of puppies in the road.

Speaking of your eyeballs, dear brother,I overheard some girls talking about you in the restroom at the tournament hotel. Apparently rumor now has it that you won’t allow anyone to see your eyes—ever. In fact, according to this knowledgeable source, you even sleep and shower with your glasses on in case someone unexpectedly walks in...one of them said she’d seen your eyes for herself two years ago and could only describe them as 'ferocious and roving,’ and ‘burning white-hot with a primal, raw wildness.

So you went back to your friend’s next donkament two weeks later, and this time you just laughed right along when they gave you that framed picture of the poker hands. And when they called you ‘pigeon,’ ‘fish,’ and ‘muppet,’ you just smiled and batted your eyes and said stupid things like ‘Does a straight beat a crooked?’ And while everyone else was throwing a party, you just sat there acting like a tourist with your kill stack until you were in the money. Those poor dills…they didn’t know what hit ‘em, did they?

Okay, so English settlers brought rabbits with them to Australia to breed for food and stuff, right? But they escaped and basically started destroying the country, eating the vegetation, that kind of thing. So by the early 1900s, the government was trying to figure out a way to get rid of all the rabbits. Want to hear what their genius plan was? The rabbit-proof fence. Worked out great for the rabbits. Once they learned how to play badminton and got the hang of tennis on grass, they couldn’t remember how they ever lived without it. Supposedly there was something like six hundred million rabbits by 1950. But you’re missing the point. The point is that even though it was pretty obvious from the beginning it wasn’t working, they kept right on building it—two thousand miles of it.