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.

"I came into close contact w/ [Charles Williams]--I was a sort of mid-wife at the birth of All Hallows Eve, read aloud to us as it was composed, but the changes made in it were due to C.S. [Lewis]--& enjoyed his company; but our minds remained poles apart." ~ Tolkien, Aug 1964

"I linked [Bilbo's Ring] with the (originally) casual reference to the Necromancer, whose function was hardly more than to provide a reason for Gandalf going away & leaving Bilbo & Dwarves to fend for themselves, which was necessary for the tale." ~ J.R.R. Tolkien, July 1964

"The magic ring was the one obvious thing in The Hobbit that could be connected with my mythology. To be the burden of a large story it had to be of supreme importance." ~ J.R.R. Tolkien, July 1964

"I write things that might be classified as fairy-stories not because I wish to address children (who qua children I do not believe to be specially interested in this kind of fiction) but because I wish to write this kind of story and no other." ~ J.R.R. Tolkien, April 1959

"Thus Gandalf faced & suffered death; & came back, as he says, w/ enhanced power. Though one may be in this reminded of the Gospels, it is not the same thing at all. The Incarnation of God is an infinitely greater thing than anything I would dare write." ~ JRR Tolkien, Jan 1956

"Gandalf as Ring-Lord would have been far worse than Sauron. He would remain 'righteous', but self-righteous. He would continue to rule & order things for 'good' & the benefit of his subjects according to his wisdom (which would have remained great)." ~ J.R.R. Tolkien, Sept

"Fairy story has its own mode of reflecting 'truth', different from allegory, or (sustained) satire, or 'realism', & in some ways more powerful. But first it must succeed as a tale, excite, please, & on occasion move, & within its own world be accorded belief." ~ Tolkien, 1

"[The Lord of the Rings] is a 'fairy-story' but one written--according to the belief I once expressed in an extended essay 'On Fairy-stories' that they are the proper audience--for adults." ~ J.R.R. Tolkien, January 1956

"If someone dislikes [The Lord of the Rings], I shall never trust their literary judgement about anything again." ~ W.H. Auden, in the BBC Program, 'The Critics, December 1955

"I am a philologist, and all my work is philological. I avoid hobbies because I am a very serious person, and cannot distinguish between private amusement and duty. I am affable, but unsociable." ~ J.R.R. Tolkien, June 1955

"My work did not 'evolve' into a serious work. It started like that. The so-called 'children's story' [The Hobbit] was torn out of an existing mythology. In so far as it was dressed up 'for children', in style or manner, I regret it. So do the children." ~ Tolkien, June

"I don't tick. I am not a machine. (If I did tick, I should have no views on it, and you had better ask the winder.)" ~ J.R.R. Tolkien, in response to The New York Times Book Review, asking him, "What...makes you tick?", June 1955

"I only work for private amusement, since I find my duties privately amusing." ~ J.R.R. Tolkien, June 1955

"In no circumstances will I agree to being photographed for [an article]. I regard all such intrusions as impertinence. The irritation it causes spreads its influence over a greater time than the intrusion occupies. My work needs concentration & peace of mind." ~ Tolkien, 1967

"I have so far seen 2 reviews of 'Tom Bombadil': I expected remarks far more snooty & patronizing. I was pleased, since it seemed that the reviewers had started out not wanting to be amused, but had failed to maintain their Victorian dignity intact." ~ J.R.R. Tolkien, Nov 19

"For if there is anything in a journey of any length, for me it is this: a deliverance from the plantlike state of helpless passive sufferer, an exercise however small of will, & mobility--and of curiosity, without which a rational mind becomes stultified." ~ J.R.R. Tolkien, 19

"Well here comes Christmas! That astonishing thing that no 'commercialism' can in fact defile--unless you let it." ~ J.R.R. Tolkien, in a letter to his son Michael, December 1962

"I had great difficulty to get my story published! It remains an unfailing delight to me to find my own belief justified: that the 'fairy-story' is really an adult genre, & one for which a starving audience exists." ~ J.R.R. Tolkien, March 1955

"The Inklings had no recorder and C.S. Lewis no Boswell. The name was not invented by C.S.L. (nor by me). In origin it was an undergraduate jest, devised as the name of a literary (or writers') club." ~ J.R.R. Tolkien, September 1967

"We have prayed endlessly for Christian re-union, but it is difficult to see, if one reflects, how that could possibly begin to come about except as it has, with all its inevitable minor absurdities." ~ J.R.R. Tolkien, Oct 1968