Tolkien quotes on love and marriage

Only the rarest good fortune brings together the man and woman who are really as it were ‘destined’ for one another, and capable of a very great and splendid love. The idea still dazzles us, catches us by the throat: poems and stories in multitudes have been written on the theme, more, probably, than the total of such loves in real life (yet the greatest of these tales do not tell of the happy marriage of such great lovers, but of their tragic separation; as if even in this sphere the truly great and splendid in this fallen world is more nearly achieved by ‘failure’ and suffering). In such great inevitable love, often love at first sight, we catch a vision, I suppose, of marriage as it should have been in an unfallen world. In this fallen world we have as our only guides, prudence, wisdom (rare in youth, too late in age), a clean heart, and fidelity of will…’  — J.R.R Tolkien, Letters, 51-52

 

Êl síla na lû govaned ’wín

A star shines on the hour of our meeting. 

— J.R.R Tolkien

But he came at last to a glade open to the stars, and there Melian stood; and out of the darkness he looked at her, and the light of Aman was in her face.

She spoke no word; but being filled with love Elwë came to her and took her hand, and straightway a spell was laid on him, so that they stood thus while long years were measured by the wheeling stars above them; and the trees of Nan Elmoth grew tall and dark before they spoke any word.

— Of Thingol and Melian, Tolkien.

Faithless is he that says farewell

when the road darkens. 

— J.R.R. Tolkien

 

But as she looked on him, doom fell upon her, and she loved him; 

— Beren and Lúthien, The Silmarillion by Tolkien

 

Neither rock, nor steel, nor the fires of Morgoth, nor all the powers of the Elf-kingdoms, shall keep from me the treasure that I desire. For Luthien your daughter is the fairest of all the Children of the World.

— J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion

Lo! Young we are and yet have stood like planted hearts in the great Sun of Love so long (as two fair trees in woodland or in open dale stand utterly entwined and breathe the airs and suck the very light together) that we have become as one, deep rooted in the soil of Life and tangled in the sweet growth.

— J.R.R. Tolkien, a poem to his wife Edith

 

But once a year when caverns yawn

and hidden things awake,

they dance together then till dawn

and a single shadow make. 

— J.R.R. Tolkien

There is a place called ‘heaven’ where the good here unfinished is completed; and where the stories unwritten, and the hopes unfulfilled, are continued. We may laugh together yet…

— J.R.R Tolkien, from a letter he wrote to his son Michael  – in June of 1941.