The Hobbit, or, There and Back Again Quotes

Find quotes from this novel, with commentary from Shmoop.  Pick a theme below to begin.

Good vs. Evil Quotes

[Elrond] took [the map] and gazed long at it, and he shook his head; for if he did not altogether approve of dwarves and their love of gold, he hated dragons and their cruel wickedness, and he grie...

Cunning and Cleverness Quotes

A really first-class and legendary burglar would at this point have picked the trolls' pockets – it is nearly always worth while, if you can manage it –, pinched the very mutton off the...

Loyalty Quotes

[Bilbo] still wandered on, out of the little high valley, over its bulge, and down the slopes beyond; but all the while a very uncomfortable thought was growing inside him. He wondered whether he o...

The Home Quotes

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with thing in it to sit down on or to ea...

Courage Quotes

Let's have no more argument. I have chosen Mr. Baggins and that ought to be enough for all of you. If I say he is a Burglar, a Burglar he is, or will be when the time comes. There is a lot more in...

Race Quotes

I suppose hobbits need some description nowadays, since they have become rare and shy of the Big People, as they call us. They are (or were) a little people, about half our height, and smaller than...

Wealth Quotes

As they sang the hobbit felt the love of beautiful things made by hands and by cunning and by magic moving through him, a fierce and jealous love, the desire of the hearts of the dwarves. Then some...

Exploration Quotes

As I was saying, the mother of this particular hobbit — of Bilbo Baggins, that is — was the famous Belladonna Took, one of the three remarkable daughters of the Old Took, head of the ho...