How we cite our quotes: (Book.Chapter.Paragraph).
Quote #7
Many great trees grew there, planted long ago, falling into untended age amid a riot of careless descendants; and groves and thickets there were of tamarisk and pungent terebinth, of olive and of bay; and there were junipers and myrtles; and thymes that grew in bushes, or with their woody creeping stems mantled in deep tapestries the hidden stones; sages of many kinds putting forth blue flowers, or red, or pale green; and marjorams and new-sprouting parsleys, and many herbs of forms and scents beyond the garden-lore of Sam. The grots and rocky walls were already starred with saxifrages and stonecrops. Primeroles and anemones were awake in the filbert-brakes; and asphodel and many lily-flowers nodded their half-opened heads in the grass: deep green grass beside the pools, where falling streams halted in cool hollows on their journey down to Anduin. (4.4.12)
First of all, this moment among the spring flowers is a breath of fresh air, not only for the hobbits, but also for the reader, after their travels through the ashy blight of Noman's-land in Mordor. While Tolkien takes the time to make up new flowers elsewhere in the series, such as the yellow elanor of Lothlórien or the white simbelmynë of Rohan, the flowers that bloom in Ithilien are largely familiar, which contrasts with the strangeness and wrongness of neighboring Mordor, where the plants he loves are nowhere to be found. This walk through Ithilien is like a quick return to the loving comforts of home between the horrors of the Dead Marshes and the terror to come in Cirith Ungol.
Quote #8
Frodo's face was peaceful, the mars of fear and care had left it; but it looked old, old and beautiful, as if the chiselling of the shaping years was now revealed in many fine lines that had before been hidden, though the identity of the face was not changed. Not that Sam Gamgee put it that way to himself. He shook his head, as if finding words useless, and murmured: "I love him. He's like that, and sometimes it shines through, somehow. But I love him, whether or no." (4.4.24)
There's this odd split quality to the perspective of this paragraph describing Frodo in Ithilien, as though both the narrator and Sam love Frodo separately. The narrator looks at Frodo's sleeping face and sees "the chiselling of the shaping years." But, the narrator emphasizes, these are not Sam's words about his master. For Sam, Frodo is like "that," and he loves him for it. What do you think Sam means by "that"? What is this quality of Frodo's that both Sam and the narrator love so much?
Quote #9
"And people will say: 'Let's hear about Frodo and the Ring!' And they'll say: 'Yes, that's one of my favorite stories. Frodo was very brave, wasn't he dad?' 'Yes, my boy, the famousest of the hobbits, and that's saying a lot.'"
"It's saying a lot too much," said Frodo, and he laughed, a long clear laugh from his heart. Such a sound had not been heard in those places since Sauron came to Middle-earth. To Sam suddenly it seemed as if all the stones were listening and the tall rocks leaning over them. But Frodo did not heed them; he laughed again. "Why Sam," he said, "to hear you somehow makes me as merry as if the story was already written. But you've left out one of the chief characters: Samwise the stouthearted. 'I want to hear more about Sam, dad. Why didn't they put in more of his talk, dad? That what I like, it makes me laugh. And Frodo wouldn't have got far without Sam, would he, dad?'" (4.8.63-4)
It's a credit to Frodo that he can laugh while sitting near Minas Morgul with the Ruling Ring on a chain around his neck, and it's equally to Sam's credit that he can tell a joke that makes Frodo chuckle. The obvious love between Frodo and Sam seems to be the only cure for the miseries of Mordor. And even the land itself seems to be tuning in, leaning over to hear their banter. This moment with Frodo's laugh is a rare instance when we stop to think of the agony it would be for the land itself—if it is alive in any sense, as it is being described here—to be tortured with the presence of the utter evil living in Mordor. Perhaps the rocks are listening to Frodo's laughter as their own cure for the miseries they have endured under Sauron.