The Hobbit Quotes

The 10 most famous lines from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit (1937), each with its speaker and the scene it belongs to. These are the quotes readers underline, copy into essays and put on walls - gathered in one place, explained in a line.

• “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”

  - Narration. Chapter 1 - the opening line, famously scribbled on a blank exam-paper page; the sentence that starts modern fantasy.

• “I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it's very difficult to find anyone.”

  - Gandalf. Chapter 1 - the recruitment Bilbo talks himself out of, then into; the whole series in one request.

• “There is a lot more in him than you guess, and a deal more than he has any idea of himself.”

  - Gandalf, about Bilbo. Chapter 1 - the book's thesis, said to the dwarves before the hobbit has done anything at all.

• “Mutton yesterday, mutton today, and blimey, if it don't look like mutton again tomorrow.”

  - Bert the troll. Chapter 2 - the menu complaint that keeps the trolls arguing until dawn turns them to stone.

• “What have I got in my pocket?”

  - Bilbo Baggins. Chapter 5 - the winning 'riddle' of the game under the mountains: cheating by accident, with the One Ring as the answer.

• “Thief, thief, thief! Baggins! We hates it, we hates it, we hates it for ever!”

  - Gollum. Chapter 5 - the curse that follows the ring - and its bearer - into the next age of the world.

• “It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.”

  - Narration. Chapter 12 - Bilbo's logic on entering Smaug's hall; the book's most-quoted piece of advice arrives as an aside.

• “Never laugh at live dragons, Bilbo you fool!”

  - Bilbo Baggins. Chapter 12 - talking to himself inside the tunnel after the first trip to the hoard; the wisdom survives the joke.

• “If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”

  - Thorin Oakenshield. Chapter 18 - the dying king's last words to Bilbo; the sentence on Tolkien's own memorial stone.

• “You are a very fine person, Mr. Baggins, and I am very fond of you; but you are only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all!”

  - Gandalf. Chapter 19 - the goodbye that measures the whole adventure: not changed into a hero, just enlarged to full size.

Why these lines survive

J.R.R. Tolkien’s sentences earn their fame by compression: each line carries the whole book’s argument in a form you can carry in your pocket. Read in order, the 10 quotes above also sketch the novel’s shape - the world it opens, the pressure it applies, the note it ends on. If you meet them before the book, nothing is spoiled beyond mood; if you meet them after, each one lands like a place you have been.

Quote collectors: pair this page with the The Hobbit quiz to see which lines actually stuck, the book club questions when you want to argue about them, or how long the reread takes - about 6 hours and 39 minutes at an average pace. If the lines did their job and you want more of the same nerve, the books like The Hobbit list is next.

Want the whole shelf’s lines? Our J.R.R. Tolkien books in order guide lists every book.

How to use a quotes page

Three honest uses. Before reading: skim the first two quotes to taste the prose - if the voice does not pull you, the book will not either. During: mark which quote you actually reach in the text, because the distance between famous line and lived scene is where a book keeps its secrets. After: pick the one quote you would defend at dinner and check it against the discussion questions - a quote you can argue about is a quote you understood. What a quotes page is not for is replacing the book; five lines of J.R.R. Tolkien are an invitation, not a summary.

More quote collections

The Odyssey quotes, Moby-Dick quotes, Don Quixote quotes, Alice in Wonderland quotes - or browse quotes from all 133 classics. Then see which of them stuck on the original book quiz.

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