"I should like to save the Shire, if I could - though there have been times when I thought the inhabitants too stupid and dull for words, and have felt that an earthquake or an invasion of dragons might be good for them. But I don't feel like that now. I feel that as long as the Shire lies behind, safe and comfortable, I shall find wandering more bearable: I shall know that somewhere there is a firm foothold, even if my feet cannot stand there again."

carrying the world around his neck

"I see no hope of it now. But I've got to do the best I can."

”..Someone took him? That’s a serious accusation Merry — and if that were the case we’d need proof. Could you tell me the last place you saw him?” Well he certainly wasn’t going to abandon his cousins, but the idea of anyone stealing a hobbit in the Shire was unheard of — at such a time in his life as this.