“I wish life was not so short," he thought. "Languages take such a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about.”

"Alboin Errol", in The Lost Road (1987). Compare this with "The lyf so short, the craft so longe to lerne" by Geoffrey Chaucer

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John Ronald Reuel Tolkien 78
British philologist and author, creator of classic fantasy … 1892–1973

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