Happy Tolkien Day!
Letter 282 about confidence in his work
"I have never had much confidence in my own work, and even now when I am assured (still much to my grateful surprise) that it has value for other people, I feel diffident, reluctant as it were to expose my world of imagination to possibly contemptuous eyes and ears. But for the encouragement of C.S.L. I do not think that I should ever have completed or offered for publication The Lord of the Rings."
Glad for CS Lewis' encouragement! We all need a friend to encourage esp with writing and posting things. :)