About a year ago, I did a post of quotes from fantasy that are encouraging when life gets hard.

Life has been hard this week, which explains my silence on Monday.

Given that, I thought it fitting to return to this post. One of the beautiful things about fantasy is how it shows in poignant, real ways this clash between hope and despair, light and dark, and reminds us that no matter how black the night seems, the bright rays of dawn will eventually pierce the shroud.

Note: I added two more to the end of the original fifteen.

Encouraging Fantasy Quotes

“In this hour, I do not believe that any darkness will endure.” — The Return of the King

“Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight. At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more. When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death. And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.” — The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe

He forced himself to smile—not out of pleasure, and not out of satisfaction. He smiled despite the grief he felt at the deaths of his own men; he smiled because that was what he did. That was how he proved to the Lord Ruler—and to himself—that he wasn’t beaten. No, he wasn’t going to walk away. He wasn’t finished yet. Not by far. — The Final Empire

“Happiness can be found in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.” — The Prisoner of Azkaban

“When you run out of hope, everything is backwards. Your heart wants the opposite of what it needs.” — The Warden and the Wolf King

There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach. — The Return of the King

“But courage, child: we are all between the paws of the true Aslan.” — The Last Battle

“Where there’s life there’s hope.” — The Hobbit

“There’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo…and it’s worth fighting for.” — The Two Towers

“It is true the Shining Isle is smoke and ashes and that darkness is wide over the land. But your long memories have failed you. Of all creatures, you should know that the darkness is seldom complete, and even when it is, the pinprick of light is not long in coming—and finer for the great shroud that surrounds it.” — North! or Be Eaten

“We must try not to sink beneath our anguish, Harry, but battle on.” — The Half-Blood Prince

“It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end…because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing…this shadow. Even darkness must pass.” — The Two Towers

“You have listened to fears, Child. Come, let me breathe on you. Forget them. Are you brave again?” — Prince Caspian

“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.” — The Fellowship of the Ring

“It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.” — The Sorcerer’s Stone

He saw it in her eyes. The anguish, the frustration. The terrible nothing that clawed inside and sought to smother her. She knew. It was there, inside. She had been broken. Then she smiled. Oh, storms. She smiled anyway. It was the single most beautiful thing he’d seen in his entire life. — The Way of Kings

Frodo: “I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.”

Gandalf: “So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world Frodo, besides the will of evil. Bilbo was meant to find the Ring. In which case, you were also meant to have it. And that is an encouraging thought.” — The Fellowship of the Ring

Which quote is your favorite? What else would you add to the list? I’d love to hear your thoughts here or on social media.