A Candle in the Dark

The Lord of the Rings:
"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 a light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach."

"'I can't do this Sam.'  'I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are.  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. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going, because they were holding on to something.'  'What are we holding onto Sam?'  'That there is some good in this world Mr. Frodo...and it's worth fighting for.'"

"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."

Melissa Karnaze:
"I've found that the uglier the truth, the more resilient your optimism can be, because you have to deconstruct your optimism (and the opposition) so that it stands proudly despite the opposition"

"When you see something shiny.  Something happy.  Something resilient.  Something strong.  Extraordinary, remarkable.  There's likely a backstory.  A good one.  A dark one.  And that makes whatever is shiny glisten more."

Doctor Who:
"'Amazing though, don't you think?  The Star Whale.  All that pain and misery and loneliness, and it just made it kind.'  'But you couldn't have known how it would react.'  'I didn't.  But I've seen it before.  Very old and very kind and the very, very last.  Sound a bit familiar?'"

[the London Blitz]
"'But what future?'  'Nancy, this isn't the end.  I know how it looks, but it's not the end of the world or anything.'  'How can you say that?  Look at it!'"

"I mean, we could die any minute, but all the same- it's beautiful."