Using this page to collect quotes about hope that I come across reading. I've been getting a lot out of revisiting these, so thought I'd post them.
So instead of looking for hope, look for action. Then, and only then, hope will come.
He knew all the arguments of despair and would not listen to them. His will was set, and only death would break it.
And after all he never had any real hope in the affair from the beginning; but being a cheerful hobbit he had not needed hope, as long as despair could be postponed.
To read about the Black Death is to glimpse how it may end with our species—in longing and despair and panic and also ineradicable hope, the kind of hope that makes you leave sentences unfinished and extra parchment in your book, in case anyone should still be alive in the future.