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.

Although often attributed to Tolkien, this wording is best known from Peter Jackson’s film adaptation of The Two Towers, where Samwise Gamgee speaks to Frodo during a moment of despair, reframing their suffering as part of a larger “story” that will someday be understood. The speech draws on Tolkienian themes—eucatastrophe (a sudden turn toward hope), providence, and the moral endurance of ordinary people—but its specific phrasing (“it’s only a passing thing… this shadow”) reflects the screenplay’s idiom more than Tolkien’s prose. Interpreted broadly, it argues that evil is real and wounding, yet not ultimate: darkness is transient, and meaning can be recovered through perseverance and faith that goodness will re-emerge.

This wording is best known from the film adaptation, where it is delivered by Samwise Gamgee to Frodo. A common variant continues: “A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer.”