Courage is found in unlikely places.

This line is authentic Tolkien, and word for word. It appears in The Fellowship of the Ring (1954), Book I, Chapter 3, "Three Is Company," where the Elf-lord Gildor Inglorion answers Frodo's anxious question — "But where shall I find courage?" — with "Courage is found in unlikely places," adding "Be of good hope!" The phrase is often loosely credited to Gandalf, but it belongs to Gildor during the hobbits' first flight from the Shire, and scholarly treatments of Tolkien quote it in exactly this form. We found no credible rival claimant and no earlier source; the wording circulating today matches the printed text rather than paraphrasing it, so both attribution and phrasing are secure.