Robin Hobb Quotes - Page 3

For the weakest has but to try his strength to find it, and then he shall be strong.

History is no more fixed and dead than the future. The past is no further away than the last breath you took.

Regrets are useless, " the Fool replied. "All you can do is start from where you are.

Perhaps the greatest thing one can discover is that you can decide who you are. You don't have to be whom the Ludlucks made you. You don't even have to be who you were before that. You can choose. We are all creatures of our own devising.

Home is people. Not a place. If you go back there after the people are gone, then all you can see is what is not there any more.

I don't want to have these burdens. But I can't bear to turn them over to anyone else, either. Because, despite all the work, I like being in control of my own life.

Had they been dogs they would have sniffed me over and then drawn back. But humans have no such inbred courtesies.

That part of your life is over. Set it aside as something you have finished. Complete or no, it is done with you. No being gets to decide what his life is "supposed to be"...'Be a man. Discover where you are now, and go on from there, making the best of things. Accept your life, and you might survive it. If you hold back from it, insisting this is not your life, not where you are meant to be, life will pass you by. You may not die from such foolishness, but you might as well be dead for all the good your life will do you or anyone else.

What is a secret? It is much more than knowledge shared with only a few, or perhaps only one another. It is power. It is a bond. It is a sign of deep trust, or the darkest threat possible.... Be very chary of revealing your hoarded secrets. Many lose all power once they have been divulged. Be even more careful of sharing your secrets lest you find yourself a puppet dancing on someone else's strings.

If one bad thing befell me, I immediately linked it to every bad thing that had happened in the last week or might happen in the coming week. And when I became sad, I was prone to wallow in grief, piling up my woes and sprawling on them like a dragon on a hoard.

I wanted us to share all our lives. You wish to keep me in a box, separate from your life. I cannot be someone you come to when you have nothing more important to do.

He longed for cleanliness and tidiness: it was hard to find peace in the middle of disorder.

They regarded our passage not at all, and by the afternoon I felt no more significant than an ant. I had never thought to be disdained by a tree.

It is the nature of human that we tend to pass our pain along. As if we could get rid of it by inflicting an equal hurt on someone else.

As if he hadn't always known he was loved the best. That he was the Beloved.

The knowledge that he had left me with no intent ever to return had come over me in tiny droplets of realization spread over the years. And each droplet of comprehension brought its own small measure of hurt.

Men cannot grieve as dogs do. But they grieve for many years.

...You won't even see what is put right on the table before you. Men. If it was raining soup you'd be out there with a fork.

The past is no further away than the last breath you took.

Still I promise myself, "Next time I will do better" in the all-too-human conceit that I will always be offered a "next time.

Every small, unselfish action nudges the world into a better path. An accumulation of small acts can change the world.

That destiny is not reserved for a few chosen ones. Each man has a destiny. Recognizing it and fulfilling it are the purpose of a man's life.

Suspense was an excellent tool for keeping powerful people off balance. It gave one bargaining power.

It was better to leave the space empty of words than to choose the wrong ones.

You," I surmised, and gestured round. "Thank you.""No," he denied. His pale hair floated out from beneath his cap in a halo as he shook his head. "But I assisted. Thank you for bathing. It makes my task of checking on you less onerous. I'm glad you're awake. You snore abominably."I let this comment pass. "You've grown." I observed. "Yes. So have you. And you've been sick. And you slept quite a long time. And now you're awake and bathed and fed. You still look terrible. But you no longer smell. It's late afternoon now. Are there any other obvious facts you'd like to review?

Despite my pain, I felt not the regret of an ending, but the foreboding of a beginning.

But change proves that you are still alive. Change often measures our tolerance for folk different from ourselves. Can we accept their languages, their customs, their garments, and their foods into our own lives? If we can, then we form bonds, bonds that make wars less likely. If we cannot, if we believe that we must do things as we have always done them, then we must either fight to remain as we are, or die

The problem is not that we forget the past. It is that we recall it too well. Children recall wrongs that enemies did to their grandfathers, and blame the granddaughters of the old enemies. Children are not born with memories of those who insulted their mother or slew their grandfather or stole their land. Those hates are bequeathed to them, taught them, breathed into them. If adults didn't tell their children of their hereditary hates, perhaps we would do better.

Dragons don't bother with introductions.

Be a little puppet on their strings. That was what Reyn wanted from her, also. She recognized that even if he did not. He was attracted to her not just for her beauty and charm, but because she was young. He thought he could control all her actions and even her thoughts.

He thought perhaps it was a woman's way, to come out of such a storm of emotion and pain as if she were a ship emerging onto calm seas. She had seemed, not at peace, but emptied of sorrow. As if she had run out of that particular emotion and no other one arose to take its place.

The death of Nighteyes gutted me. I walked wounded through my life in the days that followed, unaware of just how mutilated I was. I was like the man who complains of the itching of his severed leg. The itching distracts from the immense knowledge that one will forever after hobble through life.

If all of her was not enough for him, then let him have none of her and seek what he needed elsewhere.

The fight isn't over until you win.

And what do you believe?”A slow smile spread over his face. “I believe in you. You are my new beginning.

Those were some astounding lies, cub. And the very last one the most inspired of all. You have your father's talent for it.

It is worse than useless to do things halfway Bee, for then you think the work is done, but someone must come behind you later to do it all over again. Even if you must work much harder and get less done, it is better to do the whole task the first time.

Be very chary of telling your hoarded secrets. Many lose all power once they have been divulged.

I should live each day as if it were significant, as if everyday the fate of the world depended on my action.

Stop your whining. If you are frightened, be silent. Whining is for prey. It attracts predators. And you are not prey.

A woman of many talents. And intelligent, too. He'd probably have to kill her soon.

When you cut pieces out of the truth to avoid looking like a fool, you end up sounding like a moron instead.

And the world re-ordered itself around me. I spoke each word carefully. 'You are so stupid.

Surprise!-FitzChivalry

Isn't it strange how wise counsel can cool the hottest head? He made sense but my heart screamed protest.