Robin Hobb Quotes

Death is not the opposite of life, but the opposite of choice.

Not being able to think of a reply is not the same thing as accepting another's words.

That is the challenge Companion. To take what has happened to you and learn from it. Nothing is quite so destructive as pity, especially self-pity. No event in life is so terrible that one cannot rise above it.

...sometimes it only makes one more lonely to know that somewhere else, one's friends and family are well.

In that last dance of chances I shall partner you no more. I shall watch another turn you As you move across the floor. In that last dance of chances When I bid your life goodbye I will hope she treats you kindly. I will hope you learn to fly. In that last dance of chances When I know you'll not be mine I will let you go with longing And the hope that you'll be fine. In that last dance of chances We shall know each other's minds. We shall part with our regrets When the tie no longer binds.

To be part of a family, or any community, is to have duties and responsibility, to be bound by the rules of that group.

I think that old magic draws much of its strength from that acknowledgment: that we are a part of that world.

What good is a life lived as if it made no difference at all to the great life of the world? - Fool

I never confuse the cost of something with its value

Boredom is vastly underrated. Boredom means that nothing is trying to kill you every day.

It was hard to reconcile the drumbeats and lifted voices in the night with my memories of flames and the screams of dying men. How could humanity range so effortlessly from the sublime to the savage and back again?

If I had a dog that was sick as often as you are, I'd put it down," he observed kindly.

The man who must brag for himself knows that no one else will

When both my editors say 'This is really bad, you need to change this,' I ignore that at my peril.

I began attempting to write for children under the mistaken assumption that writing for children was easy.

The fight isn't over until you win it, Fitz. That's all you have to remember. No matter what the other man says.

Anticipating pain was like enduring it twice. Why not anticipate pleasure instead?

Ah, Catylast, can it be that you do not see all the changes you have made? Some by your resignation and acceptance of circumstance, some by your wild struggles. You say that you hate change, but you *are* change. The Fool in Fool's Fate

You can be the dead fish. I'll be the old stick

A terrible premonition washed over me. This was how the whole world would end.... They would devour the forest and excrete piles of buildings made of stone wrenched from the earth or from dead trees. They would hammer paths of bare stone between their dwellings, and dirty the rivers and subdue the land until it could recall only the will of man. They could not stop themselves from doing what they did. They did not see what they did, and even if they saw, they did not know how to stop. They no longer knew what was enough.

Not all men are destined for greatness," I reminded him. "Are you sure, Fitz? Are you sure? What good is a life lived as if it made no difference at all to the great life of the world? A sadder thing I cannot imagine. Why should not a mother say to herself, if I raise this child aright, if I love and care for her, she shall live a life that brings joy to those about her, and thus I have changed the world? Why should not the farmer that plants a seed say to his neighbor, this seed I plant today will feed someone, and that is how I changed the world today?

Silent," the carved wizardwood on his wrist breathed. "Silent as a blinded ship, floating hull-up in the sea. Silent as a scream underwater.

No. This is right. I feel it. I am the Catalyst, and I came to change all things. Prophets become warriors, dragons hunt as wolves. Fitz in Assassin's Quest

Thinking is not always...comforting. It is always good, but not always comforting. Royal Assassin

For, "Yes," he had sighed on his dying breath, and all knew that was the ultimate prayer one could offer to life.

the greatest danger is always the one we are ignorant of.