Quotes from Robin Hobb

Stop using every mistake you make as an excuse to fail completely.

If you can read, you can learn anything. If you've a will to.

I sleep like an old woman now, she thought to herself. In fits and starts. It isn't sleeping and it isn't waking and it isn't rest.

How much do you understand?' I demanded of her one afternoon. She cocked her head at me, met my gaze and demanded, 'How much do YOU understand?

No one can have so little that someone else can find nothing to envy. Poverty and simplicity were not shields from the greed of others. If you had nothing left to steal, they'd take your body and enslave it.

If a man hits you once, he'll hit you again, they say. And the same is true for lying. But I stayed, and I listened and I believed. What a fool I've been!

When you want a thing so badly for so long, and then it comes time to face that you cannot have it, sometimes—' 'Sometimes you can't believe it when it comes to you. Sometimes you're afraid to believe it. I understand your hesitation.

You should leave off sniffing the carcass of your old life, my brother. You may enjoy unending pain. I do not. There is no shame in walking away from bones, Changer. He finally swiveled his head to stare at me from his deep-set eyes. Nor is there any special wisdom in injuring oneself over and over. What is your loyalty to that pain? To abandon it will not lessen you." "p. 94 Nighteyes to Fitz

Sometimes I think there is more rest in that place between wakefulness and sleep than there is in true sleep. The mind walks in the twilight of both states, and finds the truths that are hidden alike by daylight and dreams. Things we are not ready to know abide in that place, awaiting that unguarded frame of mind.

The sheer improbability of your existence took my breath away.

Malta," he said, and smiled. "Possibly the most annoying young female I've ever encountered. Yet lovely. I named a horse after her. Do you remember?

It was all so meaningless when I looked at it that way. It was meaningless in the same way as when I stood up from a game and then looked down on the scatter of playing pieces, and realized that they all were just bits of polished stone on a wooden board marked with squares. All the meaning they'd had moments before when I'd been trying to win a game were meanings that I'd imbued them with. Of themselves, neither they nor the board had any significance.

I've thought of ending my life, Fool. I admit it. But always, no matter the damage to it, the body tries to go on. And if it manages to, then the mind follows it. Eventually

No man can return to being a boy. But there are interludes in a man's life when, for a time, he can recapture the feeling that the world is a forgiving place and that he is immortal.

To sate your need without love is theft

Understanding how or why is seldom as useful as understanding that things are.

It's an old tradition or perhaps a superstition. Never call something by its true name if you wish to avoid calling its attention to you. Perhaps

sometimes there are no choices but poor ones.

Sometimes all the choices are poor ones, Fool, and still a man must choose.

Each circle spins off a circle of its own. Each one seems a new thing but in truth it is not. It is just our most recent attempt to correct old errors, to undo old wrongs done to us, and to make up for things we have neglected. In each cycle, we may correct old errors, but I think we make as many new ones. Yet what is our alternative? To commit the same old errors again? Perhaps having the courage to find a better path is having the courage to risk making new mistakes.

Even the homeliest girl secretly dreams that a man might fall in love with her inner spirit.

refusing to think about a thing only brings it more strongly to mind.

I was amazed at how strong women were when they were angry.

I could set aside my responsibilities to others and live my life as I pleased only when I also severed my ties to them. I could not have it both ways. To be part of a family, or any community, is to have duties and responsibilities, to be bound by the rules of that group.