Quotes from Robin Hobb

Why not break free now, and make Bingtown a place where folk begin anew, all men standing on an equal footing?" "And all women, too." She must be Sparse's daughter, thought Keffria. Even her voice echoed his in tone. Devouchet looked at her in surprise. "It was but a manner of speaking, Ekke," he said mildly. "A manner of speaking becomes a manner of thinking.

She is, Althea thought uneasily, what I pretend to be: a woman who does not let her sex deter her from living as she pleases.

The King's tool. I see.' An oppression settle over me. My brief glimpse of blue skies arching over yellow roads and me travelling down them astride Sooty suddenly vanished. I thought of the hounds in their kennels instead, or of the hawk, hooded and strapped, that rode on the King's wrist and was loosed only to do the King's will.

Be the night. Not the wind that stirs the trees, not even the soundless owl a-wing or the tiny mouse crouched motionless. Be the night that flows over all, touching without being felt. For night is a cat.

Think of what is and don't let what might have been distract you.

Be now what you must be to succeed at the end of your journey, and when the end comes, you will find it is just another beginning.' Althea

All of history, a great wheel, turning inexorably. Just as seasons come and go, just as the moon moves endlessly through her cycle, so does time. The same wars are fought, the same plagues descend, the same folk, good or evil, rise to power. Humanity is trapped on that wheel, doomed endlessly to repeat the mistakes we have we have already made. Unless someone comes to change it.

Do you ever get over it?" Did you ever get past it?" He asked me so earnestly for there to be a tomorrow that did not possess that shadow. I told the hardest truth I had ever had to utter. "No. You don't. I didn't. You won't. But you do go on. It becomes a part of you, like any scar. You will go on.

Sometimes it is easier to pull a knife out of a man than to ask him to forget words you have uttered.

Come, join your kin and lend strength to the weaker ones. Together, together, we journey, back to our beginnings and our endings. Gather, shore-born creatures of the sea, to return to the shores yet again. Bring your dreams of sky and wings; come to share the memories of our lives. Our time is come, our time is come. - She Who Remembers

Young as I was, I still wondered what kind of man this was who, with one leg bandaged, could quell a room full of rough men with a look or a word.

She did not understand why humans longed for so much intense contact. Were their own thoughts never sufficient for them? Why did they look for others to fulfill their needs instead of simply taking care of themselves?

When she spoke his name, Beloved, he believed she meant it. He spoke of an adolescence I envied. Pampered, praised, educated . . . any child's dream. But we all awake from dreams.

Do you think you're taking Etta out of here?" "Yes," Kennit called over his shoulder up the sairs. "What about all these dead men?" she shrieked after him as they strode out of her house. "Those you may keep," Kennit replied.

So grief has always seemed to me, a time of waiting not for the hurt to pass, but to become accustomed to it.

Kyle saw them as a double-pronged problem: the ship that would not heed his wishes because of a boy that would not be what his father commanded him to be.

It made me wish there were a place as much me as that place is you. A place I would keep as secret.

Men walking a battlefield to search for wounded among the dead will still stop to cough, to blow their noses, still lift their eyes to watch a V of geese in flight. I have seen farmers continue their plowing and planting, heedless of armies clashing but a few miles away.

If the shoe does not fit, one cannot wear it, no matter who made it for you

There are other types of neglect and deprivation. To deny what unfolds inside someone, to forbid the magic that comes unbidden, to impose ignorance in a way that invites danger, to say to a child, 'You must not be what you are.' That is wrong." His voice was gentle but the condemnation was without compassion.

his touch sketched the window of her freedom as she danced.

I promise you, I won't let you die." "Make me no promises that can break us both, Fitz.

For her part, she seemed totally unaware of how her eyes could meet mine and turn my tongue to leather in my mouth. No magic I possessed, no Skill, no Wit, was proof against the accidental touch of her hand against mine, nor could defend me against the awkwardness that overwhelmed me at the quirk of her smile.

Perhaps there can be no thanks nor any blame, but only recognition of the forces that brought us and bound us to our inevitable fates.