Quotes from Robin Hobb

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 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 children of their hereditary hates, perhaps we would do better.

It was as it had to be. I had moved on to another life. I could not expect the old one to be held ajar for me forever.

I don't finish books I don't like. There's too many good ones out there waiting to be found.

The exercise for centring oneself is a simple one. Stop thinking of what you intend to do. Stop thinking of what you have just done. Then, stop thinking that you have stopped thinking of those things. Then you will find the Now, the time that stretches eternal, and is really the only time there is. Then, in that place, you will finally have time to be yourself.

Cold isn't so bad. Cold can only kill you if you stand still. Just keep moving.

Is it the nature of the world that all things seek a rhythm, and in that rhythm a sort of peace? Certainly it has always seemed so to me. All events, no matter how earth-shaking or bizarre, are diluted within moments of their occurrence by the continuance of the necessary routines of day-to-day living.

Tomorrow owes you the sum of your yesterdays. No more than that." Amber looked out to sea again. "And no less. Sometimes folk wish tomorrow did not pay them off so completely.

When are you leaving?" "As soon as I can. I've waited for weather, I've gathered my information and regained my Skill. I've tightened my muscles and renewed some skill with a blade. So much time I had to waste." "Sharpening your knife is never a waste of time. You've finally learned that. Not an apprentice any longer, nor even a journeyman. This makes you a master.

If a human's life can be measured in counted coins, then that worth can be diminished, a copper at a time, until no value is left. When an old woman is worth less than the food she eats Ã¢â'¬Â¦ well.

Only for a few moments, my dear. Only for a few moments.

a man who bears himself with authority will often have authority ceded to him.

For years, as your health has waned, I have served you. Were I disloyal, I would have proved it years ago. Loyalty, however, is hard to prove." "Because loyalty can change, it must be proven every day.

I don't think any two pains are ever exactly the same, Hap. But the part about being a fool, oh, yes.

I'm too old to do this sort of thing anymore. No. You only wish you were.

If you want the game, you must stalk it. That is all. You cannot say, To stalk this takes too long, I wish to simply eat. It is all one. The stalking is the beginning of the eating.

He shook his head, slowly this time. "History is what we do in our lives. We create it as we go along." He smiled enigmatically. "The future is another kind of history.

You can hold out longer under torture if you focus on what you will say rather than what you won't. I've heard of men repeating the same phrase, over and over, long past the point where they could hear the questions anymore. By focusing on what you will say, you make it less likely you'll say that which you don't wish to.

The sad thing about boredom is that one learns to value it only when it is exploded by a disaster, or the threat of one.

The pack does not die if the cub survives. Be a wolf, my brother. Things are clearer so.

As we shouldered our packs and set off, I reflected bitterly that I had walked away from people I had known and cared about to avoid the very situation I was now in with comparative strangers. I wondered if there was any way to live amongst people and refuse to be harnessed by their expectations

When you borrow trouble against what might be, you neglect the moment you have now to enjoy. The man who worries about what will next be happening to him loses this moment in dread of the next, and poisons the next with pre-judgement.

But this I do know of men, both young and old. When they are in groups, they are likelier to sink to the lowest acceptable behavior rather than rise to the highest possible standards.

I went from the practice courts still bearing every problem that I had brought there with me, but buoyed with the idea that perhaps I possessed the wherewithal to face them.

Why do you chop your life into bits and give the bits names? Hours, days. It is like a rabbit. If I kill a rabbit, I eat a rabbit. When you have a rabbit, you chop it up and call it bones and meat and fur and guts. And so you never have enough.