Quotes from Robin Hobb

I felt unreasonably hurt at this. A dozen scathing comments went unsaid by me. He had no idea of what I had given up for him. Then the moment of anger passed and I was grateful I had not spoken. I never wanted him to know what I had sacrificed for him.

Por un breve espacio de tiempo fui feliz y, don aún más preciado, supe que era feliz.

They were petty and selfish." "They were miserable and hungry and helpless. I don't think I've ever met anyone who was miserable, hungry and helpless who was not also petty and selfish. The situation brings out the worst in everyone.

It was but a manner of speaking, Ekke," he said mildly. "A manner of speaking becomes a manner of thinking.

Why, I suddenly wondered, had I wasted all those hours I could have spent with her? Why hadn't I gone with them, to listen to a bedtime story or nursery song?

Be careful with your beak,' I chided her. She turned her shining eyes on me. 'I am careful, stupid Fitz.

Burrich the Stablemaster, the man who raised me, once warned me, "When you cut pieces from the truth to avoid sounding like a fool, you end up sounding like a moron instead." I

A wise old man taught me that diplomacy is the velvet glove that cloaks the fist of power. Persuasion, not force, works best and lasts longest. Make this alliance in the dukes' best interest and they will be eager to welcome and honor the Narcheska when she arrives.

well. It was as if he himself were embodied afresh in this lad. He could protect this boy as he had not been protected himself. He had the power to stave off the destructive forces that had once torn his own life apart. After all, they were not that different. The ship had said so. To protect him would be like saving himself.

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 change the world today?

The years have come and gone in their scores of turnings, and night after night I still take pen in hand and write. Still I strive to understand who I am. 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'.

Do not you sense it? A crossroads, a vertex, a vortex. All paths change from here.

and chairs, and a bed with two blankets on it in the corner.

But shall we be happy, to say that we live in the dusk rather than in the full night? Shall we rejoice that we shall only suffer, while your offspring will be the ones to know the torments of the damned? Shall this be why we do not act?

But he became known as a bad luck ship, mockingly called the Pariah.

When it finds you (whatever we call "it"—the Muse, inspiration, Story), writing moves past the careful construction of a plot line and the adding-in of needed characters. Story overflows outline and cuts its own passage through the valley of fiction. For the writer, it's an immersion.

Why?" A simple question unlocks best

Few things appeal so much to the heart of a man as a fresh start.

The small folk of a land can only be oppressed so long before they rise up in their own defense, be it against outlanders or an unjust lord of their own.

Silly me. To think there was such a thing as a safe place in the world.

Mas acima de tudo, o estrondoso silêncio no meu coração, onde durante tanto tempo a consciência de Olhos-de-Noite fora um farol constante na minha escuridão, um calor no meu inverno, uma estrela guia na minha noite.

It was as if he were so isolated that any close contact at all became a friendship in his mind.

diplomacy is the velvet glove that cloaks the fist of power. Persuasion, not force, works best and lasts longest.

She knew, with vast certainty, that she would never desire to be kissed by a man who had first asked her permission. "Permission to come aboard," some impish part of her mind whispered, and she fought to keep from grinning.