Quotes from Robin Hobb

Every night, the wind blew. Every morning, we began our task by clearing the previous night's drifted snow.

If you do, what will you tell her?" He stared at me bleakly before replying, "The truth. I know it's a novel idea, but I thought that at least one Farseer should try it.

For it is said, one may ask of the Elderlings, but what they answer may not be the question you ask, but the one you should have asked.

You cannot claim that authority one moment, and then shoulder aside from it the next. Crowns cannot be doffed so lightly.

Time is an unkind teacher, delivering lessons that we learn far too late for them to be useful. Years after I could have benefited from them, the insights come to me. Now

If you can read, you can learn anything.

When one has been disappointed for so long, hope becomes the enemy. One cannot be dashed to the earth unless one is lifted first

Honor and courtesy and justice…they are not real, Fitz. We all pretend to them, and hold them up like shields. But they guard only against folk who carry the same shields. Against those who have discarded them, they are no shields at all, but only additional weapons to use against their victims.

Dutiful was still standing there with his jaw slightly ajar. I shrugged at him. "There's no use arguing with Burrich. It's like arguing with your mother. Let's go.

She wasn't coming back. I held myself together by refusing to think of her. This empty room jerked the blindfold from my eyes.

Tivessem eles sido cães, teriam me farejado, afastado-se a seguir, mas os humanos não têm dessas cortesias inatas.

Oh, I have known a few that did want to stop. And I have known a few that did stop. And it ended the same, whether they wanted to or not.

Hay un punto muerto en la noche, la hora más negra y fría, cuando el mundo se ha olvidado del atardecer y el alba no es todavía ninguna promesa. Un momento en que es demasiado pronto para levantarse, pero tan tarde que irse a la cama no tiene sentido.

We've the world to save, you and I.

Tears welled in my eyes. Perhaps, I thought, if I do not blink, they will not spill. Perhaps if I sat very still long enough, somehow my eyes would reabsorb the tears.

When he stopped hitting me and seized my wrists, I darted my head in and bit his hand as hard as I could. He roared and then screamed with pain and outrage. Assassins take no pride in fighting fairly. We take pride in winning.

I'm too old to be doing this anymore." He repeated his favorite complaint. "No. You're not. You'll only be old when you try to stop doing this

Is there nothing private anymore?" "Only the things we keep from ourselves," she replied sadly. She

But change proves that you are still alive. Change often measures our tolerance for folk different from ourselves. Can we accept their languages, their customs, their garments, and their foods into our own lives? If we can, then we form bonds, bonds that make wars less likely. If we cannot, if we believe that we must do things as we have always done them, then we must either fight to remain as we are, or die.

A man hurried toward me, face shrouded in his hood against the wind. He glanced up and our eyes met. He blanched and turned aside, to hurry back the way he had come. Well, and so he might. I felt my anger building to an unbearable heat. The wind whipped at my hair and sought to chill me, but I only strode faster, and felt the strength of my hatred grow hotter. It lured me and I followed it like the scent of fresh blood.

But take him now, Regal, and shape him, and a decade hence you will command his loyalty. [...] A bastard, Regal, is a unique thing. Put a signet ring on his hand and send him forth, and you have created a diplomat no foreign ruler will dare to turn away. He may safely be sent where a prince of the blood may not be risked. Imagine the uses for one who is and yet is not of the royal bloodline. Hostage exchanges. Martial alliances. Quiet work. The diplomacy of the knife.

Putting into the dragon had helped in the same way that cutting off an infected limb helped. Being rid of it was not the same as being healed of it.

Prudent men never trusted their luck. But Kennit had long ago decided that a man had to trust his luck in order for it to grow.

My slow pulling away from him had been my resignation to his mortality. Truly