Quotes from Robin Hobb

I don't know,' I said grimly. 'Oh,' she said. Then after a time, she added, 'When a man says that, it usually means, "No, I won't, but from time to time, I'll toy with the idea, so I can pretend I eventually intend to do it.

Pain says that you are still alive. I heeded that message and reveled in it.

When you can either laugh or cry, you might as well laugh

Sa help us all, but I plan to give her free rein and let her be as unpleasant and bitchy as only she knows how.

We walk when no

That is both the danger and the hope of life. That each of us changes the world, every day.

Be content with your own life, my friend, and live it well. Let others decide for themselves what path they will follow.

Everyone thinks that courage is about facing death without flinching. But almost anyone can do that. Almost anyone can hold their breath and not scream for as long as it takes to die. True courage is facing life without flinching. I don't mean the times when the right path is hard, but glorious at the end. I'm talking about enduring the boredom, and the messiness, and the inconvenience of doing what is right.

I'm proud of you. It's not the kind of work a man does that says he can be proud or not. It's how he does it. Be proud of yourself.

Not an elegant wine or a mellow brandy but harsh spirits.

I couldn't tell him it would come out right, because I wasn't sure it would. I couldn't tell him that I'd trust his judgment, because I didn't. Then Hap found the words for both of us. "I love you, Tom. I'll keep trying." I sighed in relief. "Me, too. I love you, and I'll keep trying.

History is what we do in our lives. We create it as we go along.

There was always something to be learned from any experience, no matter how horrendous. As long as a man kept sight of that, his spirits could prevail against anything. It was only when one gave in and believed the universe to be nothing more than a chaotic collection of unfortunate or cruel events that one's spirit could be crushed.

I have always been more curious than wise. Yet any wisdom I have ever gained has come to me from my curiosity. So I have never learned to turn away from it.

Tomorrow owes you the sum of your yesterdays. No more than that.

Always I have possessed the loneliness of one raised amid intrigues and clustering secrets, the isolation of a boy who cannot trust the completeness of his heart to anyone.

That is a thing I will never understand," Amber observed in a low voice. "How can one hate oneself so much that one is willing to murder that self?" The ship shook his head and rain flew from his locks. "That is your mistake. No one wants the self to die. I only wanted to make all the rest of it stop. The only way to achieve that was to put death between the world and myself.

Perhaps men are a trick Sa played on this world. 'All other things I shall make vast and beautiful and true to themselves,' perhaps he said. 'Men alone shall be capable of being petty and vicious and self-destructive. And for my cruelest trick of all, I shall put among them men capable of seeing these things in themselves.' Do you suppose that is what Sa did?

Why hire what you could buy outright? That seemed to be the philosophy here in the slavemart, yet Wintrow wondered how those shopping for slaves could not see themselves in their faces, or recognize one's neighbors. No one else seemed disturbed by it... It seemed that, in the eyes of the buyers, a failure of finances instantly changed a man from a friend or neighbor into merchandise.

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.

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 neighbour, this seed I plant today will feed someone, and that is how I change the world today?

Robin Hobb is the author of the Farseer Trilogy, the Liveship Traders Trilogy, the Tawny Man Trilogy, the Soldier Son Trilogy, the Rain Wilds Chronicles, and the Fitz and the Fool Trilogy. She has also written as Megan Lindholm.

And he's illegitimate?" "Yes. That's why his given name has a Fitz at the start. His father acknowledged him.

I became a slightly daft traveler, obsessed with beekeeping and professing to know all there was to know on the topic. I started arguments so others would correct me and speak of beekeepers they had known.