Quotes from Robin Hobb

I have been called a fool as often as I have been called a prophet.

All of time, every sliced instant of it, is rich with vertices of choices. One becomes accustomed to that, to the point at which sometimes even I have to stop and remind myself that I am making choices, even when I do not seem to be. Every indrawn breath is a choice.

Be damned for a ram as deeply as a lamb.

Jonge mensen schijnen er altijd van overtuigd te zijn dat er later meer tijd zal komen,' merkte Burrich op.

When you cut pieces from the truth to avoid sounding like a fool, you end up sounding like a moron instead." I have discovered that to

Why hadn't he realized that the first ones to kill were the ones closest to you, the ones who knew you best? It was the only way to eliminate the threat to yourself. What was the sense of killing a stranger? Strangers had small interest in hurting you. That was always done best by your family and friends.

You take refuge in the bully's first strength: what you can destroy.

El arte de la diplomacia consiste en tener la suerte de conocer más secretos de tu rival que este de ti. Actúa siempre desde una posición ventajosa. Estas eran las máximas de Artimañas. Y Veraz las acataba.

no man can truly imagine being happy, and that's why happiness isn't for sale here.

I will always choose to believe you first. So it is your serious responsibility to be righteous in what you do.

You can't go back," she told him bluntly. Her voice was neither kind nor unkind. "That part of your life is over. Set it aside as something you have finished. Complete or no, it is done with you. No being gets to decide what his life is 'supposed to be.

We cannot put old heads on young shoulders.

A fatalistic patience came over me. I set out the breakfast things as she dressed. I knew I reached my decision. It was as if Hap's words last night had estinguished a candle inside me. My feelings for Starling had changed that completely. We sat at table together, and she tried to make all seem as it had before, but I kept thinking "this is probably the last time I'll watch how she swirls her tea to cool it, or how she waves her bread about as she talks'.

They all need the others to say, yes, yes, this is what we should be doing, it's worth the risk. And now that they've decided it, the decision is bigger than all of them. Not one of them could turn back on their own.

I could not make it right, but I could make someone pay for how wrong it had been.

Lost a fight?" he'd asked, still out of breath. "The fight isn't over until you win it, Fitz. That's all you have to remember. No matter what the other man thinks.

He would never trust to luck that his luck would not desert him. This convolution of logic pleased him.

They had to grow and change. He told me that if the happy ending of the tale was just a return to how things had been at the beginning, well, what was the point of writing that story at all?

You are ill? No. Just Stupid. Ah. Nothing new there. Well, you haven't died from that so far.

You'll do well, if you don't mire in self-pity. Self-pity only gets you more of the same. Don't waste time on it.

Something turned over in my heart.

Be content with your own life, my friend, and live it well. Let others decide for themselves what path they will follow." She frowned up at him. "Even when you see, with absolute clarity, that it is wrong for them? That they hurt themselves?" "Perhaps people have a right to their pain," he hazarded. Reluctantly he added, "Perhaps they even need it.

Nunca supe si Artimañas me había vendido a regio. Nunca se lo pregunté, ni siquiera compartí mis sospechas con Chade. Supongo que no quería saberlo. Intenté impedir que afectara mis lealtades. Pero en el fondo de mi corazón, cuando decía «mi rey» me refería a Veraz.

When people do not know the past, they make the same mistakes their forebears made