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

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.

One does not have to be Witted to know the companionship of a beast, and to know that the friendship of an animal is every bit as rich and complicated as that of a man or woman.

You never miss the water until the well runs dry.

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

All cats talk however they want. To whomever they want. But only a rude human speaks out of turn. Be quiet.

A while later, I lingered in the hinterlands of sleep. Sometimes I think there is more rest in that place between wakefulness and sleep than there is in true sleep. The mind walks in the twilight of both states, and finds the truths that are hidden alike by daylight and dreams. Things we are not ready to know abide in that place, awaiting that unguarded frame of mind.

Dragons don't bother with introductions.

Only my pain is more silent than my anger.

It is an odd language, yours. You speak of passing time as in the Mountains we speak of passing wind. As if it were a thing to be gotten rid of.

To every creature is given both a place and a time, and when that time is over, we have to let them go.

Perhaps once one realised how deeply one could bond with a creature as foreign as a dragon, all forms of human love seemed more acceptable.

In the dead of night I stirred. Wakefulness flowed back into me. I was a cup full of sorrow, but that sorrow was stilled, like a pain that abates as long as one does not move.

Doing something stupid and reckless is not a better proof of your love than doing something measured and powerful.

A manner of speaking becomes a manner of thinking.

My mother had told me to never be afraid to apologize when I was wrong. She had said it would have saved her and my father a great deal of trouble if they had only followed that rule. Then she had sighed, and added that I must never think that an apology could completely erase what I had done or said. Still, it was worth trying.

I do not know whom I wish to win; until I do, I will let no player be eliminated.

For, "Yes," he had sighed on his dying breath, and all knew that was the ultimate prayer one could offer to life.

Ah, Catylast, can it be that you do not see all the changes you have made? Some by your resignation and acceptance of circumstance, some by your wild struggles. You say that you hate change, but you *are* change. The Fool in Fool's Fate

Truth can well out of a man like blood from a wound, and it can be just as disconcerting to look at.

Sharpening your knife is never a waste of time.

And tomorrow we'll do the same again. And again. Until one day you get up and find out that whatever it was didn't kill you after all.

Strangers had small interest in hurting you. That was always done best by your own family and friends.

Because your heart will be hammered against him, and your strength will be tempered in his fire.