Robin Hobb Quotes

Isn't it strange how wise counsel can cool the hottest head? He made sense but my heart screamed protest.

~ Robin Hobb

We were both smiling, in that bittersweet way one does when imagining something the heart longs for and the head would dread.

~ Robin Hobb

Men of passion and vision are often seen as mad.

~ Robin Hobb

I found myself speaking softly as if I were telling an old tale to a young child. And giving it a happy ending, when all know that tales never end, and the happy ending is but a moment to catch one’s breath before the next disaster. But I didn’t want to think about that. I didn’t want to wonder what would happen next.

~ Robin Hobb

It was as if I had been following a narrow trail, and had suddenly realized that at any time I could leave it and strike out cross-country.

~ Robin Hobb

Be very chary of telling your hoarded secrets. Many lose all power once they have been divulged.

~ Robin Hobb

Home is people. Not a place. If you go back there after the people are gone, then all you can see is what is not there any more.

~ Robin Hobb

I truly wanted to live a life in which I could make my own choices, independent of the 'duties' of my birth and position. It was only when fate granted that to me that I realized the cost of it. I could set aside my responsibilities to others and live my life as I please only when I also severed my ties to them. I could not have it both ways. To be part of a family, or any community, is to have duties and responsibilities, to be bound by the rules of that group.

~ Robin Hobb

There would always be dishonorable things done to preserve the honor of any power.

~ Robin Hobb

What is a secret? It is much more than knowledge shared with only a few, or perhaps only one another. It is power. It is a bond. It is a sign of deep trust, or the darkest threat possible.... Be very chary of revealing your hoarded secrets. Many lose all power once they have been divulged. Be even more careful of sharing your secrets lest you find yourself a puppet dancing on someone else's strings.

~ Robin Hobb

Suspense was an excellent tool for keeping powerful people off balance. It gave one bargaining power.

~ Robin Hobb

One way to disperse fear and create decision was to consider the worst possible outcome of one's actions.

~ Robin Hobb

There are always choices. But sometimes there are no good ones.

~ Robin Hobb

As much as I had always longed to be freed of my duties and obligations, being released from such bonds was as much a severing as an emancipation.

~ Robin Hobb

Refuse anxiety. When you borrow trouble against what might be, you neglect the moment you have now to enjoy. The man who worries about what will next be happening to him loses this moment in dread of the next with pre-judgement

~ Robin Hobb

There was a danger in asking too much of a child, but the danger of asking too little was almost equal.

~ Robin Hobb

I will always take your part, Bee. Right or wrong. That is why you must always take care to be right, lest you make your father a fool.

~ Robin Hobb

She had called herself a whore. That was a man's word, a shame-word flung at a woman. But she did not seem ashamed. She wielded the word like a sword, slicing away all his preconceptions of who she was. She had earned her living by her sex, and she did not seem to regret it.

~ Robin Hobb

You want a mate who will follow your dream. You don't want to give up your own ambitions to make someone else's life possible.''I supposed that's true,' Althea admitted reluctantly. An instant later she demanded, 'Why is that so wrong?''It isn't,' Amber assured her, A moment later she added wickedly, 'As long as you're male.

~ Robin Hobb

Why must it be one or the other?' she countered. 'You are both a capable seaman and the son of a Bingtown Trader. Why should not I have both sets of skill?

~ Robin Hobb

Be a little puppet on their strings. That was what Reyn wanted from her, also. She recognized that even if he did not. He was attracted to her not just for her beauty and charm, but because she was young. He thought he could control all her actions and even her thoughts.

~ Robin Hobb

For the weakest has but to try his strength to find it, and then he shall be strong.

~ Robin Hobb

I can see that you go through life athwart it. You see the flow of events, you are able to tell how you could most easily fit yourself into it. But you dare to oppose it. And why? Simply because you look at it and say, 'this fate does not suit me. I will not allow it to befall me.' Amber shook her head, but her small smile made it an affirmation. I have always admired people who can do that. So few do. Many, of course, will rant and rave against the garment fate has woven for them, but they pick it up and on it all the same, and most wear it to the end of their days. You... you would rather go naked into the storm.

~ Robin Hobb

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...'Be a man. Discover where you are now, and go on from there, making the best of things. Accept your life, and you might survive it. If you hold back from it, insisting this is not your life, not where you are meant to be, life will pass you by. You may not die from such foolishness, but you might as well be dead for all the good your life will do you or anyone else.

~ Robin Hobb

That destiny is not reserved for a few chosen ones. Each man has a destiny. Recognizing it and fulfilling it are the purpose of a man's life.

~ Robin Hobb

Many great ideas are not unique. They only become unique when the men who have the wherewithal actually to implement them come together.

~ Robin Hobb

One must plan for the future and anticipate the future without fearing the future.

~ Robin Hobb

There is no path to the future, Fitz. The path is now. Now is all there is, or ever will be. You can change perhaps the next breaths in your life. But after that, random chance seizes you in its jaws again. A tree falls on you, a spider bites your ankle, and all your grand plans for winning a battle are for naught. Now is what we have, Fitz, and now is where we act to stay alive.

~ Robin Hobb

If one bad thing befell me, I immediately linked it to every bad thing that had happened in the last week or might happen in the coming week. And when I became sad, I was prone to wallow in grief, piling up my woes and sprawling on them like a dragon on a hoard.

~ Robin Hobb

Fool, there is no sense in trying to play that game with the past. Here is where we are today, and we can only make our moves from here.

~ Robin Hobb

I lived my grief, I slept mourning and ate sorrow and drank tears. I ignored all else.

~ Robin Hobb

There are endings. There are beginnings. Sometimes they coincide, with the ending of one thing marking the beginning of another. But sometimes there is simply a long space after an ending, a time when it seems everything else has ended and nothing else can ever begin.

~ Robin Hobb

It's a fine day for a prayer. But then, most days are.''That's what you were doing? Praying?' At his nod, I asked, 'For what do you petition the gods?'He raised his brows. 'Petition?''Isn't that what prayer is? Begging the gods to give you what you want?'He laughed, his voice deep as a booming wind, but kinder. 'I suppose that is how some men pray. Not I. Not anymore.''What do you mean?''Oh, I think that children pray so, to find a lost doll or that Father will bring home a good haul of fish, or that no one will discover a forgotten chore. Children think they know what is best for themselves, and do not fear to ask the divine for it. But I have been a man for many years, and I should be shamed if I did not know better by now.'I eased my back into a more comfortable position against the railing. I suppose if you are used to the swaying of a ship, it might be restful. My muscles constantly fought against it, and I was beginning to ache in every limb. 'So. How does a man pray, then?'He looked on me with amusement, then levered himself down to sit beside me. 'Don't you know? How do you pray, then?''I don't.' And then I rethought, and laughed aloud. 'Unless I'm terrified. Then I suppose I pray as a child does. 'Get me out of this, and I'll never be so stupid again. Just let me live.'He laughed with me. 'Well, it looks as if, so far, your prayers have been granted. And have you kept your promise to the divine?'I shook my head, smiling ruefully. 'I'm afraid not. I just find a new direction to be foolish in.''Exactly. So do we all. Hence, I've learned I am not wise enough to ask the divine for anything.''So. How do you pray then, if you are not asking for something?''Ah. Well, prayer for me is more listening than asking. And, after all these years, I find I have but one prayer left. It has taken me a lifetime to find my prayer, and I think it is the same one that all men find, if they but ponder on it longer enough.

~ Robin Hobb

Back when he had first come to the monastery, they had given him a very simple ritual called Forgiving the Day. Even the youngest child could do this; all it required was looking back over the day and dismissing the day’s pains as a thing that were past while choosing to remember as gains lessons learned or moments of insight. As initiates grew in the ways of Sa, it was expected they would grow more sophisticated in this exercise, learning to balance the day, taking responsibility for their own actions and learning from them without indulging in either guilt or regrets.p. 240

~ Robin Hobb

Strange, how being left out of a secret always feels like a betrayal of trust.

~ Robin Hobb

To be part of a family, or any community, is to have duties and responsibility, to be bound by the rules of that group.

~ Robin Hobb

The days we shared I alone would remember now.I suddenly felt less real.

~ Robin Hobb

His absence seemed a solid thing, a burden I must carry in addition to my grief... Yet I knew I would continue to live. Sometimes that knowledge seemed the worst part of my loss.

~ Robin Hobb

Men cannot grieve as dogs do. But they grieve for many years.

~ Robin Hobb

I lied!' I spat my whisper at him. 'I knew you read my journal. I knew you read my dreams. I wrote there what I thought would hurt you most! I lied to hurt you. For letting him be dead while you lived. For being loved by him more than he loved me!' I took a breath. 'He loved you more than he ever loved any of the rest of us!

~ Robin Hobb