Quotes by 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...”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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 ...”

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

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

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

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

“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.”

“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 ...”

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

“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.”

“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...”

“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 late...”

“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?”

“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...”

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

“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 yo...”

“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 whe...”