168 Quotes & Sayings By Robin Hobb

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 about 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, the messiness, and the inconvenience of doing what is right. Robin Hobb

That is the challenge Companion. To take what has happened to you and learn from it. Nothing is quite so destructive as pity, especially self-pity. No event in life is so terrible that one cannot rise above it. Robin Hobb

The second thing you have to do to be a writer is to keep on writing. Don't listen to people who tell you that very few people get published and you won't be one of them. Don't listen to your friend who says you are better that Tolkien and don't have to try any more. Keep writing, keep faith in the idea that you have unique stories to tell, and tell them. I meet far too many people who are going to be writers 'someday.' When they are out of high school, when they've finished college, after the wedding, when the kids are older, after I retire . That is such a trap You will never have any more free time than you do right now. So, whether you are 12 or 70, you should sit down today and start being a writer if that is what you want to do. You might have to write on a notebook while your kids are playing on the swings or write in your car on your coffee break. That's okay. I think we've all 'been there, done that.' It all starts with the writing. Robin Hobb

As I apologized to her a flicker of panic raced through me and then faded away. There wasn't enough life left in me to panic. I'd made a mistake and I was dying. Apparently not even a Speck afterlife was available to me. I'd simply stop being. Apparently I hadn't died correctly. Oops. Robin Hobb

The knowledge that he had left me with no intent ever to return had come over me in tiny droplets of realization spread over the years. And each droplet of comprehension brought its own small measure of hurt.. He had wished me well in finding my own fate to follow, and I never doubted his sincerity. But it had taken me years to accept that his absence in my life was a deliberate finality, an act he had chosen, a thing completed even as some part of my soul still dangled, waiting for his return. . Robin Hobb

The knowledge that he had left me with no intent ever to return had come over me in tiny droplets of realization spread over the years. And each droplet of comprehension brought its own small measure of hurt. 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. There is power in the keeping of a secret, and power in the revelation of a secret. Sometimes it takes a very wise man to discern which is the path to greater power. All men desirous of power should become collectors of secrets. There is no secret too small to be valuable. All men value their own secrets far above those of others. A scullery maid may be willing to betray a prince before allowing the name of her secret lover to be told. . Robin Hobb

I once knew of a minstrel who bragged of having had a thousand women, one time each. He would never know what I knew, that to have one woman a thousand times, and each time find in her a different delight, is far better. I knew now what gleamed in the eyes of old couples when they stared at each other across a room.. My familiarity with her was a more potent love elixir than any potion sold by a hedge-witch in the market. . Robin Hobb

The death of Nighteyes gutted me. I walked wounded through my life in the days that followed, unaware of just how mutilated I was. I was like the man who complains of the itching of his severed leg. The itching distracts from the immense knowledge that one will forever after hobble through life. Robin Hobb

You, " I surmised, and gestured round. "Thank you."" No, " he denied. His pale hair floated out from beneath his cap in a halo as he shook his head. "But I assisted. Thank you for bathing. It makes my task of checking on you less onerous. I'm glad you're awake. You snore abominably." I let this comment pass. "You've grown." I observed. "Yes. So have you. And you've been sick. And you slept quite a long time. And now you're awake and bathed and fed. You still look terrible. But you no longer smell. It's late afternoon now. Are there any other obvious facts you'd like to review? . Robin Hobb

But change proves that you are still alive. Change often measures our tolerance for folk different from ourselves. Can we accept their languages, their customs, their garments, and their foods into our own lives? If we can, then we form bonds, bonds that make wars less likely. If we cannot, if we believe that we must do things as we have always done them, then we must either fight to remain as we are, or die. Robin Hobb

...it's strange, isn't it, how you don't know how big a part of you someone is until they're threatened? And then you think you can't possibly go on if something happens to them, but the most frightening part is that, actually, you will go on, you'll have to go on, with them or without them. There's just no telling what you'll become Robin Hobb

Like a flower pressed flat and dried, we try to hold it still and say, this is exactly how it was the day I first saw it. But like the flower, the past cannot be trapped that way. It loses its fragrance and and its vitality, its fragility becomes brittleness and its colors fade. And when next you look on the flower, you know that it is not at all what you sought to capture, that that moment has fled forever. . Robin Hobb

He had wished me well in finding my own fate to follow, and I never doubted his sincerity. But it had taken me years to accept that his absence in my life was a deliberate finality, an act he had chosen, a thing completed even as some part of my soul still dangled, waiting for his return. That, I think, is the shock of any relationship ending. It is realizing that what is still an ongoing relationship to someone is, for the other person, something finished and done with. . Robin Hobb

She had come to letters late in her life, and though she had mastered them, they had never become her good friends. Robin Hobb

History is no more fixed and dead than the future. The past is no further away than the last breath you took. Robin Hobb

It is worse than useless to do things halfway Bee, for then you think the work is done, but someone must come behind you later to do it all over again. Even if you must work much harder and get less done, it is better to do the whole task the first time. Robin Hobb

I think that old magic draws much of its strength from that acknowledgment: that we are a part of that world. Robin Hobb

Humans could never accept the world as it was and live in it. They were always breaking it and living amongst the shattered pieces. Robin Hobb

He thought perhaps it was a woman's way, to come out of such a storm of emotion and pain as if she were a ship emerging onto calm seas. She had seemed, not at peace, but emptied of sorrow. As if she had run out of that particular emotion and no other one arose to take its place. Robin Hobb

He longed for cleanliness and tidiness: it was hard to find peace in the middle of disorder. Robin Hobb

Acceptance of what is. That is the shortest path to peace with yourself. Robin Hobb

There is nothing dishonorable about abandoning pain. Sometimes peace is most quickly found when a man simply stops avoiding it. Robin Hobb

Anticipating pain was like enduring it twice. Why not anticipate pleasure instead? Robin Hobb

Leave off sniffing the carcass of your old life-do you enjoy unending pain? There is no shame in walking away from bones. Nor is there any special wisdom in injuring oneself over and over. What is your loyalty to that pain? To abandon it will not lessen you. Robin Hobb

And the world re-ordered itself around me. I spoke each word carefully. 'You are so stupid. Robin Hobb

Had she learned to feel again, only to have to feel this? Could any amount of love ever be worth the pain of losing it? Robin Hobb

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. Robin Hobb

When 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. Robin Hobb

Leave old pains alone. When they cease coming to call, do not invite them back. Robin Hobb

Life is a balance. We tend to forget that as we go blithely from day to day. We eat and drink and sleep and assume we will always rise up the next day, that meals and rest will always replenish us. Injuries we expect to heal, and pain to lessen as time goes by. Even when we are faced with wounds that heal more slowly, with pain that lessens by day only to return in full force at nightfall, even when sleep does not leave us rested, we still expect that somehow tomorrow will all come back into balance and that we will go on. At some point, the exquisite balance has tipped, and despite all our flailing efforts, we begin the slow fall from the body that maintains itself to the body that struggles, nails clawing, to cling to what it used to be. Robin Hobb

It is the nature of human that we tend to pass our pain along. As if we could get rid of it by inflicting an equal hurt on someone else. Robin Hobb

Love isn't just about feeling sure of the other person, knowing what he would give up for you. It's knowing with certainty what you are willing to surrender for his sake. Make no mistake; each partner gives up something. Individual dreams are surrendered for a shared one. In some marriages, one partner gives up almost everything she once thought she wanted. But it's not always the woman who does so. Such sacrifice is not shameful. It's love. If you think the man is worth it, it works. Robin Hobb

Do you not see how strange and wonderful that is? That all history balances on an affair of the human heart? Robin Hobb

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

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

Some part of me knew that was important. That once it would have mattered terribly to me. Robin Hobb

For he was the Fool now, all of Lord Chance and Lady Amber and Lord Golden scraped away by sorrow. He was no one's Beloved now. Robin Hobb

...You won't even see what is put right on the table before you. Men. If it was raining soup you'd be out there with a fork. Robin Hobb

As dye soaks fibres, drawn into them to change their colour forever, so does a memory, stinging or sweet, change the fibre of a man’s character. Robin Hobb

Every small, unselfish action nudges the world into a better path. An accumulation of small acts can change the world. Robin Hobb

I was lonely, and a lonely heart has hungers that can overpower both common sense and dignity. Robin Hobb

The past is no further away than the last breath you took. 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. Robin Hobb

They were all gone now, broken or taken by people who had no idea what such items represented. Let them go. She held the past in her heart, with no need of physical items to tie it down. Robin Hobb

...there was no point in sighing after what I could not have. It only distracted me from what I did have. Robin Hobb

Why does the forbidden always add that edge of sweetness? Robin Hobb

If all of her was not enough for him, then let him have none of her and seek what he needed elsewhere. Robin Hobb

...some secrets beg to be betrayed. The secret of undeclared love is like that. Robin Hobb

...once students have been taught that learning is tedious, difficult, and useless, they will never learn another lesson. Robin Hobb

Stop longing. You poison today’s ease, reaching always for tomorrow. Robin Hobb

Perhaps there can be no thanks nor any blame, but only recognition of the forces that brought us and bound us to our inevitable fates. 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. Robin Hobb