Hobb Quotes & Sayings

Life is not a race to restore a past situation. Nor does one have to hurry to meet the future. Seeing how things change is what makes life interesting. — Robin Hobb

I ate, boy. Early this morning. Some awful fish soup. The cooks should be hanged for that. No one should face fish first thing in the morning. — Robin Hobb

It's a change, and I don't like changes, especially changes I don't understand.'
'Life is change,' the Fool observed lacidly. 'And death is an even greater change. I think we must resign ourselves to change, Fitz.'
'I'm tired of resigning myself to things. My entire life has been one long resignation. — Robin Hobb

Do not pull back from the pain and imagine that makes you strong. Look at it, you dolt! It is trying to tell you what is wrong so you can fix it. — Robin Hobb

The hand that once wielded both sword and axe now aches after an evening of the quill. When I wipe the tip of one clean, I often wonder how many buckets of ink I have used in a lifetime. How many words have I set down on paper or vellum, thinking to trap the truth thereby? And of those words, how many have I myself consigned to the flames as worthless and wrong? I do as I have done so many times. I write, I sand the wet ink, I consider my own words. Then I burn them. Perhaps when I do so, the truth goes up the chimney as smoke. Is it destroyed, or set free in the world? I do not know. I — Robin Hobb

Make a lap. Near the fire. The assertive little voice rang in my mind. I looked down at him and he looked up at me. For an instant, our gazes brushed, then we both looked aside in instinctive courtesy. But he had already seen the ruins of my soul. He rubbed his cheek against my leg. Hold the cat. You'll feel better. I don't think so. He rubbed against my leg insistently. Hold the cat. I don't want to hold the cat. He reared up suddenly on his hind legs, and hooked his vicious little front claws into both flesh and leggings. Don't talk back! Pick up the cat. — Robin Hobb

Much discomfort was based on human expectations. As a man, I expected to be warm and dry when I chose to be. Animals did not harbor any such beliefs. So it was raining. That part of me that was wolf could accept that. Rain meant being cold and wet. Once I acknowledged that and stopped comparing it to what I wished it to be, the conditions were far more tolerable. — 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

The forest had retreated. I could see farm cottages where once there had been only sheep pastures, pastures where there had been forest, and stumplands beyond that. My heart sank; once we had hunted there, my wolf and I, where now sheep pastured. The world had to change and for some reason the prosperity of men always results in them taking ever more from wild creatures and places. Foolish, perhaps, to feel that pang of regret for what was gone, and perhaps it was only felt by those who straddled the worlds of humans and beasts. — Robin Hobb

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

Wide gape the gates of yellowed bone. A tongue of plank is our path between the teeth as we walk toward the gullet. Here I will be devoured. This is a true thing, near unavoidable on any path. I must enter those jaws. — Robin Hobb

Somewhere in the back of my mind, Nighteyes was frantic. 'Poisoned. That water is poisoned.' I couldn't frame a thought to reassure him. — Robin Hobb

Any human who dared to attack a dragon deserved to die himself. And dead, of what use was he, unless someone ate him? She didn't see why leaving a human to be eaten by worms was more acceptable. — Robin Hobb

Bee, I will always choose to believe you first. So it is your serious responsibility to be righteous in what you do. It is the pact that must exist between us. — Robin Hobb

The separate parts of my life became like beads and I the string that ran through them all. I believe if I had ever paused to consider the intricacy of all I did to keep those parts separate, I would have found it impossible. But I was young then, much younger than I suspected, and somehow I found the energy and time to do and be it all. — Robin Hobb

If I gave Bee to Riddle and Nettle, I could undertake the Fool's vengeance. That traitorous thought made me want to vomit. — Robin Hobb

Despite my pain, I felt not the regret of an ending, but the foreboding of a beginning. — Robin Hobb

One had a knife. But I had a staff and was trained to use it. — Robin Hobb

We are as we are. How can you claim to know what life I was meant to lead, let alone threaten to force me into it? All your quibbling is nonsense. As well forbid your nose to snuff, or your ears to hear. We are as we do. — Robin Hobb

She is, Althea thought uneasily, what I pretend to be: a woman who does not let her sex deter her from living as she pleases. — Robin Hobb

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

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

It was possible to be homesick for a time, and to be lonely for the only other person who could recall it. — Robin Hobb

Name it as you will, claim it as you will, the world does not belong to men. Men belong to the world. — Robin Hobb

With the Wit, one is aware of all the life that surrounds one. It was not just the warmth of the mare nearby that I sensed. I knew the scintillant forms of the myriad insects that populated the grasses, and felt even the shadowy life force of the great oak that lifted its limbs between the moon and me. Just up the hillside, a rabbit crouched motionless in the summer grasses. I felt its indistinct presence, not as a piece of life located in a certain place, but as one sometimes hears a single voice's note within a market's roar. But above all, I felt a physical kinship with all that lived in the world. I had a right to be here. I was as much a part of this summer night as the insects or the water purling past my feet. I think that old magic draws much of its strength from that acknowledgment: that we are a part of that world, no more, but certainly no less than the rabbit."
p. 129 — Robin Hobb

Burned over water. — Robin Hobb

For six nights, this nightmare has howled through my sleep, a dire warning. — Robin Hobb

In that last dance of chances I shall partner you no more. I shall watch another turn you As you move across the floor. In that last dance of chances When I bid your life goodbye I will hope she treats you kindly. I will hope you learn to fly. In that last dance of chances When I know you'll not be mine I will let you go with longing And the hope that you'll be fine. In that last dance of chances We shall know each other's minds. We shall part with our regrets When the tie no longer binds. — Robin Hobb

Burrich the Stablemaster, the man who raised me, once warned me, "When you cut pieces from the truth to avoid sounding like a fool, you end up sounding like a moron instead." I — Robin Hobb

There is always power in holding a secret. — Robin Hobb

Utter loneliness was planted in me then, and sent its deep roots down into me. — Robin Hobb

Don't do what you can't undo, until you've considered what you can't do once you've done it. — Robin Hobb

Keeping a child from harm is not the same as rearing one. — Robin Hobb

There's something stalking us. Off to the side of the road, moving through the forest.'

Kettricken smiled. — 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

A great part of what unmanned me was distress at the destruction of my own body. It was odd to realise that I had an emotional attachment to my own flesh. My deep desire to keep it functioning well surpassed simple avoidance of pain. A man takes pride in his body. When it is damaged, it is more than a physical thing. — Robin Hobb

Never do what you can't undo until you've considered well what you can't do once you've done it. — Robin Hobb

She was a dragon, not a mindless mud salamander. — Robin Hobb

As you will, King Fitz. — 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. — Robin Hobb

The art of diplomacy is the luck of knowing more of your rival's secrets than he knows of yours. — Robin Hobb

Her anger was hard for me to bear, but weeping would have been worse."
p. 513 — Robin Hobb

He reaches forward slowly, to lift the pen from my lax grip. Wearily I regard the faltering trail of ink it has tracked down my page. I have seen that shape before, I think, but it was not ink then. A trickle of drying blood on the deck of a Red-Ship, and mine the hand that spilled it? Or was it a tendril of smoke rising black against a blue sky as I rode too late to warn a village of a Red-Ship raid? Or poison swirling and unfurling yellowly in a simple glass of water, poison I had handed someone, smiling all the while? The artless curl of a strand of woman's hair left upon my pillow? Or the trail of a man's heels left in the sand as we dragged the bodies from the smoldering tower at Sealbay? The track of a tear down a mother's cheek as she clutched her Forged infant to her despite his angry cries? Like Red-Ships, the memories come without warning, without mercy. — Robin Hobb

Remember with your heart. Go back, go back and go back. The skies of this world were always meant to have dragons. When they are not here, humans miss them. Some never think of them, of course. But some children, from the time they are small, they look up at the blue summer sky and watch for something that never comes. Because they know. Something that was supposed to be there faded and vanished. Something that we must bring back, you and I. — Robin Hobb

Never pretend we are anything but what we are. Assassins. — Robin Hobb

much that would affect their attitude toward our quest? — Robin Hobb

When you cut pieces out of the truth to avoid looking like a fool you end up looking like a moron instead. — Robin Hobb

No man is so dangerous as the man who cannot decide what he fears. — Robin Hobb

Love is more than bedding, boy. If love doesn't come first and linger after, if love can't wait and endure disappointment and separation, then it's not love. Love doesn't require bedding to make it true. It doesn't even demand day-to-day contact. I know this because I have known love, many kinds of love, and amongst them, I've know what I felt for you. — 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

Long or short, if you worry about every step of a journey, you will divide it endlessly into pieces, any one of which may defeat you. Look only to the end. — Robin Hobb

Wait for you? Not likely. I've always had to run ahead of you and show you the way. — Robin Hobb

When circumstances are right, unlikely people do extraordinary things. — Robin Hobb

I wonder if I can write this history, or if on every page there will be some sneaking show of a bitterness I thought long dead. I think myself cured of all spite, but when I touch pen to paper, the hurt of a boy bleeds out with the sea-spawned ink, until I suspect each carefully formed black letter scabs over some ancient scarlet wound. — Robin Hobb

She thinks you will succeed. But whether you will know you have succeeded, or if the success will be the one you would have chosen for yourself, well, those are things no one can say now. But she knows you will succeed at whatever you are meant to do."
p.613: Paragon to Brashen (about Mother) — 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

Malta," he said, and smiled. "Possibly the most annoying young female I've ever encountered. Yet lovely. I named a horse after her. Do you remember? — 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

Sometimes thanking someone is more important to the person giving the thanks than the one who receives it. — Robin Hobb

I think I made a better boy than I do a man, I admitted ruefully to the wolf.
Why not wait until you've been at it a bit longer and then decide? he suggested. — Robin Hobb

Why should not a mother say to herself, if I raise this child aright, if I love and care for her, she shall live a life that brings joy to those about her, and thus I have changed the world? Why should not the farmer that plants a seed say to his neighbor, this seed I plant today will feed someone, and that is how I change the world today? — Robin Hobb

My perception of my life crashed from high tragedy to juvenile self-pity in a matter of moments. — 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

I think ever since I started to read, there have been favorite novels for different stages of my life. And one is never bumped out of place to yield to another. Instead, I just add to my favorite shelves. — Robin Hobb

When the mainstay of one's world is taken away, it's only natural to cling to all the rest, to try desperately to keep things as close to the way they were as one can." He shook his head sorrowfully. "But no one can ever go back to yesterday. — Robin Hobb

You earn your future, Malta Vestrit." The bead-maker cocked her head at her. "What does tomorrow owe you?" "Tomorrow owes me?" Malta repeated in confusion.
"Tomorrow owes you the sum of your yesterdays. No more than that." Amber looked out to sea again. "And no less. Sometimes folk wish tomorrow did not pay them off so completely. — Robin Hobb

I am a minstrel. I know more about lying than you will ever discover. And minstrels know that sometimes lies are what a man needs most. In order to make a new truth of them. — Robin Hobb

It was all so meaningless when I looked at it that way. It was meaningless in the same way as when I stood up from a game and then looked down on the scatter of playing pieces, and realized that they all were just bits of polished stone on a wooden board marked with squares. All the meaning they'd had moments before when I'd been trying to win a game were meanings that I'd imbued them with. Of themselves, neither they nor the board had any significance. — Robin Hobb

And for that rush of fury? Time. Time passing with no one trying to hurt you or kill you will lessen that reaction. — Robin Hobb

It doesn't have to be that bad,' Chade said quietly. 'Most prisons are of our own making. A man makes his own freedom, too. — Robin Hobb

Not all men are destined for greatness," I reminded him. "Are you sure, Fitz? Are you sure? What good is a life lived as if it made no difference at all to the great life of the world? A sadder thing I cannot imagine. Why should not a mother say to herself, if I raise this child aright, if I love and care for her, she shall live a life that brings joy to those about her, and thus I have changed the world? Why should not the farmer that plants a seed say to his neighbor, this seed I plant today will feed someone, and that is how I changed the world today? — Robin Hobb

A wise old man taught me that diplomacy is the velvet glove that cloaks the fist of power. Persuasion, not force, works best and lasts longest. — Robin Hobb

I felt a familiar squeezing in what I thought must be my heart. I had heard of being "heartbroken" or "heavy-hearted" but I had never known it was an actual sensation one felt when the whole world abandons you. — Robin Hobb

Death is always less painful and easier than life! You speak true. And yet we do not, day to day, choose death. Because ultimately, death is not the opposite of life, but the opposite of choice. Death is what you get when there are no choices left to make. Am I right? — Robin Hobb

From these fragmented remains, one can glean that sore need drove him to seek the homeland of the Elderlings. His troubles are familiar ones; ships raided his coastline mercilessly. — Robin Hobb

When both my editors say 'This is really bad, you need to change this,' I ignore that at my peril. — Robin Hobb

All this guilt and shame and remorse you carry, Kestrel. Don't you see? That is what they burned you with. And you have added to it, all these years. The wall is of your own making. Take it down. Forgive yourself. Come out. — 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

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 — Robin Hobb

Suddenly, everything was easy and clear. I simply did whatever Chade told me to do, and trusted to him to have it turn out right. My spirit rode high on the crest of that wave of faith, and sometime during the night it occurred to me: this was what Burrich had had from Chivalry, and what he missed so badly. — Robin Hobb

I must talk to Kennit first. He will tell me when he is ready for us to have a baby."
"Never," Bolt said flatly.
"What?"
"Never wait for a male on any such decision. You are the queen. You decide. Males are not made for such decisions. I have seen it time and time again. They would have you wait for days of sunshine and wealth and plenty. Yet to a male, enough is never sufficient, and plenty never reached. A queen knows that when times are hardest and game most scarce, that is when one must care most about the continuance of the race. Some things are not for males to decide. — Robin Hobb

I tried to comfort him. I tried to tell him it might be chance, not destiny, that has put him here. Do you know what he said?"
"That there is no chance, only destiny."
Her hands paused. "How did you know?"
"It is one of the cornerstones of Sa's teachings. 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."
"It seems a burdensome teaching to me."
Kennit shook his head against the pillow. "If a man can believe it, then he can know he is as important as any other man. He can also know that he is no more important than any other is. It creates a vast equality of purpose."
p. 530: Etta to Kennit — Robin Hobb

And saw Nosy and I flee. — Robin Hobb

Everything she sang was true. I will leave it to you as to whether the truth can exist with details omitted, or if those lacks make a lie of it. — Robin Hobb

He created reality around himself, bringing order and peace to a small island of warm firelight and the simple smell of hearth bread cooking. — Robin Hobb

When she spoke his name, Beloved, he believed she meant it. He spoke of an adolescence I envied. Pampered, praised, educated . . . any child's dream. But we all awake from dreams. — Robin Hobb

Well,the fun part of being a writer is that it's like making a wonderful film, with no limit on my budget. I can design the sets, the costume, the lightings, I write the script, and then I get to perform all the roles as I step into each character's skin, zip up, and adopt that point of view. So, to me, they are all compelling and fascinating. — Robin Hobb

Passed through fire and plunged through salt water and offered to the winds of the air; thus were names sealed to these chosen children. — Robin Hobb

baffled at how he had released her. — Robin Hobb

Starling lowered her voice, but it carried anyway. "He is FitzChivalry, son of Chivalry the Abdicated. And you are the Fool."
"Once, perhaps, I was the Fool. It is common knowledge here in Jhaampe. But now I am the Toymaker. As I no longer use the other title, you may take it for yourself if you wish. As for Tom, I believe he takes the title Bed Bolster these days."
"I will be seeing the Queen about this."
"A wise decision. If you wish to become her Fool, she is certainly the one you must see. But for now, let me show you something else. No, step back, please, so you can see it all. Here it comes." I heard the slam and the latch. "The outside of my door," the Fool announced gladly. "I painted it myself. Do you like it? — Robin Hobb

Very little worth knowing is taught by fear. — Robin Hobb

When you see me loyal to my family, then you see the wolf. — Robin Hobb

There is a dead spot in the night, that coldest, blackest time when the world has forgotten evening and dawn is not yet a promise. A time when it is far too early to arise, but so late that going to bed makes small sense. — Robin Hobb

Assassins take no pride in fighting fairly. We take pride in winning. — Robin Hobb

Perhaps having the courage to find a better path is having the courage to risk making new mistakes. — Robin Hobb

How could the whole world not be as broken as I was? — Robin Hobb

Silence keeps a secret. I understand.' I — Robin Hobb

The hunt for meat is best, but any hunt is always the hunt, and one is never more alive than during the hunt. — Robin Hobb

Some things may be learned from words on a page, but some skills are learned first by a man's hands and heart, and later by his head. — Robin Hobb