Robin Hobb Quotes

“Men cannot grieve as dogs do. But they grieve for many years.”
― Robin Hobb, Assassin's Apprentice

“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.”
― Robin Hobb, The Mad Ship

“No. This is right. I feel it. I am the Catalyst, and I came to change all things. Prophets become warriors, dragons hunt as wolves.”
― Robin Hobb

“That is one thing that in all my years among your folk I have never become accustomed to. The great importance that you attach to what gender one is.”
― Robin Hobb, Assassin's Quest

“I was the Fool and the Fool was me. He was the Catalyst and so was I. We were two halves of a whole, sundered and come together again. For an instant I knew him in his entirety, complete and magical, and then he was pulling apart from me, laughing, a bubble inside me, separate and unknowable, yet joined to me. "You do love me !" I was incredulous. He had never truly believed it before. "Before, it was words. I always feared it war born of pity. But you are truly my friend. This is knowing. This is feeling what you feel for me. So this is the Skill". For a moment he reveled in simple recognition.”
― Robin Hobb, Assassin's Quest

“I feared my own kind more than anything the natural world could ever threaten me with.”
― Robin Hobb, Assassin's Quest

“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

“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

“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, Royal Assassin

“You can wait a very long time for them to give you your freedom. Taking it might be faster.”
― Robin Hobb, Assassin's Fate

“This is philosophy, Fool. I have never had time to study such things.’ ‘No, Fitz, this is life. And no one has time not to think of such things. Each creature in the world should consider this thing, every moment of the heart’s beating. Otherwise, what is the point of arising each day?”
― Robin Hobb, Royal Assassin

“Here we do not believe in wasting time simply for the purpose of impressing others.”
― Robin Hobb, Ship of Destiny

“I know you think me foolish, but then, I am the Fool. You know then I must be Foolish.”
― Robin Hobb

“Dying is boring, Nighteyes observed.”
― Robin Hobb, Assassin's Fate

“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, Fool's Quest

“His lessons cautioned me that great events often hinged on small ones.
(Bee talking about the Fool)”
― Robin Hobb, Assassin's Fate

“Fa!” She gave me a nudge with her shoulder. “You talk as if some lord should come riding down from the keep and carry me off.” I thought of August with his stuffy manners, or Regal simpering at her. “Eda forbid. You’d be wasted on them. They wouldn’t have the wit to understand you, or the heart to appreciate you.” Molly looked down at her work-worn hands. “Who would, then?” she asked softly. Boys are fools. The conversation had grown and twined around us, my words coming as naturally as breathing to me. I had not intended any flattery, or subtle courtship. The sun was beginning to dip into the water, and we sat close by one another and the beach before us was like the world at our feet. If I had said at that moment, “I would, ” I think her heart would have tumbled into my awkward hands like ripe fruit from a tree. I think she might have kissed me, and sealed herself to me of her own free will. But I couldn’t grasp the immensity of what I suddenly knew I had come to feel for her. It drove the simple truth from my lips, and I sat dumb and half a moment later Smithy came, wet and sandy, barreling into us, so that Molly leaped to her feet to save her skirts, and the opportunity was lost forever, blown away like spray on the
wind.”
― Robin Hobb, Assassin's Apprentice

“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 anymore.”
― Robin Hobb, Fool's Fate

“Here was light, and flowers, and colours in profusion. There was a loom in the corner, and baskets of fine, thin thread in bright, bright hues. The woven coverlet on the bed, and the drapings on the open windows were unlike anything I had ever seen, woven in geometric patterns that somehow suggested fields of flowers beneath a blue sky. A wide pottery bowl held floating flowers and a slim silver fingerling swam about the stems and above the bright pebbles that floored it. I tried to imagine the pale cynical Fool in the midst of all this colour and art. I took a step further into the room, and saw something that moved my heart aside in my chest.
A baby. That was what I took it for at first, and without thinking, I took the next two steps and knelt beside the basket that cradled it. But it was not a living child, but a doll, crafted with such incredible art that almost I expected to see the small chest move with breath. I reached a hand to the pale, delicate face, but dared not touch it. The curve of the brow, the closed eyelids, the faint rose that suffused the tiny cheeks, even the small hand that rested on top of the coverlets were more perfect that I supposed a made thing could be. Of what delicate clay it had been crafted, I could not guess, nor what hand had inked the tiny eyelashes that curled on the infant’s cheek. The tiny coverlet was embroidered all over with pansies, and the pillow was of satin. I don’t know how long I knelt there, as silent as if it were truly a sleeping babe. But eventually I rose, and backed out of the Fool’s room, and then drew the door silently closed behind me.”
- Robin Hobb | Farseer Trilogy
Book 1 | Assassin’s Apprentice
Chapter Nineteen | Journey”
― Robin Hobb aka Megan Lindholm