Quotes from Fool's Fate

“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, quote from Fool's Fate

“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, quote from Fool's Fate

“I told you I set no limits on my love for you. I don't. Yet I have never expected you to offer me your body. It was the whole of your heart, all for myself, that I sought. Even though I've never had a right to it. For you gave it away ere ever you saw me.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Fool's Fate

“Sometimes it seems unfair that events so old can reach forward through the years, sinking claws into one's life and twisting all that follows it. Yet perhaps that is the ultimate justice: we are the sum of all we have done added to the sum of all that has been done to us. There is no escaping that, not for any of us.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Fool's Fate

“What a man can take with a sword, a woman can give by her flesh alone. Life.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Fool's Fate

“When people look most vicious, what you are seeing is not their animal side. It is the savagery that only humans can muster.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Fool's Fate

“Ah, Beloved. Of all the things I must bid farewell to, you are the most difficult to lose. Forgive me that I have avoided you. Better, perhaps, that we make a space between us and become accustomed to it before fate forces that upon us.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Fool's Fate

“the greatest danger is always the one we are ignorant of.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Fool's Fate

“Every small, unselfish action nudges the world into a better path. An accumulation of small acts can change the world.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Fool's Fate

“Sometimes it seemed to me a cruelty that so much was unresolved between us; at other times, a blessing that a hope of reunion lingered.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Fool's Fate

“All of life, I wanted to tell him, is in our minds. Where else does it take place, where else do we add up what it means to us and subtract what we have lost? An event is just an event until some person attaches meaning to it.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Fool's Fate

“When you see me loyal to my family, then you see the wolf.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Fool's Fate

“He smiled, and reminded me that no man could make time, but only use that which he was given wisely.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Fool's Fate

“For, "Yes," he had sighed on his dying breath, and all knew that was the ultimate prayer one could offer to life.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Fool's Fate

“There are always choices. But sometimes there are no good ones.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Fool's Fate

“Name it as you will, claim it as you will, the world does not belong to men. Men belong to the world. You will not own the earth that eventually your body will become, nor will it recall the name it once answered to.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Fool's Fate

“when you let go and follow your fate instead of trying to twist your life around and master it, a man finds that happiness follows him.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Fool's Fate

“Maybe you have to keep your pain and loss to know that you can survive whatever life deals you. Perhaps without putting your pain in its place in your life, you became something of a coward.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Fool's Fate

“I tried to unbelieve that it had happened, to force time back by sheer effort of will.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Fool's Fate

“in your conceit and aggression, you wage wars and slay one another over the lines you have imagined on the world’s face.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Fool's Fate

“Every small, unselfish action nudges the world into a better path.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Fool's Fate

“Now, anyone with two thoughts in their mind can see that no future is set in stone. An infinite number of futures bud at the end of every moment, and each one of them can be changed by a falling rose petal.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Fool's Fate

“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, quote from Fool's Fate

“A small pebble can turn a wheel out of its path, he told me, but warned me that it was seldom a pleasant experience for the pebble.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Fool's Fate

“Ours was a ragged and uneven parting. Each of us had intended to see the other again. Each of us had had final words to say. My days with the Fool ended like a half-played game of Stones, the outcome poised and uncertain, possibilities hovering. Sometimes it seemed to me a cruelty that so much was unresolved between us; at other times, a blessing that a hope of reunion lingered. It is like the anticipation that a clever minstrel evokes when he pauses, letting silence pool before sweeping into the final refrain of his song. Sometimes a gap can seem like a promise yet to be fulfilled.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Fool's Fate

“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, quote from Fool's Fate

“Seldom can one hate a person if one understand that person.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Fool's Fate

“Her stillness was such a contrast to all the jumbled communication inside me that I suddenly felt what a tiresome fellow I was, always filling the air with the rattle of words and anxieties.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Fool's Fate

“From their midst a broad-shouldered man stepped forth, past Longwick, who tried vainly to motion him back. He ran three strides toward me, and I took a deep, unbelieving breath of his scent just before he enfolded me in a bear hug. Despite the pain to my shoulder, I didn't struggle. I dropped my head on his shoulder, and let him support me, feeling safer than I had in years. Suddenly, it seemed as if everything would be all right, as if everything could be mended. Heart of the Pack was here and he never let us come to harm.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Fool's Fate

About the author

Popular quotes

“At my age, if I make it up, it's still an old saying.”
― Robert Jordan, quote from The Fires of Heaven

“The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers. I could regard them in no other light than a band of successful robbers, who had left their homes, and gone to Africa, and stolen us from our homes, and in a strange land reduced us to slavery. I loathed them as being the meanest as well as the most wicked of men. As I read and contemplated the subject, behold! that very discontentment which Master Hugh had predicted would follow my learning to read had already come, to torment and sting my soul to unutterable anguish. As I writhed under it, I would at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing. It had given me a view of my wretched condition, without the remedy. it opened my eyes to the horrible pit, but to no ladder upon which to get out. in moments of agony, I envied my fellow-slaves for their stupidity. I have often wished myself a beast. I preferred the condition of the meanest reptile to my own. Any thing, no matter what, to get rid of thinking! It was this everlasting thinking of my condition that tormented me. There was no getting rid of it. It was pressed upon me by every object within sight or hearing, animate or inanimate. The silver trump of freedom had roused my soul to eternal wakefulness. Freedom now appeared, to disappear no more forever. It was heard in every sound and seen in every thing. It was ever present to torment me with a sense of my wretched condition. I saw nothing without seeing it, I heard nothing without hearing it, and felt nothing without feeling it. It looked from every star, it smiled in every calm, breathed in every wind, and moved in every storm.”
― Frederick Douglass, quote from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

“The Law is supposed to keep us safe and strong and able to birth healthy children, yet the Law wants us to tear each other apart to find a leader. The Law's a bunch of hypocrisy.”
― Annette Curtis Klause, quote from Blood and Chocolate

“As usual, cats and children noticed him first.”
― Andrzej Sapkowski, quote from The Last Wish

“He held her close and hard and inside himself he said goodbye and then goodbye and goodbye.”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from The Garden of Eden

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.