“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, quote from Ship of Destiny
“When you fear to fail, you fear something that has not happened yet. You predict your own failure, and by inaction, lock yourself into it.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Destiny
“Do you not see how strange and wonderful that is? That all history balances on an affair of the human heart?”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Destiny
“One does not need the size of a dragon to have the soul of a dragon.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Destiny
“Do you do this because you live such short lives? Tell yourselves wild tales of what might happen tomorrow, and feel all the feelings of events that will never happen? Perhaps to make up for the pasts you cannot recall, you invent futures that will not exist.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Destiny
“Silent," the carved wizardwood on his wrist breathed. "Silent as a blinded ship, floating hull-up in the sea. Silent as a scream underwater.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Destiny
“Too many folk, women and men, love the person they wish to be, as if by loving that person, or being loved by that person, they could attain the importance they long for.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Destiny
“Instead, we must focus on our hopes. If we cannot anchor ourselves in a belief that we will succeed, we have already been defeated.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Destiny
“... finally realizing that life was to be lived, rather than hoarded against an unseen tomorrow.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Destiny
“We were speaking of people living their dreams, and I said that few do, and even fewer enjoy the experience. For too many, when they get their dream, they discover it is not what they wanted. Or the dream is bigger than their abilities, and all ends in bitterness.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Destiny
“A manner of speaking becomes a manner of thinking.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Destiny
“Strangers had small interest in hurting you. That was always done best by your own family and friends.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Destiny
“Something clamped tight inside her suddenly eased. He had been right. She did not have to grip her pain. She could let it go. The memory was still there. It had not vanished, but it had changed. It was a memory, a thing from her past. This wound could close and heal. The injury done to her was over. She did not have to keep it as a part of herself. She could allow herself to heal. Her tears were diluted in the rain that ran down her face.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Destiny
“You can't play in shit and not get some on you.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Destiny
“Be content with you own life, my friend, and live it well. Let others decide for themselves what path they will follow.'
She frowned up at him. 'Even when you see, with absolute clarity, that is wrong for them? That they hurt themselves?'
'Perhaps people have a right to their pain,' he hazarded. Reluctantly he added, 'Perhaps they even need it.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Destiny
“There is no such thing as an extraordinary coincidence. There is only destiny.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Destiny
“It doesn't work that way. Silencing memories does not make them stop existing. Events cannot be undone by forgetting them.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Destiny
“Do you begrudge me that I am who I truly am? Should I pretend otherwise for the sake of pleasing you? If I did, it would be a lie. Would you rather love a lie than know me as I truly am?”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Destiny
“I can take all my pasts, keep them and determine my own future. I don't have to be what anyone made me, Brashen. I can be Paragon.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Destiny
“Such a storm of emotions as humans can evoke, all on the basis of imagination,” the dragon observed condescendingly. In a more reflective voice she asked, “Do you do this because you live such short lives? Tell yourselves wild tales of what might happen tomorrow, and feel all the feelings of events that will never happen? Perhaps to make up for the pasts you cannot recall, you invent futures that will not exist.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Destiny
“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, quote from Ship of Destiny
“Once she would have found him mysterious and alluring. She had grown wiser. Dangerous men were neither romantic nor exotic; they were men who could hurt you.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Destiny
“Why not break free now, and make Bingtown a place where folk begin anew, all men standing on an equal footing?"
"And all women, too."
She must be Sparse's daughter, thought Keffria. Even her voice echoed his in tone. Devouchet looked at her in surprise.
"It was but a manner of speaking, Ekke," he said mildly.
"A manner of speaking becomes a manner of thinking.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Destiny
“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, quote from Ship of Destiny
“Come, join your kin and lend strength to the weaker ones. Together, together, we journey, back to our beginnings and our endings. Gather, shore-born creatures of the sea, to return to the shores yet again. Bring your dreams of sky and wings; come to share the memories of our lives. Our time is come, our time is come. - She Who Remembers”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Destiny
“Why had Althea's crazed words affected Etta like this? Then the answer came to him: she was pregnant. Women always behaved strangely when they were pregnant.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Destiny
“So. Which of our troubles torments you most this evening?”
Althea surrendered. “They all nip at my heels like a pack of yapping feists, ship. I don’t know which to worry about first.”
The figurehead gave a snort of disdain. “Then kick them away as if they were truly a pack of curs and fix your gaze instead on your destiny.” … “Don’t think about the obstacles” … The ship spoke in a low, soft voice. “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.”
“I think we will succeed only if we prepare ourselves,” Althea objected.
Paragon shook his head. “Teach yourself to believe you will succeed. … Be now what you must be to succeed at the end of your journey, and when the end comes, you will find it is just another beginning.”
Althea sighed. “Now you sound like Amber,” she complained.
“No.” He contradicted her flatly. “Now I sound like myself. The self I put aside and hid, the self I intended to be again someday, when I was ready. I have stopped intending. I am, now.”
p. 86: Paragon to Althea”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Destiny
“She could be shaped by her past without being trapped by it"
p. 283”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Destiny
“I don't think they're coming. Why must I stand here in the wind and rain?'
'Because it pleases me', Kennit snapped at him.
Wintrow thought to intervene. 'You can have my cloak, if you like'. he offered.
The Satrap scowled. 'It's dripping wet. What good would that do me?'
'You could be wetter', Kennit snarled.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Destiny
“Don't go mooning after the stars, when the wide sea is all around you. It's a sky of its own, you know.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Destiny
Robin Hobb
Born place: in California, The United States
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“Serious fans always need to feel uniquely connected to the object of their fandom; they jealously guard those points of connection, however tiny or imaginary, that justify the feeling of uniqueness.”
― Jonathan Franzen, quote from Freedom
“Returning from a hunting trip, Orde-Lees, traveling on skis across the rotting surface of the ice, had just about reached camp when an evil, knoblike head burst out of the water just in front of him. He turned and fled, pushing as hard as he could with his ski poles and shouting for Wild to bring his rifle. The animal—a sea leopard—sprang out of the water and came after him, bounding across the ice with the peculiar rocking-horse gait of a seal on land. The beast looked like a small dinosaur, with a long, serpentine neck. After a half-dozen leaps, the sea leopard had almost caught up with Orde-Lees when it unaccountably wheeled and plunged again into the water. By then, Orde-Lees had nearly reached the opposite side of the floe; he was about to cross to safe ice when the sea leopard’s head exploded out of the water directly ahead of him. The animal had tracked his shadow across the ice. It made a savage lunge for Orde-Lees with its mouth open, revealing an enormous array of sawlike teeth. Orde-Lees’ shouts for help rose to screams and he turned and raced away from his attacker. The animal leaped out of the water again in pursuit just as Wild arrived with his rifle. The sea leopard spotted Wild, and turned to attack him. Wild dropped to one knee and fired again and again at the onrushing beast. It was less than 30 feet away when it finally dropped. Two dog teams were required to bring the carcass into camp. It measured 12 feet long, and they estimated its weight at about 1,100 pounds. It was a predatory species of seal, and resembled a leopard only in its spotted coat—and its disposition. When it was butchered, balls of hair 2 and 3 inches in diameter were found in its stomach—the remains of crabeater seals it had eaten. The sea leopard’s jawbone, which measured nearly 9 inches across, was given to Orde-Lees as a souvenir of his encounter. In his diary that night, Worsley observed: “A man on foot in soft, deep snow and unarmed would not have a chance against such an animal as they almost bound along with a rearing, undulating motion at least five miles an hour. They attack without provocation, looking on man as a penguin or seal.”
― quote from Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage
“I can't forgive you," she said. "I can't.”
― George R.R. Martin, quote from A Storm of Swords: Blood and Gold
“In the next room, a very nice young lady, who happened to be completely naked, wanted me to tell her anything I could possibly remember about my seventh birthday party.”
― John Scalzi, quote from Old Man's War
“Night, in which everything was lost, went reaching out, beyond stars and sun. Stars and sun, a few bright grains, went spiraling round for terror, and holding each other in embrace, there in a darkness that outpassed them all, and left them tiny and daunted. So much, and himself, infinitesimal, at the core of nothingness, and yet not nothing.”
― D.H. Lawrence, quote from Sons and Lovers
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Red Notice: A True S...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.
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