“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
See more on GoodReads
“Do you see the Field of Mars, where I walked next to my bride in her white wedding dress, with red sandals in her hands, when we were kids?”
“I see it well.”
“We spent all our days afraid it was too good to be true, Tatiana,” said Alexander. “We were always afraid all we had was a borrowed five minutes from now.”
Her hands went on his face. “That’s all any of us ever has, my love,” she said. “And it all flies by.”
“Yes,” he said, looking at her, at the desert, covered coral and yellow with golden eye and globe mallow. “But what a five minutes it’s been.”
― Paullina Simons, quote from The Summer Garden
“I s’pose you know—though I can see you’re a Westerner by your talk—what a lot our New England ships used to have to do with queer ports in Africa, Asia, the South Seas, and everywhere else, and what queer kinds of people they sometimes brought back with ’em. You’ve probably heard about the Salem man that came home with a Chinese wife, and maybe you know there’s still a bunch of Fiji Islanders somewhere around Cape Cod.”
― H.P. Lovecraft, quote from The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories
“When did they stop putting toys in cereal boxes? When I was little, I remember wandering the cereal aisle (which surely is as American a phenomenon as fireworks on the Fourth of July) and picking my breakfast food based on what the reward was: a Frisbee with the Trix rabbit's face emblazoned on the front. Holographic stickers with the Lucky Charms leprechaun. A mystery decoder wheel. I could suffer through raisin bran for a month if it meant I got a magic ring at the end.
I cannot admit this out loud. In the first place, we are expected to be supermoms these days, instead of admitting that we have flaws. It is tempting to believe that all mothers wake up feeling fresh every morning, never raise their voices, only cook with organic food, and are equally at ease with the CEO and the PTA.
Here's a secret: those mothers don't exist. Most of us-even if we'd never confess-are suffering through the raisin bran in the hopes of a glimpse of that magic ring.
I look very good on paper. I have a family, and I write a newspaper column. In real life, I have to pick superglue out of the carpet, rarely remember to defrost for dinner, and plan to have BECAUSE I SAID SO engraved on my tombstone.
Real mothers wonder why experts who write for Parents and Good Housekeeping-and, dare I say it, the Burlington Free Press-seem to have their acts together all the time when they themselves can barely keep their heads above the stormy seas of parenthood.
Real mothers don't just listen with humble embarrassment to the elderly lady who offers unsolicited advice in the checkout line when a child is throwing a tantrum. We take the child, dump him in the lady's car, and say, "Great. Maybe YOU can do a better job."
Real mothers know that it's okay to eat cold pizza for breakfast.
Real mothers admit it is easier to fail at this job than to succeed.
If parenting is the box of raisin bran, then real mothers know the ratio of flakes to fun is severely imbalanced. For every moment that your child confides in you, or tells you he loves you, or does something unprompted to protect his brother that you happen to witness, there are many more moments of chaos, error, and self-doubt.
Real mothers may not speak the heresy, but they sometimes secretly wish they'd chosen something for breakfast other than this endless cereal.
Real mothers worry that other mothers will find that magic ring, whereas they'll be looking and looking for ages.
Rest easy, real mothers. The very fact that you worry about being a good mom means that you already are one.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from House Rules
“Don't worry, kid." Blitz brought out the silken cord. "This rope can't be weakened. And Hearthstone's right. We might as well tie it to one another for safety."
"That way if we fall," Sam said, "We'll fall together."
"Sold," I said, trying to tamp down my anxiety. "I love dying with friends.”
― Rick Riordan, quote from The Sword of Summer
“I shoved him. "Kishan. Kishan! Wake up!"
He woke only halfway and pulled me closer. "Shh, go back to sleep. It's not morning yet."
"Yes, it is morning." I pushed against his ribs. "Time to wake up. Come on!"
"Okay, honey, but how about a kiss first? A man needs some motivation to get out of bed."
"That kind of motivation keeps a man in bed. I'm not kissing you. Now get up.”
― Colleen Houck, quote from Tiger's Quest
Retribution Falls
Prom & Prejudice
The Lost Saint
Liar's Poker
Briar Rose
Death: The High Cost...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.
