Quotes from Ship of Magic

“Look forward, not back. Correct your course and go on. You cannot undo yesterday's journey.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Magic

“For the weakest has but to try his strength to find it, and then he shall be strong.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Magic

“One must plan for the future and anticipate the future without fearing the future.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Magic

“What you are born to be, you will be, whether it be priest or sailor. So step up and be it. Let them do nothing to you. Be the one who shapes yourself. Be who you are, and eventually all will have to recognize who you are, whether they are willing to admit it or not.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Magic

“When you borrow trouble against what might be, you neglect the moment you have now to enjoy. The man who worries about what will next be happening to him loses this moment in dread of the next, and poisons the next with pre-judgment.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Magic

“Many will rant and rave against the garment fate has woven for them, but they pick it up and don it all the same, and most wear it to the end of their days. You... you would rather go naked into the storm.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Magic

“Only my pain is more silent than my anger.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Magic

“I bite my tongue and scowl my love, lest passion make me slave.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Magic

“Somehow," she said coldly, "you have confused profitable and not profitable for right and wrong. I, however, have not.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Magic

“As long as you believe it is impossible, you close your mind to understanding it.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Magic

“Refuse the anxiety. When you borrow trouble against what might be, you neglect the moment you have now to enjoy. The man who worries about what will next be happening to him loses this moment in dread of the next, and poisons the next with pre-judgment.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Magic

“I sleep like an old woman now, she thought to herself. In fits and starts. It isn’t sleeping and it isn’t waking and it isn’t rest.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Magic

“That no man can truly imagine being happy and that's why happiness isn't for sale here.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Magic

“I can see that you go through life athwart it. You see the flow of events, you are able to tell how you could most easily fit yourself into it. But you dare to oppose it. And why? Simply because you look at it and say, 'this fate does not suit me. I will not allow it to befall me.'" Amber shook her head, but her small smile made it an affirmation. "I have always admired people who can do that. So few do. Many, of course, will rant and rave against the garment fate has woven for them, but they pick it up and on it all the same, and most wear it to the end of their days. You... you would rather go naked into the storm.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Magic

“I don't think I can stand it much longer,” he warned her. “Something will have to give way. And I fear it will be me… I've just been living from day to day. Waiting for something or someone else to change the situation… I think I need to make a real decision. I believe I need to take action on my own.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Magic

“It was a terrible division, to feel such need for someone, and yet angry that need existed.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Magic

“Refuse anxiety. When you borrow trouble against what might be, you neglect the moment you have now to enjoy. The man who worries about what will next be happening to him loses this moment in dread of the next with pre-judgement”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Magic

“Gankis lifted an arm to point at the distant shale cliffs. "And in the face of it there were thousands of little holes, little what-you-call-'ems..."
"Alcoves," Kennit supplied in an almost dreamy voice. "I call them alcoves, Gankis. As would you, if you could speak your own mother tongue.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Magic

“The man who worries about what will next be happening to him loses this moment in dread of the next, and poisons the next with pre-judgement.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Magic

“Althea had never known that misery could achieve perfection. Only now, as she sat staring at her emptied glass, did she grasp how completely wrong her world had become. Things had been bad before, things had been flawed, but it was only today that she had made one stupid decision after another until everything was as completely wrong as it could possibly be.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Magic

“It was not that these emotions were unworthy or inappropriate; it was simply that they were wasted upon the man.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Magic

“Kyle saw them as a double-pronged problem: the ship that would not heed his wishes because of a boy that would not be what his father commanded him to be.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Magic

“if something made a man feel bad then he must determine what about it troubled him, and eliminate that. Simply to suffer the discomforts of guilt did not indicate a man had improved himself, only that he suspected he harbored a fault.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Magic

“Amber?” he said pleadingly. His voice went high on her name and broke, as it sometimes did when he was afraid. “Are you taking my beads away?”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Magic

“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, quote from Ship of Magic

“I’ve just been living from day to day. Waiting for something or someone else to change the situation.” His eyes studied her face, looking for a reaction to his next words. “I think I need to make a real decision. I believe I need to take action on my own.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Magic

“It was not that she was a better-tempered person, she decided detachedly. It was that her anger had learned a terrible patience. What good was wasting words on a petty and tyrannical second mate? He was a little yapping dog. She was a tigress. One did not waste snarls on such a creature. One waited until one could snap his spine with a single blow.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Magic

“But that is not true for all folk. Some folk are meant to argue with fate. And win.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Magic

“Once a person had realized death, if they could turn aside from pain they immediately turned toward wonder and Sa. It took both steps, Wintrow knew that. If a person had not accepted death as a reality, the touch could be refused. Some accepted death and the touch, but could not let go of their pain. They clung to it as a final vestige of life.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Magic

“Artists and whores, gold always bought them. An artist was no more than a whore who had been well-paid.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from Ship of Magic

About the author

Popular quotes

“and were now coming down a wide intermediate run called”
― Stuart Gibbs, quote from Spy Ski School

“If I stay within the tree line at the edge of the field, my buddies across the way won’t notice, as they’re now chasing a bird. The bird lands to peck at the grass and, when they get close again, it flaps another ten feet and lands. I think it’s fucking with them.”
― Sarah Lyons Fleming, quote from Mordacious

“Awareness is not an idea about awareness, as it is not thought at all. Awareness allows you to feel life as it's happening, as it is in perception that consciousness and all spiritual qualities are manifest.”
― Belsebuub, quote from Gazing into the Eternal: Reflections upon a Deeper Purpose to Living

“Maybe I don’t understand love because no one who has said they loved me has ever put me first. I’ve always wanted to be loved,”
― Joelle Charbonneau, quote from Need

“But inside your sob-sodden Kleenex

And your Saturday night panics,

Under your hair done this way and that way,

Behind what looked like rebounds

And the cascade of cries diminuendo,

You were undeflected.

You were gold-jacketed, solid silver,

Nickel-tipped. Trajectory perfect

As through ether.”
― Ted Hughes, quote from Birthday Letters

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.