Robin Hobb · 1861 pages
Rating: (2.3K votes)
“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.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from The Complete Liveship Traders Trilogy: Ship of Magic, The Mad Ship, Ship of Destiny
“Take all self-determination from a man’s life, and all that is left for him to do is complain.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from The Complete Liveship Traders Trilogy: Ship of Magic, The Mad Ship, Ship of Destiny
“A boy is a man when he proves himself to be one, but a girl is a woman when she desires to be one.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from The Complete Liveship Traders Trilogy: Ship of Magic, The Mad Ship, Ship of Destiny
“It’s all a trick,’ he observed. ‘All a rotten trick men play on themselves. They get together and they create this beautiful thing and then they stand back and say, “See, we have souls and insight and holiness and joy. We put it all in this building so we don’t have to bother with it in our everyday lives. We can live as stupidly and brutally as we wish, and stamp down any inclination to spirituality or mysticism that we see in our neighbours or ourselves. Having set it in stone, we don’t have to bother with it any more.” It’s a trick men play on themselves. Just one more way we cheat ourselves.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from The Complete Liveship Traders Trilogy: Ship of Magic, The Mad Ship, Ship of Destiny
“If she could make them both irritated with her, chances are they would commiserate with each other. So it had always worked when they were boys.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from The Complete Liveship Traders Trilogy: Ship of Magic, The Mad Ship, Ship of Destiny
“Half the evil in this world occurs while decent people stand by and do nothing wrong. It’s not enough to refrain from evil, Trell. People have to attempt to do right, even if they believe they cannot succeed.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from The Complete Liveship Traders Trilogy: Ship of Magic, The Mad Ship, Ship of Destiny
“Discover where you are now, and go on from there, making the best of things. Accept your life, and you might survive it. If you hold back from it, insisting this is not your life, not where you are meant to be, life will pass you by. You may not die from such foolishness, but you might as well be dead for all the good your life will do you or anyone else.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from The Complete Liveship Traders Trilogy: Ship of Magic, The Mad Ship, Ship of Destiny
“When you borrow trouble against what might be, you neglect the moment you have now to enjoy.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from The Complete Liveship Traders Trilogy: Ship of Magic, The Mad Ship, Ship of Destiny
“Sa help us all, but I plan to give her free rein and let her be as unpleasant and bitchy as only she knows how.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from The Complete Liveship Traders Trilogy: Ship of Magic, The Mad Ship, Ship of Destiny
“Tomorrow owes you the sum of your yesterdays. No more than that.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from The Complete Liveship Traders Trilogy: Ship of Magic, The Mad Ship, Ship of Destiny
“You didn’t shout at me. You were so quiet I thought you had left.’ ‘I almost did. I detest shouting. I hate being shouted at, and I never shout at anyone. That doesn’t mean I never get angry though.’ After a moment’s pause, she added, ‘Or that I never get hurt. “Only my pain is more silent than my anger.”
― Robin Hobb, quote from The Complete Liveship Traders Trilogy: Ship of Magic, The Mad Ship, Ship of Destiny
“I want you to be my old lady, babe. That’s all I have to offer. I’m a Reaper, and this is my world. You wear my patch, you be my woman and I’ll be your man. We take the good times together and fight through the bad times. No games. That’s everything I’ve got and it’s all yours if you’ll take it.”
― Joanna Wylde, quote from Reaper's Property
“almost met in the middle. From either hand the notes of the small birds that had not yet given up singing went winging out across the water, and so quiet it was that though they were only such thin songs as those of willow wrens and robins, you could hear them all across the mere. Even on such a burning day as this, when I pulled the honeysuckle wrathes, there was a sweet, cool air from the water, very heady and full of life. For though Sarn was an ill place to live, and in the wintry months a very mournful place, at this one time of the year it left one dreaming of sorrow and was as other fair stretches of wood and water. All around the lake stood the tall bulrushes with their stout heads of brown plush, just like a long coat Miss Dorabella had. Within the ring of rushes was another ring of lilies, and at this time of the year they were the most beautiful thing at Sarn, and the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. The big bright leaves lay calm upon the water, and calmer yet upon the leaves lay the lilies, white and yellow. When they were buds, they were like white and gold birds sleeping, head under wing, or like summat carven out of glistering stone, or, as I said afore, they were like gouts of pale wax. But when they were come into full blow they wunna like anything but themselves, and they were so lovely you couldna choose but cry to see them. The yellow ones had more of a spread of petals, having five or six apiece, but the white ones opened their four wider and each petal was bigger. These petals are of a glistening white within, like the raiment of those men who stood with Christ upon the mountain top, and without they are stained with tender green, as if they had taken colour from the green shadows in the water. Some of the dragon-flies look like this also, for their lacy wings without other colour are sometimes touched with shifting”
― Mary Webb, quote from Precious Bane
“Don’t worry about anything. Even if you find your attention wandering, there is no particular ‘thing’ you have to hold onto. Just let go, and drift in the awareness of the blessing. Don’t let small, niggling questions distract”
― Sogyal Rinpoche, quote from The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
“A man without a wife and babies is a menace to civilization... One bachelor is an irritation. Ten thousand bachelors are a war.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Ender in Exile
“There are skeletons in everyone's closet, things no one ever wants the world to discover.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from Keeping Faith
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