727 Quotes by Robin Hobb

You’re not who he expected you to be; that doesn’t mean you aren’t somebody. Nor are you perfect. Stop using every mistake you make as an excuse to fail completely.

Patience had once counseled me that the best way to stop pitying myself was to do something for someone else.

Hold the cat. You’ll feel better. I don’t think so. He rubbed against my leg insistently. Hold the cat. I don’t want to hold the cat. He reared up suddenly on his hind legs, and hooked his vicious little front claws into both flesh and leggings. Don’t talk back! Pick up the cat.

Have you ever suddenly realized that there was someone you loved, but presently did not like very much?

No one can have so little that someone else can find nothing to envy. Poverty and simplicity were not shields from the greed of others. If you had nothing left to steal, they’d take your body and enslave it.

To sate your need without love is theft.

There is a saying from the Southlands that there is truth in wine. There must be a bit of it in ale, also.

But all know that a woman cannot give her word to anyone, for women cannot possess honor. Women promise, and later they say, ‘I did not understand, I did not mean it that way, I thought those words meant something else.’ So a woman’s word is without worth. She can break it, and always she does, for she has no honor to defile.

But we are two old men, who have grown old together. Sometimes that is a greater closeness. We have come through time to your day and age. We can talk together, quietly, and share memories of a time that exists no more. I can tell you how it was, but it is not the same. It is like being two foreigners, trapped in a land we have come to, unable to return to our own, and having only each other to confirm the reality of the place we once lived.