Robin Hobb

I wish they would all go away.Except the Fool. I wished he would join me. Somehow, I had always thought he would join me. Now, I could not recall why. Perhaps I had buried that in the stone.

Perhaps once one realised how deeply one could bond with a creature as foreign as a dragon, all forms of human love seemed more acceptable.

When you cut pieces out of the truth to avoid looking like a fool, you end up sounding like a moron instead.

When you want a thing so badly for so long, and then it comes time to face that you cannot have it, sometimes____ometimes you can__ believe it when it comes to you. Sometimes you__e afraid to believe it. I understand your hesitation.

And like a child, I'd be testing the people who loved me, pulling away from them almost for the sole reason of seeing if anyone would come after me.

That is one thing that in all my years among your folk I have never become accustomed to. The great importance that you attach to what gender one is.

A terrible premonition washed over me. This was how the whole world would end.... They would devour the forest and excrete piles of buildings made of stone wrenched from the earth or from dead trees. They would hammer paths of bare stone between their dwellings, and dirty the rivers and subdue the land until it could recall only the will of man. They could not stop themselves from doing what they did. They did not see what they did, and even if they saw, they did not know how to stop. They no longer knew what was enough.

But in my heart, when I said __y king,_ I meant Verity.

I wanted us to share all our lives. You wish to keep me in a box, separate from your life. I cannot be someone you come to when you have nothing more important to do.

Dragons don't bother with introductions.

Besides, if there were no dragons of flesh and blood and fire, whence would come the idea for these stone carvings?

Had they been dogs they would have sniffed me over and then drawn back. But humans have no such inbred courtesies.

It's not the sort of thing one asks of a friend. He hasn't offered, and I will not ask it. I will not tear him that way. I am trying to let go. I don't know how.

You will live to love again. You know you have lost your springtime girl, your Molly on the beach with the wind in her brown hair and red cloak. You have been gone too long from her, and too much has befallen you both. And what you loved, what both of you truly loved, was not each other. It was the time of your life. It was the spring of your years, and life running strong in you, and war on your doorstep and your strong, perfect bodies. Look back, in truth. You will find you recall fully as many quarrels and tears as you do lovemaking and kisses. Fitz. Be wise. Let her go, and keep those memories intact. Save what you can of her, and let her keep what she can of the wild and daring boy she loved. Because both he and that merry little miss are no more than memories anymore." She shook her head. "No more than memories.

The word of a cat is not to be relied upon.

The fight isn't over until you win it...That's all you have to remember. No matter what the other man thinks.

The fight isn't over until you win.

I must talk to Kennit first. He will tell me when he is ready for us to have a baby.""Never," Bolt said flatly."What?""Never wait for a male on any such decision. You are the queen. You decide. Males are not made for such decisions. I have seen it time and time again. They would have you wait for days of sunshine and wealth and plenty. Yet to a male, enough is never sufficient, and plenty never reached. A queen knows that when times are hardest and game most scarce, that is when one must care most about the continuance of the race. Some things are not for males to decide.