Robin Hobb

Open your eyes. This horrible mess is your life. There is no sense in waiting for it to get better. Stop putting it off and live it.

Think of what is and don't let what might have been distract you.

and to die with the Warrior's Prayer on his lips. For, 'Yes', he had sighed on his dying breath, and all knew that was the ultimate prayer one could offer to life. Acceptance.

There are few things so tender as a man's dignity.

Assassins take no pride in fighting fairly. We take pride in winning.

...I've returned and I look around me and think, I've missed my life. While I was off and alone, it went on here, without me, and I'm forever doomed to be a stranger in my own home.

He shook his head pityingly. __his, more than anything else, is what I have never understood about your people. You can roll dice, and understand that the whole game may hinge on one turn of a die. You deal out cards, and say that all a man's fortune for the night may turn upon one hand. But a man's whole life, you sniff at, and say, what, this naught of a human, this fisherman, this carpenter, this thief, this cook, why, what can they do in the great wide world? And so you putter and sputter your lives away, like candles burning in a draft.___ot all men are destined for greatness,_ I reminded him.__re you sure, Fitz? Are you sure? What good is a life lived as if it made no difference at all to the great life of the world? A sadder thing I cannot imagine. Why should not a mother say to herself, if I raise this child aright, if I love and care for her, she shall live a life that brings joy to those about her, and thus I have changed the world? Why should not the farmer that plants a seed say to his neighbor, this seed I plant today will feed someone, and that is how I change the world today?___his is philosophy, Fool. I have never had time to study such things.___o, Fitz, this is life. And no one has time not to think of such things. Each creature in the world should consider this thing, every moment of the heart's beating. Otherwise, what is the point of arising each day?

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.

It was better to leave the space empty of words than to choose the wrong ones.

Stop your whining. If you are frightened, be silent. Whining is for prey. It attracts predators. And you are not prey.

I lied to hurt you. For letting him be dead while you lived. For being loved by him more than he loved me!He loved you more than he ever loved any of the rest of us!

Those were some astounding lies, cub. And the very last one the most inspired of all. You have your father's talent for it.

How often does a man know, without question, that he has done well? I do not think it happens often in anyone's life, and it becomes even rarer once one has a child.

Everything she sang was true. I will leave it to you as to whether the truth can exist with details omitted, or if those lacks make a lie of it.

I'll never miss a chance to remind you of what a brat you were. A gloriously beautiful and very spoiled brat. I was utterly charmed by your complete self-absorption. It was rather like courting a cat.

Somehow," she said coldly, "you have confused profitable and not profitable for right and wrong. I, however, have not.

To sate your need without love is theft

Still I promise myself, "Next time I will do better" in the all-too-human conceit that I will always be offered a "next time.