Robin Hobb book quotes

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There are 174 approved (and 6 pending) quotes from 20 books.

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A secret is only yours so long as you don't share it. Tell it to one person, and it's a secret no more.
Chade in Fool's Assassin

Men it is who think they can rule others' lives but have no bonds to them. Do you think that to bond or not to bond is for you alone to decide?
Nighteyes in Royal Assassin

For it is said, one may ask of the Elderlings, but the answer they give may not be to the question you ask, but to the one you should have asked.
narrator in Assassin's Apprentice

The man who must brag for himself knows that no one else will.
Celerity quoting her father Brawndy in Royal Assassin

My heart is my own. I give it where I will.
Nighteyes in Royal Assassin

Very little worth knowing is taught by fear.
Burrich in Assassin's Apprentice

Useless, perhaps, but nonetheless, we do speak of it. And some of us still dream of it. Just as some of us still dream of flying, and killing our own meat, and battling for mates. Some of us still dream of living. You do not want to sleep, Kalo. You want to die.
Mercor in The Dragon Keeper

The sea was cold, the night was black, and if I'd had any sense, I'd have wished myself elsewhere; but there is something in a boy that takes the mundanely difficult and unpleasant and turns it into a personal challenge and an adventure.
narrator in Assassin's Apprentice

The protection of the good god had once stood between all darkness and me. I had thought it a fortress wall; it had been a lace curtain.
narrator in Forest Mage

Our own ambitions and tasks that we set for ourselves, the framework we attempt to impose upon the world is no more than a shadow of a tree cast across the snow. It will change as the sun moves, be swallowed in the night, sway with the wind and when the smooth snow vanishes, it will lie distorted upon the uneven earth. But the tree continues to be.
Kettricken in Royal Assassin

But there it is; sometimes luck belongs to children and madmen. That night I felt we were both.
narrator in Assassin's Apprentice

For there is a very strange peace in giving over your judgement to someone else, to saying to them, 'You lead and I will follow, and I will trust entirely that you will not lead me to death or harm.'
narrator in Assassin's Apprentice

If I know your father, he'll face up to it square and do what's right. But Eda only knows what he'll think is the right thing to do. Probably whatever hurts the most.
Burrich in Assassin's Apprentice

I watch him come, stepping with elven grace, hooves entering and leaving the stream without so much as a splash.
Slanting sunlight through the branches gleams his flanks, polishes his high cheekbones, is swallowed in the darkness of his eyes. When he moves his head, light ricochets off his horns. I do not move or speak.
His cloven hooves cut deep into the moss, scoring the rich earth below the green carpet. It is no longer the friend of my childhood who stands there, but the forest god, the hooved and horned one beholding an intruder in his domain.
narrator in Cloven Hooves

Shackles of velvet, and manacles of lace, dear cousin, can bind a woman as effectively as those of cold iron.
Epiny in Shaman's Crossing