Robin Hobb book quotes

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The Mad Ship

There are 11 quotes listed in the The Mad Ship category:

She tried to dismiss the humans from her mind. They were not Elderlings who knew the ways of her kind and accorded dragons proper respect. They were humans. One could not owe anything to such beings. They were creatures of a few breaths, frantic to eat and breed before their brief span of days was done. What could one of her kind owe to something that died and rotted swifter than a tree did? Could one be in debt to a butterfly or a blade of grass?
Tintaglia

The brevity of their lives suddenly touched her. In the momentary twinkling of their existence, each of them had tried to aid her. Each had taken time from their mate quest to try to free her. Poor little bugs. It was a small cost to her, these few moments out of the vast store of years to come. She turned a lazy loop in the sweet summer air. Then with strong, steady beats of her wings, she drove herself back towards the buried city.
Tintaglia

Stop using every mistake you make as an excuse to fail completely.
Amber

Everyone thinks that courage is about facing death without flinching. But almost anyone can do that. Almost anyone can hold their breath and not scream for as long as it takes to die. True courage is facing life without flinching. I don't mean the times when the right path is hard, but glorious at the end. I'm talking about enduring the boredom, and messiness, and the inconvenience of doing what is right.
Amber

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.
Amber

She trusted to her simple life to protect her. Kennit knew the truth of that. 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.
narrator

Nothen' stenks wors'n peg shet.
Clef

Men have no concept of their own beauty.
Ophelia

One of the strangest things about you, my dear, is that you have no idea how wondrous you are.
Amber

How old must I be before I learn? There is no time; there is never any time. Tomorrow may never come, but todays are linked inexorably in a chain, and now is always the only time we have to divert disaster.
Amber

Here's to irresponsible men who give into their passions. So women can claim it was none of their doing.
Amber