01UndatedHistory is no more fixed and dead than the future. The past is no further away than the last breath you took.Robin Hobb / quote ↗
02UndatedIt is worse than useless to do things halfway Bee, for then you think the work is done, but someone must come behind you later to do it all over again. Even if you must work much harder and get less done, it is better to do the whole task the first time.Robin Hobb / quote ↗
03UndatedI think that old magic draws much of its strength from that acknowledgment: that we are a part of that world.Robin Hobb / quote ↗
04UndatedHumans could never accept the world as it was and live in it. They were always breaking it and living amongst the shattered pieces.Robin Hobb / quote ↗
05UndatedHe thought perhaps it was a woman's way, to come out of such a storm of emotion and pain as if she were a ship emerging onto calm seas. She had seemed, not at peace, but emptied of sorrow. As if she had run out of that particular emotion and no other one arose to take its place.Robin Hobb / quote ↗
06UndatedHe longed for cleanliness and tidiness: it was hard to find peace in the middle of disorder.Robin Hobb / quote ↗
07UndatedAcceptance of what is. That is the shortest path to peace with yourself.Robin Hobb / quote ↗
08UndatedThere is nothing dishonorable about abandoning pain. Sometimes peace is most quickly found when a man simply stops avoiding it.Robin Hobb / quote ↗
09UndatedAnticipating pain was like enduring it twice. Why not anticipate pleasure instead?Robin Hobb / quote ↗
10UndatedLeave off sniffing the carcass of your old life-do you enjoy unending pain? There is no shame in walking away from bones. Nor is there any special wisdom in injuring oneself over and over. What is your loyalty to that pain? To abandon it will not lessen you.Robin Hobb / quote ↗
11UndatedAnd the world re-ordered itself around me. I spoke each word carefully. 'You are so stupid.Robin Hobb / quote ↗
12UndatedHad she learned to feel again, only to have to feel this? Could any amount of love ever be worth the pain of losing it?Robin Hobb / quote ↗
13UndatedIn the dead of night I stirred. Wakefulness flowed back into me. I was a cup full of sorrow, but that sorrow was stilled, like a pain that abates as long as one does not move.Robin Hobb / quote ↗
14UndatedWhen has been disappointed for so long, hope becomes the enemy. One cannot be dashed to the earth unless one is lifted first, and I learned to avoid hope.Robin Hobb / quote ↗
15UndatedLeave old pains alone. When they cease coming to call, do not invite them back.Robin Hobb / quote ↗
16UndatedLife is a balance. We tend to forget that as we go blithely from day to day. We eat and drink and sleep and assume we will always rise up the next day, that meals and rest will always replenish us. Injuries we expect to heal, and pain to lessen as time goes by. Even when we are faced with wounds that heal more slowly, with pain that lessens by day only to return in full force at nightfall, even when sleep does not leave us rested, we still expect that somehow tomorrow will all come back into balance and that we will go on. At some point, the exquisite balance has tipped, and despite all our flailing efforts, we begin the slow fall from the body that maintains itself to the body that struggles, nails clawing, to cling to what it used to be.Robin Hobb / quote ↗
17UndatedIt is the nature of human that we tend to pass our pain along. As if we could get rid of it by inflicting an equal hurt on someone else.Robin Hobb / quote ↗
18UndatedLove isn't just about feeling sure of the other person, knowing what he would give up for you. It's knowing with certainty what you are willing to surrender for his sake. Make no mistake; each partner gives up something. Individual dreams are surrendered for a shared one. In some marriages, one partner gives up almost everything she once thought she wanted. But it's not always the woman who does so. Such sacrifice is not shameful. It's love. If you think the man is worth it, it works.Robin Hobb / quote ↗
19UndatedDo you not see how strange and wonderful that is? That all history balances on an affair of the human heart?Robin Hobb / quote ↗
20UndatedIsn't it strange how wise counsel can cool the hottest head? He made sense but my heart screamed protest.Robin Hobb / quote ↗
21UndatedWe were both smiling, in that bittersweet way one does when imagining something the heart longs for and the head would dread.Robin Hobb / quote ↗
23UndatedI found myself speaking softly as if I were telling an old tale to a young child. And giving it a happy ending, when all know that tales never end, and the happy ending is but a moment to catch one’s breath before the next disaster. But I didn’t want to think about that. I didn’t want to wonder what would happen next.Robin Hobb / quote ↗
24UndatedIt was as if I had been following a narrow trail, and had suddenly realized that at any time I could leave it and strike out cross-country.Robin Hobb / quote ↗
