Robin Hobb Realm of the Elderlings quotes

"But almost anyone can do that. 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 times when the right path is hard, but glorious in the end. I’m talking about enduring the boredom, and the messiness, and the inconvenience of doing what is right."
Amber (Mad Ship)

"One must plan for the future and anticipate the future without fearing the future."
The Twenty-Seventh Contradiction of Sa (Ship of Magic)

"It is the nature of humans that we tend to pass our pain along. As if we could get rid of it by inflicting an equal hurt on someone else."
Wintrow Vestrit Haven (Ship of Magic)

"Enlightenment was merely the truth at the correct time."
Wintrow Vestrit Haven (Mad Ship)

"To pretend that people can come together, love and then part with no pain or consequences is more false a role than pretending to be a proper Trader's daughter.' She set her beads down and met Althea's gaze. She spoke bluntly. 'Don't, please, convince yourself that you can bed [him] and walk away from it without diminishing both of you. A moment ago you spoke of love without need. To sate your need without love is theft. If you must have that, hire it done. But don't steal that from [him] under the pretense that it is free."
Amber (Mad Ship)

"When you bed someone, there is always a commitment. Sometimes that commitment is only that you will both pretend it doesn't matter. Her strangely colored eyes held Althea's for a moment. Sometimes that commitment is made only to yourself. The other party never knows it or agrees to it."
Amber (Mad Ship)

"No one can have so little that someone else can find nothing to envy."
Captain Kennit (Mad Ship)

"Right and wrong is not profit and loss. Some things are too evil to make money from them."
Althea Vestrit (Mad Ship)

"No one, she thought, can be worth another's entire life spent in subservience."
Keffria Vestrit Haven (Mad Ship)

"Don't do what you can't undo, until you've considered what you can't do once you've done it."
King Shrewd (Assassin's Apprentice)

"To recognize you are the source of your own loneliness is not a cure for it. But it is a step towards seeing that
it is not inevitable, and that such a choice is not irrevocable."
Fitz (The Golden Fool)

"Perhaps having the courage to find a better path is having the courage to risk making new mistakes."
Fitz (The Golden Fool)

"What do who call me when?"
The Fool (Fool's Errand)

"I don't like changes. Especially not at the last minute. Changes say you weren't really ready in the first place, and now you're even less ready."
Kettle (Assassin's Quest)

"When considering a man's motives, remember you must not measure his wheat with your bushel. He may not be using the same standard at all."
King Shrewd's Fool (Assassin's Apprentice)

"Thinking is not always . . . comforting. It is always good, but not always comforting."
Chade (Royal Assassin)

"The man who must brag for himself knows that no one else will."
Duke Brawndy (Royal Assassin)

"Love is more than bedding, boy. If love doesn't come first and linger after, if love can't wait and endure disappointment and separation, then it's not love. Love doesn't require bedding to make it true. It doesn't even demand day-to-day contact."
FitzChivalry Farseer / Tom Badgerlock (Golden Fool)

"Yet what is obvious is not always easy."
FitzChivalry Farseer (Assassin's Quest)