Assassin's Apprentice (Farseer Trilogy, #1)

by Robin Hobb

“Don’t do what you can’t undo, until you’ve considered what you can’t do once you’ve done it.”

‘Be your blood, boy, and ignore what anyone else thinks of you.’

‘Most prisons are of our own making. A man makes his own freedom, too.’

‘But why should I mourn him?’ I asked Chade as I hadn’t dared to ask Burrich. ‘I didn’t even know him.’

A father. He never cared about me.’

‘He never did anything to make me think he cared about me.’

‘When you spring to an idea, and decide it is truth, without evidence, you blind yourself to other possibilities. Consider them all, boy.

There is a saying from the southlands that there is truth in wine. There must be a bit of it in ale, also.

‘When you cut pieces out of the truth to avoid looking like a fool, you end up sounding like a moron instead.

‘Shade or sunlight, I know when to keep a grip on my tongue. It would be a good thing for you to learn as well.’

Almost, for a moment, I did remember. A smell of mint, or was it … it was gone. ‘Nothing, lady. If she had wanted me to remember her, she would have kept me, I suppose.’ I closed my heart. Surely I owed no remembrance to the mother who had not kept me, nor ever sought me since.

Dad**

The Queen’s Garden was nowhere near the Women’s Garden or the kitchen garden or any other garden in Buckkeep. It was, instead, on top of a circular tower. The garden walls were high on the sides that faced the sea, but to the south and west, the walls were low and had seats along them. The stone walls captured the warmth of the sun and fended off the salt winds from the sea. The air was still there, almost as if hands were cupped over my ears.

‘Were I Verity, I’d want a woman who could do things. Not just select her jewellery or plait her own hair. She should be able to sew a shirt, or tend her own garden, and have something special she can do that is all her own, like scrollwork or herbery.’

Look at Lady Patience and her woman, Lacey. They are always about and doing things. Their apartments are a jungle of the lady’s plants, and the cuffs of her gowns are sometimes a bit sticky from her paper-making, or she will have bits of leaves in her hair from her herbery work, but she is still just as beautiful. And prettiness is not all that important in a woman.

Boys are fools.

No man should live in such a desert as this.’ And in that moment, I realized we were not speaking aloud, and sat bolt upright and looked at him.

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.’

‘Don’t do what you can’t undo, until you’ve considered what you can’t do once you’ve done it.’

People are intimidated by a man who acts with no apparent regard for consequences. Behave as if you cannot be touched and no one will dare to touch you.

Men cannot grieve as dogs do. But we grieve for many years.