Fool's Assassin (The Fitz and the Fool, #1)

by Robin Hobb

Time is an unkind teacher, delivering lessons that we learn far too late for them to be useful.

There are endings. There are beginnings. Sometimes they coincide, with the ending of one thing marking the beginning of another. But sometimes there is simply a long space after an ending, a time when it seems everything has ended and nothing else can ever begin.

It was better to leave the space empty of words than to choose the wrong ones.