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.

The loneliness that can never be filled by anyone except the one whose loss created the absence;

I was almost annoyed at her for spoiling my perfectly good sulk.

When one 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.

I was lonely and the lonely heart has hungers that can overpower both common sense and dignity.

Let us not seek power that exceeds our wisdom to use it.

When we are children, we believe that our elders know all and that even when we cannot understand the world, they can make sense of it. Even after we are grown, in moments of fear or sorrow, we still turn instinctively to the older generation, hoping to finally learn some great hidden lesson about death and pain. Only to learn instead that the only lesson is that life goes on.

Do not agonize about yesterday. Do not borrow tomorrow’s trouble. Let my heart hunt. Rest in the now.

People make mock of a girl or boy’s first love, calling it puppyish infatuation. But why should not a young person love just as wildly or deeply as any other?

‘I will always take your part, Bee. Right or wrong. That is why you must always take care to be right, lest you make your father a fool.’

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

There are cherished memories of firelight, and brandy and a friend who knew me, perhaps, better than any other could. Those are the memories from which a man builds the fortress that protects his heart.