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.

What would I not have done to protect my little daughter? What action would have been too extreme? If I say, ‘I would have killed them all, with no regrets,’ does that make me a monster? Or just a father?

Lessons learned too late. Insights discovered decades later. And so much lost as a result.

‘I’m fine as I am, old friend. Content. Why should I tamper with that? Would you prefer I long for more when I have so much already?’

A secret is only yours so long as you don’t share it. Tell it to one person, and it’s a secret no more.

We grew closer, as two trees planted apart from one another finally find that their branches reach and intertwine.

And like a child, I’d been testing the people who loved me, pulling away from them almost for the sole reason of seeing if anyone would come after me.

What can I think except that you fear I will somehow undo your work? From that foundation, I must wonder if that was always what I was to you. Only the Catalyst? The weapon that must be wielded without mercy, and then set aside, lest somehow it do an injury to you or your work?

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.

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.