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.

But there was no point in sighing after what I could not have. It only distracted me from what I did have, and that was more than I’d ever had in my life.

Perhaps words are helpful to others when they mourn; to me they were only words.

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.

“We were very good friends for a long, long time. We did hard things for each other. Risked our lives. Gave up our lives and faced death, and then faced life again. You might be surprised to find that facing life can be much harder than facing death.”

That, I think, is the shock of any relationship ending. It is realizing that what is still an ongoing relationship to someone is, for the other person, something finished and done with.

“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.”

No one spoke while we waited but it was not an awkward quiet. Rather it was a careful one. It was better to leave the space empty of words than to choose the wrong ones.

If a few students come reluctantly to their studies, then let them go. If all students come reluctantly to their studies, then let your scribe be dismissed and find another. For once students have been taught that learning is tedious, difficult, and useless, they will never learn another lesson.