Assassin's Apprentice (The Farseer Trilogy, #1)

by Robin Hobb

All events, no matter how earthshaking or bizarre, are diluted within moments of their occurrence by the continuance of the necessary routines of day-to-day living.

“Most prisons are of our own making. A man makes his own freedom, too.”

“When you spring to an idea, and decide it is truth, without evidence, you blind yourself to other possibilities.

That is the trick of good government. To make folk desire to live in such a way that there is no need for its intervention.”