Assassin's Quest (The Farseer Trilogy, #3)

by Robin Hobb

“I thought we had lost you. I thought we’d done something worse than let you die.” His old arms were tight and strong about me. I was kind to the old man. I did not tell him that they had.

What the Wit may be is a man’s acceptance of the beast nature within himself, and hence an awareness of the element of humanity that every animal carries within it as well.

The advantage is always to the one who is shrewder in what secret to reveal and when.

Honor and courtesy and justice…they are not real, Fitz. We all pretend to them, and hold them up like shields. But they guard only against folk who carry the same shields. Against those who have discarded them, they are no shields at all, but only additional weapons to use against their victims.”