Ship of Destiny (Liveship Traders, #3)

by Robin Hobb

Fault has no place in the greater scheme of things, little one. Fault and guilt are as useless as apology once the deed is done. Once the action has been taken, all must endure what follows.

“Do you know,” she asked conversationally, “how much you look like a plucked chicken in a roasting pan?”

“That is the challenge, Companion. To take what has happened to you and learn from it, instead of being trapped by it.”

“It doesn’t work that way. Silencing memories does not make them stop existing. Events cannot be undone by forgetting them.”

“Such a storm of emotions as humans can evoke, all on the basis of imagination,” the dragon observed condescendingly. In a more reflective voice she asked, “Do you do this because you live such short lives? Tell yourselves wild tales of what might happen tomorrow, and feel all the feelings of events that will never happen? Perhaps to make up for the pasts you cannot recall, you invent futures that will not exist.”

“Perhaps so I could finally understand why he did it to me. How he could do that to me, how he could pendulum between kindness and cruelty, between lessons in etiquette and seizures of rage—”

“Love can exist without need,”

When circumstances are right, unlikely people do extraordinary things. When the weight of the world is behind them, the push of events and time itself will align to make incredible things happen.

When you fear to fail, you fear something that has not happened yet. You predict your own failure, and by inaction, lock yourself into it.

“All of us have a right to our lives. But what if, for lack of guidance, we take the wrong paths?