City of Dragons Quotes

“Happy comes and goes, Tats. Loving someone isn’t that crazy infatuation that you feel at first. That passes. Well, not passes, but it calms down, and then sometimes, when you least expect it, you get a glimpse of the person and it all comes back again, in a big rush. But even that’s not what you’re looking for. What you’re looking for is the feeling that no matter what, being with that person is always going to be better than being without that person. Good times or bad. That having that person around makes whatever you’re going through better, or at least more tolerable.”
― Robin Hobb, City of Dragons

“If all of her was not enough for him, then let him have none of her and seek what he needed elsewhere.”
― Robin Hobb, City of Dragons

“Why does the forbidden always add that edge of sweetness?”
― Robin Hobb, City of Dragons

“He longed for cleanliness and tidiness: it was hard to find peace in the middle of disorder.”
― Robin Hobb, City of Dragons

“I'll never miss a chance to remind you of what a brat you were. A gloriously beautiful and very spoiled brat. I was utterly charmed by your complete self-absorption. It was rather like courting a cat.”
― Robin Hobb, City of Dragons

“Stop blaming yourself. Someone deceived you and hurt you. You don't need to take on the burden of that. The man who committed the offense is at fault, not the person he wronged”
― Robin Hobb, City of Dragons

“Suspense was an excellent tool for keeping powerful people off balance. It gave one bargaining power.”
― Robin Hobb, City of Dragons

“Oh, and you accuse me of flattery! Here I waddle about like a fat old duck and you try to tell me I'm lovely.”
― Robin Hobb, City of Dragons

“like a bright chip of glass, fallen from a gorgeous mosaic of Elderlings and turreted cities and dragons on the wing, to lie in the dirt, broken away from all she that had once been her destiny”
― Robin Hobb, City of Dragons

“What you’re looking for is the feeling that no matter what, being with that person is always going to be better than being without that person. Good times or bad. That having that person around makes whatever you’re going through better, or at least more tolerable.”
― Robin Hobb, City of Dragons

“It’s a hard way to learn, but I think that’s how most of us learn about jealousy. It seems like a stupid way for anyone to feel, until someone makes you feel it.”
― Robin Hobb, City of Dragons

“For years, as your health has waned, I have served you. Were I disloyal, I would have proved it years ago. Loyalty, however, is hard to prove."
"Because loyalty can change, it must be proven every day.”
― Robin Hobb, City of Dragons

“GRIGSBY: Ship’s cat. Orange and obnoxious.”
― Robin Hobb, City of Dragons

“The next was a girl with her face and arms painted white, in a gown decorated with gilt to mimic golden thread. Gilded, too, was her crown of feathers and rooster heads, and in her hands a scepter that looked more like a feather duster.”
― Robin Hobb, City of Dragons

“This is a day for things to break, he thought. My heart. The fellowship of the folk who had come here together. We all move apart from one another today.”
― Robin Hobb, City of Dragons

“I flew, I hunted, I killed. I am SINTARA!”
― Robin Hobb, City of Dragons

“Happy comes and goes, Tats. Loving someone isn’t that crazy infatuation that you feel at first. That passes. Well, not passes, but it calms down, and then sometimes, when you least expect it, you get a glimpse of the person and it all comes back again, in a big rush.”
― Robin Hobb, City of Dragons

“Loving someone isn’t that crazy infatuation that you feel at first. That passes. Well, not passes, but it calms down, and then sometimes, when you least expect it, you get a glimpse of the person and it all comes back again, in a big rush. But even that’s not what you’re looking for. What you’re looking for is the feeling that no matter what, being with that person is always going to be better than being without that person. Good times or bad. That having that person around makes whatever you’re going through better, or at least more tolerable.”
― Robin Hobb, City of Dragons

“Her poetry is more like a trumpet call to arms. A rallying of women to rise up in Chalced, to help her inherit your throne so that she can lift other women to the status they once held.”
― Robin Hobb, City of Dragons

“Oh, they’re lovely. Can I touch them?”
“Rapskal, I don’t think…” she began, but he wasn’t listening.
“They’re just like Heeby’s wings were at first. The skin is as fine as parchment, and the light shines right through the colors. I’m going to hold them open all the way so I can see them.” He crawled around behind her, and she felt him take the outermost tip of each wing in each of his hands. Then, as carefully as if she were a butterfly, he opened her wings fully to the light. She could feel the difference, could feel the light and then the warmth of the sun touch them. Warmth spread through them as if it were water flowing.
“The colors just got brighter,” Tats said quietly.
“You should do this every day,” Rapskal said decisively. “And you should practice moving them, too, to make them stronger and help them grow. Otherwise, you’ll never be able to fly.”
“Oh, she won’t be able to fly with them,” Tats told him quickly, as if fearing that Rapskal had hurt her feelings. “I heard Sintara tell her that. The dragon said she should just be grateful to have such beautiful wings. She won’t be able to fly with them.”
Rapskal laughed merrily. “Oh, that’s what everyone said to me about Heeby, too. Don’t be silly. Of course she’ll be able to fly. She just has to try every day.” He leaned forward and spoke by her ear. “Don’t worry, Thymara. I’ll help you practice every day, just like I did with Heeby. You’ll fly.”
― Robin Hobb, City of Dragons

“She let go of the vine and settled her carry-sack on her shoulder. She stared out through the leaves at the distant shore. After a time, in a quieter voice she said, “It’s all very well for Greft to talk about new rules. It infuriates me when he says that I ‘must make my choice soon’ as I’d my only choice is choosing which male. To him, it probably seems so simple. There’s no authority out here to tell him that he can’t do a thing, so he does it. And never thinks about the reason that rule came to be. To him, it’s just a bar that keeps him from doing what he wants.”
She turned her head to look at him. “Can’t you see that for me, it’s just another rule that he’s talking about putting on me? His rule is that I have to choose a mate. ‘For the good of the keepers,’ to keep the boys from fighting over me. How is that better than the old rule?”
When he didn’t answer, she glanced back out over the river. “You know, I just now realized something. Jerd and Greft, they think that breaking the rules is the same as proving themselves. To me, breaking an old rule doesn’t mean anything except that they broke a rule. I don’t think Jerd is braver or stronger or more capable because she did it. In fact, with a baby growing in her belly, she’s more vulnerable. More dependent on the rest of us, regardless of how hard that makes it. So. What does that prove about Jerd? Or the boys who slept with her?”
In unfolding her thought, she’d forgotten to whom she was speaking. The stunned look on Tat’s face stopped her words. She wanted to apologize, to say she hadn’t meant it. But her tongue couldn’t find the lie. After a few moments of his silence, she said quietly, “My bag is full. Let’s take what we have back to the barge.”
He bobbed just head in a brusque nod of agreement, not looking at her. Had she shamed him? Made him angry? Suddenly it all just made her tired, and she didn’t want to understand him or have him understand her. It was all too much trouble. It was so much easier being alone.”
― Robin Hobb, City of Dragons

“When I was born,” she said, careful not to look at him. “I was deemed unworthy to live. My father saved me from being exposed, but that only proved something about him. It didn’t say anything about me. All the time I was growing up, I could look around and see people who didn’t think I’d deserved to live.” Including her mother. She wouldn’t mention that to him. It sounded self-pitying, even to herself. And it had nothing to do with what she was saying. Did it? “I worked alongside my father. I gathered just like he did. I did all the work that was expected of me. But it still wasn’t enough to prove that I deserved to live. It was just what was expected of me. What would have been expected of any Rain Wild daughter.” She did look at him then. “Proving I could be ordinary, despite how I looked, wasn’t enough for any of them.”
His hands, tanned brown, worked like separate little animals, stripping the fruit and loading it into his pack. She’d always liked his hands. “Why wasn’t it enough for you?” he asked her.
There was the rub. She wasn’t sure. “It just wasn’t,” she said gruffly. “I wanted to make them admit that I was just as good as any of them and better than some.”
“And then what would happen?”
She was quiet for a time, thinking. She stopped her gathering to eat one of the yellow fruit. Her father had a name for them, but she couldn’t remember it. They didn’t commonly grow near Trehaug. These were fat and sweet. They’d have fetched a good price at the market. She got down to the fuzzy seed and scraped the last of the pulp off with her teeth before she tossed it away. “It would probably make them hate me more than they already did,” she admitted. She nodded to herself and smiled, saying, “But at least then they’d have a good reason for it.”
Tat’s backpack was full. He pulled the drawstring tight. She’d never seen that pack before; probably ship’s gear. He picked another fruit, took a bite of it, and then asked, “So, for you, it wasn’t about proving yourself and then being able to break their rules? Get married, have babies.”
She thought about it. “No. Not really. Just making them admit that I deserved to live might have been enough for me.” She turned her head and added, “I don’t think I really focused on the ‘get married, have babies’ part of it. The rules about us were just the rules about us.”
“Not for Greft,” he said, shaking his head. “He’d finished the fruit. He put the whole seed in his mouth, chewed on it for a moment, and then spat it out.
“Greft and his new rules,” she muttered to herself.
“You never wanted to live without the rules they put on you? Just do what you wanted to do?”
“The rules are different for me than for him,” she said slowly.
“How?”
“Well, he’s male. Women like me… just as often as we give birth to children who can’t or shouldn’t survive, we don’t survive ourselves. The rules about not having husbands or having children, my father said was there to protect me as much as anything else.” She shrugged one shoulder. “Greft changes the rules, it’s no risk for him, is it? He’s not the one who’s going to go into labor out here with no midwife. He’s not the one who’ll have to deal with a baby who can’t survive. I don’t think he’s ever wondered what he’s going to do with that baby if Jerd dies and the baby lives.”
“How can you think of such things?” Tats was aghast.
“How can you not think of them?” she retorted.”
― Robin Hobb, City of Dragons

“Anyway. Back then, women had to be able to do a lot of different things. Think of different ways to do things.”
“And the men didn’t?” he asked innocently.
She’d come to a bird-pecked fruit. She tugged it off, shied it at him, and went on picking. “Of course they did. But that doesn’t change my point.”
“Which is?” He opened his own pack and was loading it now.
What was her point? “That at one time, Trader women proved themselves just as men did. By surviving.”
― Robin Hobb, City of Dragons

“If you could go back to Trehaug, would you want to?”
“What?”
“Last night you said you couldn’t go home. I wondered if that was what you really wanted to do.” He followed her silently for a time, then added, “Because if it was, I’d find a way to take you there.”
She stopped, turned and met his eyes. He seemed so earnest, and she suddenly felt so old. “Tats. If that was what I really wanted to do, I’d find a way to do it. If I left now…well. It all would have been for nothing, wouldn’t it? I’d just be Thymara, slinking back home, to live in my father’s house and abide by my mother’s rules.”
He furrowed his brow. “ ‘Just Thymara.’ I don’t think that’s such a bad thing to be. What do you want to be?”
That stumped her. “I don’t know. But I know that I want to be something more than just my father’s daughter. I want to prove myself somehow. That’s what I told my da when he asked why I wanted to go on this expedition. And it’s still true.”
They’d come to the next trunk and Thymara started up it, digging her claws into the bark. The same claws that had condemned her to a half life in Trehaug might be her salvation out here, she thought.
Tats came behind her, more slowly. When Thymara reached a likely branch, she paused and waited for him. When he caught up with her, his face was misted with sweat. “I thought only boys felt things like that.”
“Like what?”
“That we have to prove ourselves, so people would know we were men now, not boys any longer.”
“Why wouldn’t a girl feel that?” Her eyes had caught a glint of yellow. She pointed toward it, and he nodded. At the end of this branch, out over the river, a parasitic vine garlanded the tree. The weight of hanging yellow fruit sagged both vine and branches. It swayed and she saw the flicker of wings. Birds were feeding there, a sure sign the fruit was ripe. “I don’t know if the branches will take your weight.”
“I’ll find out.”
“Your choice. But don’t follow me too closely.”
“I’ll be careful. And I’ll stick to my own branch.”
And he was. She ventured out onto the branch, and he transferred to one beside it. She crouched, digging her claws in as she ventured toward the vine. The farther she went, the more the branch sagged.
“It’s a long drop to the river, and shallow down there,” Tats reminded her.
“Like I don’t know,” she muttered. She glanced over at him. He was belly down on his branch, inching out doggedly. She could tell he was afraid. And she knew that he wouldn’t go back until she did.
Proving himself.
“Why wouldn’t a girl want to prove herself?”
“Well.” He gave a grunt and inched himself along. She had to admire his nerve. He was heavier than she was, and his branch was already beginning to droop with his weight. “A girl doesn’t have to prove herself. No one expects it of her. She just has to, you know, be a girl.”
“Get married, have babies,” she said.
“Well. Something like that. Not right away, the having babies part. But, well, I guess no one expects a girl to, well—”
“Do anything,” she supplied for him. She was as far out as she dared to go, but the fruit was barely within her reach. She reached out and took a cautious grip on a leaf of the vine. She pulled it slowly toward her, careful not to pull the leaf off. When it was near enough, she hooked the vine itself with her free hand. Carefully she scooted back on the parasitic vines had very tough and sturdy stemwork. She’d be able to pull it from here and pluck as much fruit as she wanted.
Tats saw that, and she credited his intelligence that he stopped risking himself immediately and backed along the branch. He sighed slightly, watching her. “You know what I mean.”
“I do. It didn’t used to be like that, with the early Traders. Women were among the toughest of the new settlers. They had to be, not only to live but to raise their children.”
― Robin Hobb, City of Dragons

“She had never had less hope for herself.”
― Robin Hobb, City of Dragons

“The water had gone down. There was still plenty of dead fish to eat. It wasn’t fresh, but it was filling. She wasn’t dead. At least not yet.
Sintara shifted her weight. Her feet were sore from the constant immersion. The water was less acid than it had been, but her claws still felt soft, as if they were decaying. And she had never had less hope for herself.
She, Sintara, a dragon who should have ruled the sea, the sky, and the land, had been picked up and tumbled head over heels like a rabbit struck by a hawk. She’d floundered and gasped. She’s clung to a log like a drowning rat. “No dragons have ever endured what we have,” she said. “None has ever sunk so low.”
“There is nothing ‘low’ about survival,” Mercor contradicted her. As always, his voice was calm, almost placid. “Think of it as experience hard won, Sintara. When you die and are eaten, or when your young hatch from the egg, they will carry forward your memories of this time. No hardship endured is a loss. Someone will learn from it. Someone profits from it.”
“Someone is tired of your philosophizing,” scarlet Ranculos grumbled.”
― Robin Hobb, City of Dragons

“If you wanted, Thymara, you could come to my cabin this evening. I could show you a different way to do your hair. And you’d have some privacy if you wished to take a bath, even if the tub is scarcely big enough to stand in.”
“I know how to wash myself!” Thymara retorted, stung.
“I’m sorry,” Alise said immediately. Her cheeks had gone very red. She blushed more scarlet than anyone Thymara had ever known. “My words were not…I didn’t express what I was trying to say. I saw you look at yourself, and thought how selfish I’ve been, to have privacy to bathe and dress while you and Sylve and Jerd have had to live rough and in the open among the boys and men. I didn’t mean—”
“I know.” Were they the hardest words Thymara had ever had to say? Probably not, but they were hard enough. She didn’t meet Alise’s eyes. She forced out other words. “I know you meant it kindly. My father often told me that I take offense too easily. That not everyone wants to insult me.” Her throat was getting smaller and tighter. The pain of unsheddable tears was building at the inner corners of her eyes. From forcing words, suddenly she couldn’t stop them. “I don’t expect people to like me or be nice to me. It’s the opposite. I expect—”
“You don’t have to explain,” Alise said suddenly. “We’re more alike than you think we are.” She gave a shaky laugh. “Sometimes, do you find reasons to disdain people you haven’t met yet, just so you can dislike them before they dislike you?”
“Well, of course,” Thymara admitted, and the laughter they shared had a brittle edge. A bird flew up from the river’s edge, startling them both, and then their laughter became more natural, ending when they both drew breath.”
― Robin Hobb, City of Dragons

“If you wanted, Thymara, you could come to my cabin this evening. I could show you a different way to do your hair. And you’d have some privacy if you wished to take a bath, even if the tub is scarcely big enough to stand in.”
“I’m sorry,” Alise said immediately. Her cheeks had gone very red. She blushed more scarlet than anyone Thymara had ever known. “My words were not…I didn’t express what I was trying to say. I saw you look at yourself, and thought how selfish I’ve been, to have privacy to bathe and dress while you and Sylve and Jerd have had to live rough and in the open among the boys and men. I didn’t mean—”
“I know.” Were they the hardest words Thymara had ever had to say? Probably not, but they were hard enough. She didn’t meet Alise’s eyes. She forced out other words. “I know you meant it kindly. My father often told me that I take offense too easily. That not everyone wants to insult me.” Her throat was getting smaller and tighter. The pain of unsheddable tears was building at the inner corners of her eyes. From forcing words, suddenly she couldn’t stop them. “I don’t expect people to like me or be nice to me. It’s the opposite. I expect—”
“You don’t have to explain,” Alise said suddenly. “We’re more alike than you think we are.” She gave a shaky laugh. “Sometimes, do you find reasons to disdain people you haven’t met yet, just so you can dislike them before they dislike you?”
“Well, of course,” Thymara admitted, and the laughter they shared had a brittle edge. A bird flew up from the river’s edge, startling them both, and then their laughter became more natural, ending when they both drew breath.”
― Robin Hobb, City of Dragons

“She was tired of being cold, and now that she was all the way back in her own body, she was hungry, too. It would be easy to back into that house and become Amarinda again.
Being Thymara had never been all that much fun. And it did not seem as if it was going to become more enjoyable any time soon.”
― Robin Hobb, City of Dragons

“I’ve got to let him suffer a bit or he’ll never learn to take care of himself.”
Sedric pondered his words. “Do you think I should do the same Relpda? Let her be hungry?” Even as he spoke the words aloud, he felt his dragon become aware of the thought.
No! I don’t like to be hungry! Don’t be mean to me!
“I know it seems harsh,” Carson said, almost as if he, too, had shared Relpda’s thought. “But we have to do something, Sedric. It can’t go on this way. Even if I hunted morning until night every day and was successful in every hunt, it wouldn’t be enough to feed them all. All of them are hungry, all the time, some more than others. But there’s a limit to what we keepers can do. The dragons need to make an effort to fly and to feed themselves. And they need to do it now, before it’s too late.”
“Too late?”
Carson looked grim. “Look at them Sedric. They should be creatures of the air, but they are living like ground animals. They aren’t growing properly. Their wings are weak, and on some they’re simply too small. Rapskal had the right of it. From the time he first took charge of Heeby, he made her try to fly, every day. Look at her some time and compare the lines of her body to those of the other dragons. Look where the muscle is developed and where it’s not.” He shook his head. “Trying to get Spit to exercise his wings is difficult. He’s willful, and he knows full well that he’s bigger and stronger then I am. My only handle on him is food. He knows my rule. He tries to fly. And then I feed him. He has to try every day. And that’s what the other dragons have to do. But I don’t think they will until they’re forced to it.”
Not liking Carson.
But we know it’s true, Relpda. You’re too big for me to keep you fed. I know how hungry you get. I bring you food, but it’s never enough. It’s never going to be enough until you can fly and make your own kills. We both know that.
Falling hurts.
Being hungry hurts, too. All the time. Being hurt from falling will stop once you learn to fly. But if you don’t learn to fly, the hurt of being hungry will go on always. You have to try. Carson is right. You have to try harder, and you have to try every day.
Not liking YOU, now.”
― Robin Hobb, City of Dragons