Ship of Destiny Quotes

“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.”
― Robin Hobb, Ship of Destiny

“That is the challenge Companion. To take what has happened to you and learn from it. Nothing is quite so destructive as pity, especially self-pity. No event in life is so terrible that one cannot rise above it.
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― Robin Hobb, Ship of Destiny

“One does not need the size of a dragon to have the soul of a dragon.”
― Robin Hobb, Ship of Destiny

“Do you not see how strange and wonderful that is? That all history balances on an affair of the human heart?”
― Robin Hobb, Ship of Destiny

“Too many folk, women and men, love the person they wish to be, as if by loving that person, or being loved by that person, they could attain the importance they long for.”
― Robin Hobb, Ship of Destiny

“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.”
― Robin Hobb, Ship of Destiny

“Strangers had small interest in hurting you. That was always done best by your own family and friends.”
― Robin Hobb, Ship of Destiny

“A manner of speaking becomes a manner of thinking.”
― Robin Hobb, Ship of Destiny

“Don't go mooning after the stars, when the wide sea is all around you. It's a sky of its own, you know.”
― Robin Hobb, Ship of Destiny

“... finally realizing that life was to be lived, rather than hoarded against an unseen tomorrow.”
― Robin Hobb, Ship of Destiny

“Silent," the carved wizardwood on his wrist breathed. "Silent as a blinded ship, floating hull-up in the sea. Silent as a scream underwater.”
― Robin Hobb, Ship of Destiny

“Instead, we must focus on our hopes. If we cannot anchor ourselves in a belief that we will succeed, we have already been defeated.”
― Robin Hobb, Ship of Destiny

“It doesn't work that way. Silencing memories does not make them stop existing. Events cannot be undone by forgetting them.”
― Robin Hobb, Ship of Destiny

“This terrible event – whatever it was – is over and done. Cling to it and let it shape you and you are doomed to live it forever. You are granting it power over you. Set it aside, and shape your future as you wish it to be, in spite of what happened to you. Then you have seized control of it.”
― Robin Hobb, Ship of Destiny

“We were speaking of people living their dreams, and I said that few do, and even fewer enjoy the experience. For too many, when they get their dream, they discover it is not what they wanted. Or the dream is bigger than their abilities, and all ends in bitterness.”
― Robin Hobb, Ship of Destiny

“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.”
― Robin Hobb, Ship of Destiny

“Do not pull back from the pain and imagine that makes you strong. Look at it, you dolt! It is trying to tell you what is wrong so you can fix it.”
― Robin Hobb, Ship of Destiny

“Once she would have found him mysterious and alluring. She had grown wiser. Dangerous men were neither romantic nor exotic; they were men who could hurt you.”
― Robin Hobb, Ship of Destiny

“She wears a freedom ring in one ear, you know, the earring that Chalcedean freed-slaves must purchase and wear to prove they have been granted their freedom. I asked her once if she had bought her freedom, or if it had belonged to her mother. She was quiet for a time, and then said it was a gift from her one true love.”
― Robin Hobb, Ship of Destiny

“In politics, appearance matters more than truth.”
― Robin Hobb, Ship of Destiny

“I can take all my pasts, keep them and determine my own future. I don't have to be what anyone made me, Brashen. I can be Paragon.”
― Robin Hobb, Ship of Destiny

“Something clamped tight inside her suddenly eased. He had been right. She did not have to grip her pain. She could let it go. The memory was still there. It had not vanished, but it had changed. It was a memory, a thing from her past. This wound could close and heal. The injury done to her was over. She did not have to keep it as a part of herself. She could allow herself to heal. Her tears were diluted in the rain that ran down her face.”
― Robin Hobb, Ship of Destiny

“Here we do not believe in wasting time simply for the purpose of impressing others.”
― Robin Hobb, Ship of Destiny

“There is no such thing as an extraordinary coincidence. There is only destiny.”
― Robin Hobb, Ship of Destiny

“Be content with you own life, my friend, and live it well. Let others decide for themselves what path they will follow.'
She frowned up at him. 'Even when you see, with absolute clarity, that is wrong for them? That they hurt themselves?'
'Perhaps people have a right to their pain,' he hazarded. Reluctantly he added, 'Perhaps they even need it.”
― Robin Hobb, Ship of Destiny

“You can't play in shit and not get some on you.”
― Robin Hobb, Ship of Destiny

“If the divine is also female, and the female also divine, then she understands that woman is more than mother, more than daughter, more than wife. Those are the facets of a full life, but no single facet defines the jewel.”
― Robin Hobb, Ship of Destiny

“So. Which of our troubles torments you most this evening?”
Althea surrendered. “They all nip at my heels like a pack of yapping feists, ship. I don’t know which to worry about first.”
The figurehead gave a snort of disdain. “Then kick them away as if they were truly a pack of curs and fix your gaze instead on your destiny.” … “Don’t think about the obstacles” … The ship spoke in a low, soft voice. “Long or short, if you worry about every step of a journey, you will divide it endlessly into pieces, any one of which may defeat you. Look only to the end.”
“I think we will succeed only if we prepare ourselves,” Althea objected.
Paragon shook his head. “Teach yourself to believe you will succeed. … Be now what you must be to succeed at the end of your journey, and when the end comes, you will find it is just another beginning.”
Althea sighed. “Now you sound like Amber,” she complained.
“No.” He contradicted her flatly. “Now I sound like myself. The self I put aside and hid, the self I intended to be again someday, when I was ready. I have stopped intending. I am, now.”
p. 86: Paragon to Althea”
― Robin Hobb, Ship of Destiny

“Who loves you or who you love is not as significant as who you are. Too many folk, women and men, love the person they wish to be, as if by loving that person, or being loved by that person, they could attain the importance they long for.”
― Robin Hobb, Ship of Destiny

“Do you begrudge me that I am who I truly am? Should I pretend otherwise for the sake of pleasing you? If I did, it would be a lie. Would you rather love a lie than know me as I truly am?”
― Robin Hobb, Ship of Destiny