The Liveship Traders Trilogy Quotes

“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.”
― Robin Hobb, The Complete Liveship Traders Trilogy: Ship of Magic, The Mad Ship, Ship of Destiny

“It’s all a trick,’ he observed. ‘All a rotten trick men play on themselves. They get together and they create this beautiful thing and then they stand back and say, “See, we have souls and insight and holiness and joy. We put it all in this building so we don’t have to bother with it in our everyday lives. We can live as stupidly and brutally as we wish, and stamp down any inclination to spirituality or mysticism that we see in our neighbours or ourselves. Having set it in stone, we don’t have to bother with it any more.” It’s a trick men play on themselves. Just one more way we cheat ourselves.”
― Robin Hobb, The Complete Liveship Traders Trilogy: Ship of Magic, The Mad Ship, Ship of Destiny

“Discover where you are now, and go on from there, making the best of things. Accept your life, and you might survive it. If you hold back from it, insisting this is not your life, not where you are meant to be, life will pass you by. You may not die from such foolishness, but you might as well be dead for all the good your life will do you or anyone else.”
― Robin Hobb, The Liveship Traders Trilogy

“A boy is a man when he proves himself to be one, but a girl is a woman when she desires to be one.”
― Robin Hobb, The Liveship Traders Trilogy

“Take all self-determination from a man’s life, and all that is left for him to do is complain.”
― Robin Hobb, The Complete Liveship Traders Trilogy: Ship of Magic, The Mad Ship, Ship of Destiny

“The violence of a flood tears a tree from the riverbank, but the nurturing soil and water the flood brings more than compensate”
― Robin Hobb, The Liveship Traders Trilogy

“True courage is facing life without flinching. I don’t mean the times when the right path is hard, but glorious at the end. I’m talking about enduring the boredom, and the messiness, and the inconvenience of doing what is right.”
― Robin Hobb, The Liveship Traders Trilogy

“if I fret about it, I shall have pre-judged myself to failure.”
― Robin Hobb, The Liveship Traders Trilogy

“Somewhere beneath the tides of those superficial emotions she knew the cold deep current of her grief sought to pull her down and drown her.”
― Robin Hobb, The Complete Liveship Traders Trilogy: Ship of Magic, The Mad Ship, Ship of Destiny

“Tomorrow owes you the sum of your yesterdays. No more than that.”
― Robin Hobb, The Liveship Traders Trilogy

“Half the evil in this world occurs while decent people stand by and do nothing wrong. It’s not enough to refrain from evil, Trell. People have to attempt to do right, even if they believe they cannot succeed.”
― Robin Hobb, The Liveship Traders Trilogy

“When you borrow trouble against what might be, you neglect the moment you have now to enjoy.”
― Robin Hobb, The Liveship Traders Trilogy

“Innocent?” He was incensed at her suggestion he was somehow responsible for this mess. “I’ve done nothing wrong, I intend nothing wrong. I am innocent!” “Half the evil in this world occurs while decent people stand by and do nothing wrong. It’s not enough to refrain from evil, Trell. People have to attempt to do right, even if they believe they cannot succeed.”
― Robin Hobb, The Liveship Traders Trilogy

“It was but a manner of speaking, Ekke,” he said mildly. “A manner of speaking becomes a manner of thinking.”
― Robin Hobb, The Liveship Traders Trilogy

“He stared at her. Her words had shocked him. Not her admission that she had killed men for Kennit; he had expected that of this pirate. She had called herself a whore. That was a man’s word, a shame-word flung at a woman. But she did not seem ashamed. She wielded the word like a sword, slicing away all his preconceptions of who she was. She had earned her living by her sex, and she did not seem to regret it.”
― Robin Hobb, The Liveship Traders Trilogy

“no man can truly imagine being happy, and that’s why happiness isn’t for sale here.”
― Robin Hobb, The Liveship Traders Trilogy

“If she could make them both irritated with her, chances are they would commiserate with each other. So it had always worked when they were boys.”
― Robin Hobb, The Liveship Traders Trilogy

“Sa help us all, but I plan to give her free rein and let her be as unpleasant and bitchy as only she knows how.”
― Robin Hobb, The Liveship Traders Trilogy

“You didn’t shout at me. You were so quiet I thought you had left.’ ‘I almost did. I detest shouting. I hate being shouted at, and I never shout at anyone. That doesn’t mean I never get angry though.’ After a moment’s pause, she added, ‘Or that I never get hurt. “Only my pain is more silent than my anger.”
― Robin Hobb, The Complete Liveship Traders Trilogy: Ship of Magic, The Mad Ship, Ship of Destiny