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401db67
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Oh, the power that lurks in the naming of names.
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Robin Hobb |
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8ee7728
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The sheer improbability of your existence took my breath away.
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Robin Hobb |
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26d2469
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Change often measures our tolerance for folk different from ourselves. Can we accept their languages, their customs, their garments, and their foods into our own lives? If we can, then we form bonds, bonds that make wars less likely. If we cannot, if we believe that we must do things as we have always done them, then we must either fight to remain as we are, or die.
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Robin Hobb |
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b0907a8
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It is difficult to insult the man you don't speak to.
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Robin Hobb |
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d25ba61
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Why not break free now, and make Bingtown a place where folk begin anew, all men standing on an equal footing?" "And all women, too." She must be Sparse's daughter, thought Keffria. Even her voice echoed his in tone. Devouchet looked at her in surprise. "It was but a manner of speaking, Ekke," he said mildly. "A manner of speaking becomes a manner of thinking."
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gender-equality
words-and-thoughts
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Robin Hobb |
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7b6d7a7
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She is, Althea thought uneasily, what I pretend to be: a woman who does not let her sex deter her from living as she pleases.
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jek
woman
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Robin Hobb |
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2fe1f8e
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Have you ever suddenly realized that there was someone you loved, but presently did not like very much?
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Robin Hobb |
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5ab6901
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As dye soaks fibres, drawn into them to change their colour forever, so does a memory, stinging or sweet, change the fibre of a man's character.
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memory
personality
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Robin Hobb |
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db4235a
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I found myself speaking softly as if I were telling an old tale to a young child. And giving it a happy ending, when all know that tales never end, and the happy ending is but a moment to catch one's breath before the next disaster. But I didn't want to think about that. I didn't want to wonder what would happen next.
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happy-endings
truth
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Robin Hobb |
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bdc4da2
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She had come to letters late in her life, and though she had mastered them, they had never become her good friends.
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reading
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Robin Hobb |
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cc58782
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For wolves, as for dogs, life is a briefer thing than for men, if you measure it by counting days and how many turns of a season one sees. But in two years, a cub wolf does all a man does in a score. He comes to the full of his strength and size, he learns all that is needful for him to be a hunter or a mate or a leader. The candle of his life burns briefer and brighter than a man's. In a decade of years, he does all that a man does in five..
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Robin Hobb |
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0c589bb
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if something made a man feel bad then he must determine what about it troubled him, and eliminate that. Simply to suffer the discomforts of guilt did not indicate a man had improved himself, only that he suspected he harbored a fault.
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Robin Hobb |
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36cca71
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Words do not contain or define any person. A heart can, if it is willing.
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Robin Hobb |
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fd6335f
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Perhaps there can be no thanks nor any blame, but only recognition of the forces that brought us and bound us to our inevitable fates.
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blame
fate
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Robin Hobb |
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bbe1dc2
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Then as now he created reality around himself, bringing order and peace to a small island of warm firelight and the simple smell of hearth bread cooking.
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Robin Hobb |
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a9aefdc
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Did you see how she stood and faced them down? I demanded with pride. A most excellent bitch, Nighteyes agreed.
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Robin Hobb |
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3a91b1d
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Fool, there is no sense in trying to play that game with the past. Here is where we are today, and we can only make our moves from here.
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future
move
past
play
regret
sense
today
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Robin Hobb |
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6217638
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Cats themselves may be very chatty, but they seem to resent it in anyone else. Cats like listeners.
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Robin Hobb |
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a89c56f
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The fight isn't over until you win it...That's all you have to remember. No matter what the other man thinks.
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lose
over
strive
win
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Robin Hobb |
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93cd289
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We will discover the truth. And face it. And whatever it is, we will go after them. And we will kill them all, like the bastards we are.
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Robin Hobb |
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c81c271
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So many things were easier to live with if you didn't give them much thought. p. 28
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Robin Hobb |
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609dbde
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Althea had never known that misery could achieve perfection. Only now, as she sat staring at her emptied glass, did she grasp how completely wrong her world had become. Things had been bad before, things had been flawed, but it was only today that she had made one stupid decision after another until everything was as completely wrong as it could possibly be.
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Robin Hobb |
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96ca272
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When the mainstay of one's world is taken away, it's only natural to cling to all the rest, to try desperately to keep things as close to the way they were as one can." He shook his head sorrowfully. "But no one can ever go back to yesterday."
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cope
despair
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Robin Hobb |
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c28c045
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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 neighbou..
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Robin Hobb |
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a252422
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It was not that she was a better-tempered person, she decided detachedly. It was that her anger had learned a terrible patience. What good was wasting words on a petty and tyrannical second mate? He was a little yapping dog. She was a tigress. One did not waste snarls on such a creature. One waited until one could snap his spine with a single blow.
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Robin Hobb |
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11644dd
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I have since come to know that many men always see another's good fortune as a slight to themselves
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Robin Hobb |
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402492c
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Useless to worry until we find ourselves blocked, Nighteyes pointed out. If it happens, then we must simply find a way around it. It may slow us down. But we will never get there at all if we stand still and worry.
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Robin Hobb |
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605f868
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Men cannot grieve as dogs do. But we grieve for many years.
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Robin Hobb |
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d1b4dc0
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So. I should just give up now?" she asked mildly. "Just let him spiral down into madness until the New Traders come to haul him away and chop him up? What will we say to one another afterwards, Brashen? That there was nothing we could do, that we never believed it would really happen. Will that make us innocent?" "Innocent?" He was incensed at her suggestion he was somehow responsible for this mess. "I've done nothing wrong, I intend nothin..
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do-the-right-thing
fighting-evil
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Robin Hobb |
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75622af
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But that is not true for all folk. Some folk are meant to argue with fate. And win.
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Robin Hobb |
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caed444
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Death could make things stop, but it could not make things right.
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Robin Hobb |
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275827c
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Lady Patience) Do you think you can pretend to be dead and vanish from my life for sixteen years and then walk in and then pour yourself some of my good Brandy? Insolence!
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Robin Hobb |
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06ce8b7
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I could set aside my responsibilities to others and live my life as I pleased only when I also severed my ties to them. I could not have it both ways. To be part of a family, or any community, is to have duties and responsibilities, to be bound by the rules of that group.
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Robin Hobb |
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a47cbc3
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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.
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love
rache
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Robin Hobb |
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a96a5f1
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Remember with your heart. Go back, go back, and go back. The skies of this world were always meant to have dragons. When they are not there, humans miss them. Some never think of them, of course. But some children, from the time they are small, they look up at a blue summer sky and watch for something that never comes. Because they know. Something that was supposed to be there faded and vanished.
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the-fool
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Robin Hobb |
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481860f
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When has been disappointed for so long, hope becomes the enemy. One cannot be dashed to the earth unless one is lifted first, and I learned to avoid hope.
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avoidance
break
burn
crash
deny
disappointment
enemy
fall
fear
hope
hurt
ignore
look-away
pain
time
weight
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Robin Hobb |
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faaee2b
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For a very brief period I was happy, and, an even rarer gift, I knew I was happy.
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Robin Hobb |
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e9d282f
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There was always something to be learned from any experience, no matter how horrendous. As long as a man kept sight of that, his spirit could prevail against anything. It was only when one gave in and believed the universe to be nothing more than a chaotic collection of unfortunate or cruel events that one's spirit could be crushed.
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Robin Hobb |
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c553aa1
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And not only the world but humanity itself does need dragons" "And why is that?" Chade demanded disdainfully. "To keep the balance," the Fool replied. He glanced over me, and then past me, out of the window and his eyes went far and pensive. "Humanity fears no rivals. You have forgotten what it was to share the world with creatures as arrogantly superior as yourselves. You think to arrange the world to your liking. So you map the land and..
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dragons
fantasy
fitzchivalry-farseer
fool
humanity
the-fool
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Robin Hobb |
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3ac033a
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She knew, with vast certainty, that she would never desire to be kissed by a man who had first asked her permission.
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Robin Hobb |
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0e89f23
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There are times when not thinking requires all of one's concentration.
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Robin Hobb |
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20a3230
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So this was our adventure. And the prince and the princess get married and live happily ever after, with many children to warm the in their old age.' He had probably heard that phrase thousands of times in his life. It was a common way for a minstrel to end a hero tale. 'Perhaps,' I said cautiously. 'Perhaps.' 'What happens to the rest of us?
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Robin Hobb |
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1fdaf2d
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His face was so ravaged, it was like looking at death itself. Except for the smooth, silvered part of it. By creeping degrees, his human hand lifted. He turned it over, showing a bloody palm. His cracked lips moved. Beloved. He could not say the word, but I knew it. So did his Fool.
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death
fitz
fool
love
nighteyes
sorrow
together
whole
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Robin Hobb |
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79fadf5
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You steal the now of my life away, when you constantly fear that tomorrow will bring my death. Your fears clutch cold at me and snatch all my pleasure in the day's warmth from me. As
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Robin Hobb |