Robin Hobb
I think when writers play with dragons, we are simply doing what fantasy writers have always done.
I actually think that short stories transfer to film much better than novels do.
Writing and reading fiction is, I think, a human effort to make sense of the world.
Dragons, to my way of thinking, are just another 'race' of sapient characters. We see lots of elves, dwarves, orcs, goblins, giants and, of course, dragons.
Not intending to be funny: I sit at the keyboard, put my fingers on the keys and go. To me, it's the real secret of writing. Put yourself in front of the screen or the blank sheet of paper and get to work.
Sometimes people ask if my books have morals or lessons for readers, and I shudder at that thought. I always say that I have more questions than answers.
As the character talks and moves, the world around him is slowly revealed, just like dollying a camera back for a wider look at things. So all my stories start with a character, and that character introduces setting, culture, conflict, government, economy... all of it, through his or her eyes.
The challenge is always to find the good place to end the book. The rule I follow with myself is that every book should end where the next book would logically begin. I know that some readers wish that literally all of the threads would be neatly tied off and snipped, but life just doesn't work that way.
I think that my passion for writing fantasy began at about the same time as my passion for reading fantasy.
Fantasy is my genre and my home in the writing world. I consider it the biggest writing room in all literature, where there are literally no boundaries at all.
I think ever since I started to read, there have been favorite novels for different stages of my life. And one is never bumped out of place to yield to another. Instead, I just add to my favorite shelves.
I know some people see it as this success when the book is finally made into a movie - that marks its success. I don't see it that way.
Sometimes I regret that the wonderful children's stories that have been made into movies were - people no longer read 'The Wizard of Oz'; they think they know the story. They don't know anything about all the bits and pieces they had to leave out.
I think there have always been male writers, female writers. As a reader, I never picked up a book and said, 'Oh, I can't read this - it's about a male,' and set it back down.
I think it was always okay to be a geek.
At what point is a person old enough to say, 'I own my body, and I get to do what I want with it'?
I think it's really hard to draw a hard-and-fast line and say 'Grimm's Fairy Tales' doesn't count as science fiction or fantasy. Or at what point do we say mythology is not fantasy, so reading mythology when you're young does not count as an exposure to fantasy?
I would say that many of the characters in my stories do not live in true poverty - they are not out on the street; they are not wondering if there will be anything to eat in the next week. They are people who are at the lower echelons of the economic strata.
Fantasy encompasses a wide, wide spectrum of writing. We have beast fables, we have gothics, we have tales of vampires and werewolves, and we have sword and sorcery; we have epics from Homer, and there is just so much out there that we put under the umbrella of 'fantasy.'
Boredom is vastly underrated. Boredom means that nothing is trying to kill you every day.Collection: Mean
Don’t do what you can’t undo, until you’ve considered what you can’t do once you’ve done it.Collection: Done
Leave the pain behind and let your life be your own again. There is a place where all time is now, and the choices are simple and always your own. Wolves have no kingsCollection: Kings
Look forward, not back. Correct your course and go on. You cannot undo yesterday's journey.Collection: Journey
Tomorrow owes you the sum of your yesterdays. No more than that. And no less.Collection: Yesterday
I told you I set no limits on my love for you. I don't. Yet I have never expected you to offer me your body. It was the whole of your heart, all for myself, that I sought. Even though I've never had a right to it. For you gave it away ere ever you saw me.Collection: Heart
Love isn't just about feeling sure of the other person, knowing what he would give up for you. It's knowing with certainty what you are willing to surrender for his sake. Make no mistake; each partner gives up something. Individual dreams are surrendered for a shared one.Collection: Dream
I never confuse the cost of something with its valueCollection: Cost
Not being able to think of a reply is not the same thing as accepting another's words.Collection: Thinking
Perhaps having the courage to find a better path is having the courage to risk making new mistakes.Collection: Mistake
Stop thinking of what you intend to do. Stop thinking of what you have just done. Then, stop thinking that you have stopped thinking of those things. Then you will find the Now, the time that stretches eternal, and is really the only time there is.Collection: Thinking
Anticipating pain was like enduring it twice. Why not anticipate pleasure instead?Collection: Pain
Stop longing.You poison today’s ease, reaching always for tomorrow.Collection: Poison
In that last dance of chances I shall partner you no more. I shall watch another turn you As you move across the floor. In that last dance of chances When I bid your life goodbye I will hope she treats you kindly. I will hope you learn to fly. In that last dance of chances When I know you'll not be mine I will let you go with longing And the hope that you'll be fine. In that last dance of chances We shall know each other's minds. We shall part with our regrets When the tie no longer binds.Collection: Goodbye
When you cut pieces out of the truth to avoid looking like a fool you end up looking like a moron instead.Collection: Truth
It's all connected. When you save any part of the world, you've saved the whole world. In fact, that's the only way it can be done.Collection: Done
There is a dead spot in the night, that coldest, blackest time when the world has forgotten evening and dawn is not yet a promise. A time when it is far too early to arise, but so late that going to bed makes small sense.Collection: Night
The fight isn't over until you win.Collection: Determination
When you spring to an idea, and decide it is truth, without evidence, you blind yourself to other possibilities.Collection: Spring
Diplomacy is the velvet glove that cloaks the fist of power.Collection: Velvet
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.Collection: Self
The man who must brag for himself knows that no one else willCollection: Men
Sometimes it seems unfair that events so old can reach forward through the years, sinking claws into one's life and twisting all that follows it. Yet perhaps that is the ultimate justice: we are the sum of all we have done added to the sum of all that has been done to us. There is no escaping that, not for any of us.Collection: Escaping
Cats talk to whomever they please.Collection: Cat
Everyone thinks that courage is about facing death without flinching. But almost anyone can do that. Almost anyone can hold their breath and not scream for as long as it takes to die. True courage is about 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, the messiness, and the inconvenience of doing what is right. ~AmberCollection: Mean
...To free humanity of time. For time is the great enslaver of us all. Time that ages us, time that limits us. Think how often you have wished to have more time for something, or wished you could go back a day and do something differently. When humanity is freed of time, old wrongs can be corrected before they are done.Collection: Thinking
Not all men are destined for greatness," I reminded him. "Are you sure, Fitz? Are you sure? What good is a life lived as if it made no difference at all to the great life of the world? A sadder thing I cannot imagine. Why should not a mother say to herself, if I raise this child aright, if I love and care for her, she shall live a life that brings joy to those about her, and thus I have changed the world? Why should not the farmer that plants a seed say to his neighbor, this seed I plant today will feed someone, and that is how I changed the world today?Collection: Mother
When you are writing, you have to love all your characters. If you're writing something from a minor character's point of view, you really need to stop and say the purpose of this character isn't to be somebody's sidekick or to come in and put the horse in the stable. The purpose of this character is you're getting a little window into that character's life and that character's day. You have to write them as if they're not a minor character, because they do have their own things going on.Collection: Horse
A woman of many talents. And intelligent, too. He'd probably have to kill her soon.Collection: Women
Besides, if there were no dragons of flesh and blood and fire, whence would come the idea for these stone carvings?Collection: Fire
Wolves have no kings.Collection: Kings