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.
Robin HobbRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Life is unpredictable, and endings aren't always tidy.
In this quote, Robin Hobb reflects on the complexity of narratives, both in literature and in life. She suggests that a satisfying conclusion often sets the stage for new beginnings, indicating that not every loose end needs to be resolved as life is filled with ongoing stories and new challenges that arise after one chapter closes.
Themes
EndingsBeginningsNarrativeLifeBooksStories
In practice
Example use cases
Using this quote during a discussion on storytelling in literature classes.
More from Robin Hobb
All quotes →As I apologized to her a flicker of panic raced through me and then faded away. There wasn't enough life left in me to panic. I'd made a mistake and I was dying. Apparently not even a Speck afterlife was available to me. I'd simply stop being. Apparently I hadn't died correctly. Oops.
Robin HobbRead
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.
Robin HobbRead
Start writing sooner. Don't wait for permission. Don't hesitate.
Robin HobbRead
I healed. Not completely. A scar is never the same as good flesh, but it stops the bleeding.
Robin HobbRead
If a man does not die of a wound, then it heals in some fashion, and so it is with loss. From the sharp pain of immediate berevement, both the Prince and I passed into the gray days of numb bewilderment and waiting. So grief has always seemed to me, a time of waiting not for the hurt to pass, but to become accustomed to it.
Robin HobbRead
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