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
It was hard to reconcile the drumbeats and lifted voices in the night with my memories of flames and the screams of dying men. How could humanity range so effortlessly from the sublime to the savage and back again?
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on the duality of human nature, highlighting the contrast between beauty and brutality.
In this quote, Robin Hobb explores the inherent contradictions within humanity, illustrating how people can experience profound beauty and joy while simultaneously being capable of violence and suffering. This reflection invites deeper contemplation about the complexities of human existence, suggesting that the capacity for both the sublime and the savage resides within us and that we frequently oscillate between these extremes.
Themes
HumanityDualitySublimeSavageContrastNature
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the complexities of human behavior.
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.
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Start writing sooner. Don't wait for permission. Don't hesitate.
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I healed. Not completely. A scar is never the same as good flesh, but it stops the bleeding.
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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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