Assassin's Apprentice Quotes

When you cut pieces out of the truth to avoid looking like a fool you end up looking like a moron instead.

Don’t do what you can’t undo, until you’ve considered what you can’t do once you’ve done it.

Very little worth knowing is taught by fear.

Nothing takes the heart out of a man more than the expectation of failure.

When you spring to an idea, and decide it is truth, without evidence, you blind yourself to other possibilities.

Too late to apologize, I've already forgiven you.

When considering a man's motives, remember you must not measure his wheat with your bushel. He may not be using the same standard at all.

Men cannot grieve as dogs do. But they grieve for many years.

Most prisons are of our own making. A man makes his own freedom, too.

How do you politely explain to someone that you had believed for years he was a moron as well as a Fool? Fitz in Assassin's Apprentice

That is the trick of good government. To make folk desire to live in such a way that there is no need for its intervention.

Learning is never wrong. Even learning how to kill isn't wrong. Or right. It's just a thing to learn, a thing I can teach you. That's all.

My silences he mistook for a lack of wit rather than a lack of any need to speak.

People are intimidated by a man who acts with no apparent regard for consequences. Behave as if you cannot be touched and no one will dare to touch you.

The art of diplomacy is the luck of knowing more of your rival's secrets than he knows of yours.

It doesn't have to be that bad,' Chade said quietly. 'Most prisons are of our own making. A man makes his own freedom, too.

Utter loneliness was planted in me then, and sent its deep roots down into me.

All events, no matter how earthshaking or bizarre, are diluted within moments of their occurrence by the continuance of the necessary routines of day-to-day living.

One can only walk so far from one's true self before the bond either snaps, or pulls back. I am fortunate. I have been pulled back.

All events, no matter how earthshaking or bizarre, are diluted within moments of their occurrence the the continuance of the necessary routines of day-to-day. -Fitz Most prisons are of our own making. A man makes his own freedom, too. -Chade When you cut pieces out of the truth to avoid looking like a fool, you end up sounding like a moron instead. -Burrich We left. Walking uphill and into the wind. That suddenly seemed a metaphor for my whole life. -Fitz

One had a knife. But I had a staff and was trained to use it.

My perception of my life crashed from high tragedy to juvenile self-pity in a matter of moments.

I think myself cured of all spite, but when I touch pen to paper, the hurt of a boy bleeds out with sea-spawned ink, until I suspect each carefully formed black letter scabs over some ancient scarlet wound.

And tomorrow we'll do the same again. And again. Until one day you get up and find out that whatever it was didn't kill you after all.

It was inside me. The more I sought it, the stronger it grew. It loved me. Loved me even if I couldn't, wouldn't, didn't love myself. Love me even if I hated. It set its tiny teeth in my soul and braced and held so that I couldn't crawl any further. And when I tried, a howl of despair burst from it, searing me, forbidding me to break so sacred trust. It was Smithy.

Because your heart will be hammered against him, and your strength will be tempered in his fire.

I do not know whom I wish to win; until I do, I will let no player be eliminated.

Chade, I know the Fool is strange. But I like it when he comes to talk to me. He speaks in riddles, and he insults me, and makes fun of me, and gives himself leave to tell me things he thinks I should do, like wash my hair, or not wear yellow. But (...) I like him. He mocks me, but from him, it seems a kindness. He makes me feel, well, important. That he could choose me to talk to.

I don't know" "When a man says that, it usually means, "No, I won't but from time to time, I'll toy with the idea, so I can pretend i eventually intend to do it.

Locked into loneliness were we two and looking at one another every evening we each saw the one we blamed for it.

My dear dead mother wanted me to go into an honorable trade, like grave robbing. Would I listen? No. Be an assassin, like your uncle Gustav, she said. Would I pay heed? No. Apprentice to the Necromancer―

For a very brief period I was happy, and, an even rarer gift, I knew I was happy.

Now, I've had boys of my own, and I know boys aren't that way. They don't learn, or grow, or have manners when you're looking at them. But turn away, and turn back, and there they are, smarter, taller, and charming everyone but their own mothers.

But in my heart, when I said “my king,” I meant Verity.

If all I had ever done was to be born and discovered, I would have left a mark across all the land for all time. I grew up fatherless and motherless in a court where all recognized me as a catalyst. And a catalyst I become.

Each day say to yourself that you are the best, the strongest, and the most deadly. Eventually you will start to believe it. Finally it will come true. It came true for me. I am Grimalkin.

When you cut pieces out of the truth to avoid looking like a fool, you end up sounding like a moron instead.

I have since come to know that many men always see another’s good fortune as a slight to themselves

sometimes luck belongs to children and madmen.

That night I grasped another piece of the puzzle that Burrich had always been to me. For there is a very strange peace in giving over your judgment to someone else, to saying to them, “You lead and I will follow, and I will trust entirely that you will not lead me to death or harm.

sometimes there are no choices but poor ones.

If you can read, you can learn anything. If you’ve a will to.

If a man hits you once, he’ll hit you again, they say. And the same is true for lying. But I stayed, and I listened and I believed. What a fool I’ve been!

Had they been dogs they would have sniffed me over and then drawn back. But humans have no such inbred courtesies.

Yet, all things must pass, but especially time, and with the months and then the years, I came slowly to have a place in the scheme of things.

There can be no misunderstandings if there are no understandings at all.

I'd rather I was a stray pup,' I made bold to say. And then all my fears broke my voice as I added, "You wouldn't let them do this to a stray pup, changing everything all at once. When they gave the bloodhound puppy to Lord Grimsby, you sent your old shirt with it, so it would have something that smelled of home until it settle in.' 'Well,' he said, "I didn't ... come here, fitz. Come here, boy.' And puppy-like, I went to him, the only master I had, and he thumped me lightly on the back and rumbled up my hair, very much as if I had been a hound.

...I bit my tongue and sat through his detailed and strained explanation. Not for the first time, I realized he considered me slightly slow. My silences he mistook for a lack of wit rather than a lack of any need to speak.

It is a heady thing to be suddenly proclaimed the center of someone’s world,

Is it the nature of the world that all things seek a rhythm, and in that rhythm a sort o peace?

you cannot fend off the enemy if you do not have confidence in those who stand behind you.

You're not especially strong, or fast, or bright. Don't think you are. But you'll have the stubborness to wear down anyone stronger, or faster, or brighter than yourself.

There is a saying from the Southlands that there is truth in wine. There must be a bit of it in ale, also.

All events, no matter how earth-shaking or bizarre, are diluted within moments of their occurrence by the continuance of the necessary routines of day-to-day living. Men walking a battlefield to search for wounded among the dead will still stop to cough, to blow their noses, still lift their eyes to watch a V of geese in flight. I have seen farmers continue their ploughing and planting, heedless of armies clashing but a few miles away.

Suddenly, everything was easy and clear. I simply did whatever Chade told me to do, and trusted to him to have it turn out right. My spirit rode high on the crest of that wave of faith, and sometime during the night it occurred to me: this was what Burrich had had from Chivalry, and what he missed so badly.

It’s a poor teacher who tries to instruct by blows and threats.

Cowardice and courage are just labels—words invented by foolish men to bolster their egos and denigrate their enemies. In battle we should be cold, clinical, and disciplined. That

Men cannot grieve as dogs do.

It made me wish there were a place as much me as that place is you. A place I would keep as secret.

And while you're 'hearing' all this vital gossip, I might point out to you that no wise man tells all he knows. And that he who carries tales has little else in his head...

That was Verity's way. MOnths had passed since we had last spoken but he took no times for greetings. Chade said it was a lack in him, that he didn't make his men feel their importance to him. I think he believed that if anything significant had happened to me, someone would have told him. He had a bluff heartiness to him that I enjoyed, an attitude that things must be going well unless someone ahd told him otherwise.

It was an impressive display of good food abused in the name of fashionable cooking.

A true knight has a strict code of chivalry by which he lives his life: He cannot refuse a challenge and he always keeps his word. I also have a code of honor, but it is flexible.

Young as I was, I still wondered what kind of man this was who, with one leg bandaged, could quell a room full of rough men with a look or a word.

Time and tide wait for no man.

Too late to apologize. I have already forgiven you.

you’d be wise to eat lightly, or not at all, of any food you do not prepare yourself.” “At all the feasts and festivities that will be there?” “No. Only at the ones you wish to survive.

Take some advice, and you may survive this trip. When considering a man’s motives, remember you must not measure his wheat with your bushel. He may not be using the same standard at all.

Is it the nature of the world that all things seek a rhythm, and in that rhythm a sort of peace? Certainly it has always seemed so to me. All events, no matter how earthshaking or bizarre, are diluted within moments of their occurrence by the continuance of the necessary routines of day-to-day living. Men waling a battlefield to search for wounded among the dead will still stop to cough, to blow their noses, still lift their eyes to watch a V of geese in flight. I have seen farmers continue their plowing and planting, heedless of armies clashing but a few miles away.

For there is a very strange peace in giving over your judgment to someone else, to saying to them, “You lead and I will follow, and I will trust entirely that you will not lead me to death or harm.

The King's tool. I see.' An oppression settle over me. My brief glimpse of blue skies arching over yellow roads and me travelling down them astride Sooty suddenly vanished. I thought of the hounds in their kennels instead, or of the hawk, hooded and strapped, that rode on the King's wrist and was loosed only to do the King's will.

He reaches forward slowly, to lift the pen from my lax grip. Wearily I regard the faltering trail of ink it has tracked down my page. I have seen that shape before, I think, but it was not ink then. A trickle of drying blood on the deck of a Red-Ship, and mine the hand that spilled it? Or was it a tendril of smoke rising black against a blue sky as I rode too late to warn a village of a Red-Ship raid? Or poison swirling and unfurling yellowly in a simple glass of water, poison I had handed someone, smiling all the while? The artless curl of a strand of woman's hair left upon my pillow? Or the trail of a man's heels left in the sand as we dragged the bodies from the smoldering tower at Sealbay? The track of a tear down a mother's cheek as she clutched her Forged infant to her despite his angry cries? Like Red-Ships, the memories come without warning, without mercy.

Reminding myself that these “servants” might be better born than myself, I treated them all with great courtesy and later wondered if that might not be the secret of the harmonious household, that all servants or royalty, be treated with the same courtesy.

Men walking a battlefield to search for wounded among the dead will still stop to cough, to blow their noses, still lift their eyes to watch a V of geese in flight. I have seen farmers continue their plowing and planting, heedless of armies clashing but a few miles away.

Are you my enemy? Are you strong, with speed and agility and the training of a warrior? It matters naught to me. Run now! Run fast into the forest! I’ll give you a few moments’ start—an hour, if you wish. But you will never be fast enough. I’ll catch and kill you before long.

I can teach you even if you hate me, or if you despise the lessons. I can teach you if you are bored, or lazy or stupid. But I can't teach you if you're afraid to speak to me. At least, not the way I want to teach you. And I can't teach you if you decide this is something you'd rather not learn.

Vim a saber mais tarde que muitos homens vêem sempre a boa fortuna dos outros como uma desfeita contra si próprios.

When considering a man’s motives, remember you must not measure his wheat with your bushel. He may not be using the same standard at all.

But when all roads lead to death, there is no point to running down any of them.

How can I know what I’ll do, until I’ve done it? How can I say?

When you spring to an idea, and decide it is truth, without evidence, you blind yourself to other possibilities. Consider them all, boy.

If ever you make it so they don't need you, they will kill you.

have since come to know that many men always see another’s good fortune as a slight to themselves.

When you spring to an idea, and decide it is truth, without evidence, you blind yourself to other possibilities. Consider

What would you have thought of me, when you were younger, if I’d gone out whoring at night, or brought women up to the room? How would you see women now? Or men?

When you spring to an idea, and decide it is truth, without evidence, you blind yourself to other possibilities

Be your blood, boy, and ignore what anyone else thinks of you.

Her ambitions have always exceeded her abilities.” He paused, and looked directly at Regal. “In royalty, that is a most lamentable failing.

¿Está en la naturaleza del mundo que todas las cosas busquen un ritmo, y en ese ritmo anhelen una especie de paz?

I'll be teaching you the nasty, furtive, polite ways to kill people

luck belongs to children and madmen.

I’d have wished myself elsewhere, but there is something in a boy that takes the mundanely difficult and unpleasant and turns it into a personal challenge and an adventure.

Of one other I must speak, one dragged into that conflict and intrigue only by his loyalty to me. To the end of my days, I will bear the scars he gave me. His worn teeth sank deeply into my hand several times before he managed to drag me from that pool. How he did it, I will never know. But his head still rested on my chest when they found us; his mortal bonds to this world broken. Nosy was dead. I believe he gave his life freely, recalling that we had been good to one another, when we were puppies. Men cannot grieve as dogs do. But we grieve for many years.

The art of diplomacy is the luck of knowing more of your rival’s secrets than he knows of yours. Always deal from a position of power. These were Shrewd’s maxims. And Verity abided by them.

They’re into a bit more than assassination,” said the Admiral, aka Mr Brown, “and not all of them are top agents—the ones that use the names of gods and goddesses to identify themselves. Some are called daemons, and they serve as apprentices to the top players. They’ve a large number of people in the mix. Same arrangement. A team of professional killers, safe crackers, explosives—you name it —round each one, and they’re not afraid to sacrifice members for the objective, or to protect the goddess or god heading it. Every time we get close to them we lose people. It’s as if they’re playing with us. We’re pretty sure they’re all very well connected, and some of them indulge in what they call ‘hunting’. Some poor bastard is abducted and dumped somewhere remote without the means to defend himself. Then he or she is hunted by one or more of the Pantheon. They’re psychopaths—but, as I said, they’re very well connected.

I’ve been the reader sending that letter or small gift to a writer I’ve never met. I sent them because I wanted that writer to know that I’d met their characters. Their characters had become my friends. I hadn’t read a story; I’d shared a life.

I idly wished for something else, for any situation that was neither this forsaken chamber nor the tenseness of Burrich’s room. For a restfulness that perhaps I had once known somewhere else but could no longer recall. And so I drowsed into oblivion.

Fa!” She gave me a nudge with her shoulder. “You talk as if some lord should come riding down from the keep and carry me off.” I thought of August with his stuffy manners, or Regal simpering at her. “Eda forbid. You’d be wasted on them. They wouldn’t have the wit to understand you, or the heart to appreciate you.” Molly looked down at her work-worn hands. “Who would, then?” she asked softly. Boys are fools. The conversation had grown and twined around us, my words coming as naturally as breathing to me. I had not intended any flattery, or subtle courtship. The sun was beginning to dip into the water, and we sat close by one another and the beach before us was like the world at our feet. If I had said at that moment, “I would, ” I think her heart would have tumbled into my awkward hands like ripe fruit from a tree. I think she might have kissed me, and sealed herself to me of her own free will. But I couldn’t grasp the immensity of what I suddenly knew I had come to feel for her. It drove the simple truth from my lips, and I sat dumb and half a moment later Smithy came, wet and sandy, barreling into us, so that Molly leaped to her feet to save her skirts, and the opportunity was lost forever, blown away like spray on the wind.

He made a motion that dismissed me. And I rose, but as I did so I took from his tray a little silver knife, all engraved, that he had been using to cut fruit with. I looked him in the eyes as I did so, and quite openly slipped it up my sleeve. King Shrewd's eyes widened, but he said not a word. Two nights later, when Chade summoned me, our lessons resumed as if there had never been a pause. He talked, I listened, I played his stone game and never made an error. He gave me an assignment, and we made small jokes together. He showed me how Slink the weasel would dance for a sausage. All was well between us again. But before I left his chambers that night, I walked to his hearth. Without a word, I placed the knife on the center of his mantel shelf. Actually, I drove it, blade first, into the wood of the shelf. Then I left without speaking of it or meeting his eyes. In fact, we never spoke of it. I believe that the knife is still there. ... I sat still until I began to wonder if I would do it. Then I lifted my eyes to a silver fruit knife driven deep into Chade's mantelpiece, and I thought I knew the answer.

I rose from their midst feeling ashamed of how I had dismissed them; in so short a time Galen had brought me to think of them as ignorant sword wielders, men of brawn with no brain at all. I had lived among them all my life. I should have known better. No, I had known better. But my hunger to set myself higher, to prove beyond doubt my right to that royal magic had made me willing to accept any nonsense he might choose to present me. Something clicked within me, as if the key piece to a wood puzzle had suddenly slid into place. I had been bribed with the offer of knowledge as another man might have been bribed with coins.