66
" When circumstances are right, unlikely people do extraordinary things.
When the weight of the world is behind them, the push of events and time itself will align to make incredible things happen. Look around you, Brashen. You skirt the center of the vortex, so close you do not see how wondrous are the circumstances surrounding us. We are being swept toward a climax in time, a critcal choice-point where all the future must go one way, or another.
"Liveships are wakening to their true pasts. Serpents, reputed to be myths when you where a boy, are now accepted as natural. The serpents speak, Brashen, to Paragon, and Paragon speaks to us. When last did humanity concede intelligence to another race of creatures? What will it mean to your children and your grandchildren? You are caught up in a grand sweep of events, culminating in the changing of the course of the world." She lowered her voice and a smile touched her mouth. "Yet all you can perceive is that you are separated from Althea. A man's loss of his mate may be the essential trigger that determines all events from henceforth. Do you not see how strange and wonderful that is? That all history balances on an affair of the human heart? "
― Robin Hobb , Ship of Destiny (Liveship Traders, #3)
80
" All of us have a right to our lives. But what if, for lack of guidance, we take the wrong paths? Take Wintrow for instance. What if he was meant to lead a different life? What if, because of something I failed to do or say, he became King of the Pirate Isles when he was meant to be a man leading a life of scholarly contemplation? A man whose destiny was to experience a cloistered, contemplative life becomes a king instead. His deep spiritual meditations never occur and are never shared with the world.”
Paragon shook his head. “You worry too much.” His eyes tracked a moth. It fluttered earnestly by, intent on battering itself to death against the lantern. “Humans live such short lives. I believe they have little impact on the world. So Wintrow will not be a priest. It is probably no more significant than if a man who was meant to be a king became a philosophical recluse instead.”
He felt a shiver run over her body. “Oh, ship,” she rebuked him softly. “Was that meant to be comforting?”
Carefully, he patted her as a father might soothe an infant. “Take comfort in this Amber. You are only one small, short-lived creature. You’d have to be a fool to think you could change the course of the whole world.”
She was silent until she broke out in a shaky laugh. Oh, Paragon, in that you are more right than you know, my friend.”
“Be content with your own life, my friend, and live it well. Let others decide for themselves what path they will follow.”
She frowned up at him. “Even when you see, with absolute clarity, that it is wrong for them? That they hurt themselves?”
“Perhaps people have a right to their own pain,” he hazarded. Reluctantly he added, “Perhaps they even need it.”
“Perhaps,” she concluded unhappily."
p. 781: Amber and Paragon: "
― Robin Hobb , Ship of Destiny (Liveship Traders, #3)
