Dutiful Quotes

“Boldness is rewarded. But what about all those girls, all those obedient girls who trusted and loved and wed and died? Weren't they bold, too?”
― Holly Black, The Lost Sisters

“Ordinary men earns responsibility towards their family, extraordinary men earns duty towards their nation.”
― Amit Kalantri

“Wide gape the gates of yellowed bone. A tongue of plank is our path between the teeth as we walk toward the gullet. Here I will be devoured. This is a true thing, near unavoidable on any path. I must enter those jaws.”
― Robin Hobb, Fool's Quest

“Dutiful

How did I get so dutiful? Was I always that way?
Going around as a child with a small broom and dustpan,
sweeping up dirt I didn't make,
or out into the yard with a stunted rake,,
weeding the gardens of others
-the dirt blew back, the weeds flourished, despite my efforts-
and all the while with a frown of disapproval
for other people's fecklessness, and my own slavery.
I didn't perform these duties willingly.
I wanted to be on the river, or dancing,
but something had me by the back of the neck.
That's me too, years later, a purple-eyed wreck,
because whatever had to be finished wasn't, and I stayed late,
grumpy as a snake, on too much coffee,
and further on still, those groups composed of mutterings
and scoldings, and the set-piece exhortation:
somebody ought to do something!
That was my hand shooting up.

But I've resigned. I've ditched the grip of my echo.
I've decided to wear sunglasses, and a necklace
adorned with the gold word NO,
and eat flowers I didn't grow.
Still, why do I feel so responsible
for the wailing from shattered houses,
for birth defects and unjust wars,
and the soft, unbearable sadness
filtering down from distant stars?”
― Margaret Atwood, The Door

“Responsibility and duty are different things, you can sacrifice your responsibility for your duty but you cannot sacrifice your duty for your responsibility.”
― Amit Kalantri

“You have no idea what that would do to my life,” I pleaded quietly.
“No. I don't,” he admitted easily, but with growing outrage. “And neither do you. You go around making these monumental decisions about what other people should know or not know about their own lives. But you don't really have any more idea how it will turn out than I do! You just do what you think is safest and then crawl around hoping no one will find out and blame you later if things go wrong!”
― Robin Hobb, Fool's Fate

“I cannot seem to contort myself back in to the shape of a dutiful child.

I am becoming unravelled. I am becoming undone.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“Sometimes, on duty, if one trusts a stranger, one’s nerves are on edge. What if I am making a mistake!”
― Anuradha Bhattacharyya