The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #1)

by Patrick Rothfuss

My parents were never really married, by which I mean they never bothered making their relationship official with any church. I’m not embarrassed by the fact. They considered themselves married and didn’t see much point in announcing it to any government or God. I respect that. In truth, they seemed more content and faithful than many officially married couples I have seen since.

I learned to love the feel of good words.

Though I didn’t know it at the time, I was looking for the name of the wind.

When we are children we seldom think of the future. This innocence leaves us free to enjoy ourselves as few adults can. The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind.

I felt my heart lift and dive. I wept as much for the glory of two voices so perfectly enmeshed as for the tragedy of the song.

If you can find someone like that, someone who you can hold and close your eyes to the world with, then you’re lucky. Even if it only lasts for a minute or a day.

There are times when reality is nothing but pain, and to escape that pain the mind must leave reality behind. Last is the door of death. The final resort. Nothing can hurt us after we are dead, or so we have been told.

“May all your stories be glad ones, and your roads be smooth and short.”

Everyone knows one story, I thought. Everyone knows at least one.

“There’s no good story that doesn’t touch the truth,”

Fear tends to come from ignorance. Once I knew what the problem was, it was just a problem, nothing to fear.

Why? Because pride is a strange thing, and because generosity deserves generosity in return. But mostly because it felt like the right thing to do, and that is reason enough.

of fond imaginings and impossible things.

“I’ll see you where the roads meet.”

Here on the road between the two there is nothing but old trees and long grass bending to the wind.

Every tale has deep roots somewhere in the world.”

Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts.

We understand how dangerous a mask can be. We all become what we pretend to be.”

“It’s like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story.”