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

by Patrick Rothfuss

“Took an arrow in the knee on my way through the Eld three summers ago. It gives out every now and then.”

You may have heard of me.

“Call a jack a jack. Call a spade a spade. But always call a whore a lady. Their lives are hard enough, and it never hurts to be polite.”

The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind.

A poet is a musician who can’t sing. Words have to find a man’s mind before they can touch his heart, and some men’s minds are woeful small targets. Music touches their hearts directly no matter how small or stubborn the mind of the man who listens.”

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.

“Rian, would you please cross your legs?” The request was made with such an earnest tone that not even a titter escaped the class. Looking puzzled, Rian crossed her legs. “Now that the gates of hell are closed,” Hemme said in his normal, rougher tones. “We can begin.”

“Beer dulls a memory, brand sets it burning, but wine is the best for a sore heart’s yearning.”

“Are you hurt?” “Absolutely,” I said. “Especially in my everywhere.”

“That’s the first thing you said to me. I was just wondering why you’re here. My seven words. I’ve been wondering the same thing for so long.”

“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.”