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

by Patrick Rothfuss

“My granda always told me that fall’s the time to root up something you don’t want coming back to trouble you.” Kote mimicked the quaver of an old man’s voice. “‘Things are too full of life in the spring months. In the summer, they’re too strong and won’t let go. Autumn…’” He looked around at the changing leaves on the trees. “‘Autumn’s the time. In autumn everything is tired and ready to die.’”

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.

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.”

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. The image of them gently swaying to the music is how I picture love in my mind even after all these years.

A small rivulet ran from the pool across some rocks and away to the east. It may have been beautiful, but I didn’t notice. I couldn’t notice.

Waterside is where people are poor. That makes them beggars, thieves, and whores. Hillside is where people are rich. That makes them solicitors, politicians, and courtesans.

I knew that he was trying to do me a favor, and a week ago I would have jumped at the opportunity for free shoes. But for some reason I didn’t feel right about it. I quietly gathered up my things and left a pair of copper jots on his stool before I left. 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.

That’s why stories appeal to us. They give us the clarity and simplicity our real lives lack.”

“There are two sure ways to lose a friend, one is to borrow, the other to lend.”

The night is perfect in a wild way, almost terrifyingly beautiful.

The three boys, one dark, one light, and one—for lack of a better word—fiery, do not notice the night. Perhaps some part of them does, but they are young, and drunk, and busy knowing deep in their hearts that they will never grow old or die. They also know that they are friends, and they share a certain love that will never leave them. The boys know many other things, but none of them seem as important as this. Perhaps they are right.

Metal rusts, I thought, music lasts forever.

there is a great difference between being fearless and being brave.

“Isn’t that the way of the world?” she said. “We want the sweet things, but we need the unpleasant ones.”

After a few moments my back began to ache with the pressure of supporting her weight and my own. My leg started to go numb. Her hair tickled my nose. Still, I didn’t move for fear of ruining this, the most wonderful moment of my life.

“What do you mean by blue? Describe it.” I struggled for a moment, failed. “So blue is a name?” “It is a word. Words are pale shadows of forgotten names. As names have power, words have power. Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts. There are seven words that will make a person love you. There are ten words that will break a strong man’s will. But a word is nothing

“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.”