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

by Patrick Rothfuss

“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.

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

Besides, anger can keep you warm at night, and wounded pride can spur a man to wondrous things.

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.”

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

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 but a painting of a fire. A name is the fire itself.”

Wisdom precludes boldness.

“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.”