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

by Patrick Rothfuss

IT WAS ONE OF those perfect autumn days so common in stories and so rare in the real world. The weather was warm and dry, ideal for ripening a field of wheat or corn. On both sides of the road the trees were changing color. Tall poplars had gone a buttery yellow while the shrubby sumac encroaching on the road was tinged a violent red. Only the old oaks seemed reluctant to give up the summer, and their leaves remained an even mingling of gold and green.

“My granda always told me that fall’s the time to root up something you don’t want coming back to trouble you.”

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.

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

“Where do you think stories come from, E’lir Kvothe? Every tale has deep roots somewhere in the world.”

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

“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.”