The Wise Man's Fear (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #2)

by Patrick Rothfuss

“Sometimes falling teaches us things too. In dreams you often fall before

“Remember: there are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man.”

“It’s the questions we can’t answer that teach us the most. They teach us how to think. If you give a man an answer, all he gains is a little fact. But give him a question and he’ll look for his own answers.”

do not believe in faeries,” I tried to say, but it came out as barely a whisper.

It felt like the promise of a warm hearth on a cold night.

ate her with my eyes, knowing all the songs and stories I had heard were nothing. She is what men dream of. All the places I have been, all the women I have seen, I have met her equal only once.

she was beautiful at rest she was doubly so awake. Asleep she was a painting of a fire. Awake she was the fire itself.

The sleeping mind, some piece of me realized faintly. No longer sleeping, I thought and smiled.

Half of seeming clever is keeping your mouth shut at the right times.

“sometimes slow seduction is the only way,” she said. “the gentle shadow fears the candleflame. how could your fledgling shaed not feel the same?”

“I do this so you cannot help but hear. a wise man views a moonless night with fear.”

Each woman is like an instrument, waiting to be learned, loved, and finely played, to have at last her own true music made.