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

by Patrick Rothfuss

Death was like an unpleasant neighbor. You didn’t talk about him for fear he might hear you and decide to pay a visit. Except for stories, of course. Tales of poisoned kings and duels and old wars were fine. They dressed death in foreign clothes and sent him far from your door. A chimney fire or the croup cough were terrifying. But Gibea’s trial or the siege of Enfast, those were different. They were like prayers, like charms muttered late at night when you were walking alone in the dark. Stories were like ha’penny amulets you bought from a peddler, just in case.

Chronicler looked puzzled. “Anyone in town could have told you that.” The innkeeper frowned. “If it’s something everyone knows, I can’t afford to ask,” he said.

I’d heard he had started a fistfight in one of the seedier local taverns because someone had insisted on saying the word “utilize” instead of “use.”

Wilem snorted. “That doesn’t sound suspicious at all,” he said. “And you wonder why people talk about you.” “I don’t wonder why they talk,” I said. “I wonder what they say.”

“What did you bring me?” I countered. She grinned. “I have an apple that thinks it is a pear,” she said, holding it up. “And a bun that thinks it is a cat. And a lettuce that thinks it is a lettuce.” “It’s a clever lettuce then.” “Hardly,” she said with a delicate snort. “Why would anything clever think it was a lettuce?” “Even if it is a lettuce?” I asked. “Especially then,” she said. “Bad enough to be a lettuce. How awful to think you are a lettuce too.”

When he spoke, women at the surrounding tables turned to look in his direction with hungry, half-lidded eyes. His voice had the opposite effect on me. To be both rich and handsome was bad enough. But to have a voice like honey over warm bread on top of that was simply inexcusable. The sound of it made me feel like a cat grabbed by the tail and rubbed backward with a wet hand.

I have heard what poets write about women. They rhyme and rhapsodize and lie. I have watched sailors on the shore stare mutely at the slow-rolling swell of the sea. I have watched old soldiers with hearts like leather grow teary-eyed at their king’s colors stretched against the wind. Listen to me: these men know nothing of love. You will not find it in the words of poets or the longing eyes of sailors. If you want to know of love, look to a trouper’s hands as he makes his music. A trouper knows.

So yes. It had flaws, but what does that matter when it comes to matters of the heart? We love what we love. Reason does not enter into it. In many ways, unwise love is the truest love. Anyone can love a thing because. That’s as easy as putting a penny in your pocket. But to love something despite. To know the flaws and love them too. That is rare and pure and perfect.

“But, if you’re teaching other students, why not me?” “Because you are too eager to be properly patient,” he said flippantly. “You’re too proud to listen properly. And you’re too clever by half. That’s the worst of it.”

Books are a poor substitute for female companionship, but they are easier to find.

“You’d be amazed at how similar arrogance and confidence look at first glance.

Clothes do not make the man, but you need the proper costume if you want to play the part.

The old man was going from nowhere to nowhere. He had no hat for his head and no pack for his back. He had not a penny or a purse to put it in. He barely even owned his own name, and even that had been worn thin and threadbare through the years.

He held out the carved wooden face. “What do you see here?” It was no longer an irregular piece of wood. My features, locked in serious contemplation, stared out of the wood grain. I leaned forward to get a closer look. Puppet laughed and threw up his hands. “Too late!” he exclaimed, looking childlike for a moment. “You looked too hard and didn’t see enough. Too much looking can get in the way of seeing, you see?”

Before he could reply, a bull-shouldered man clattered an empty plate onto the bar and set a fork down gently beside it. “That,” he said in a booming voice, “was a damn fine pie.” A thin woman with a pinched face stood next to him. “Don’t you cuss, Elias,” she said sharply. “There’s no call for that.” “Oh, honey,” the big man said. “Don’t get yourself in a twit. Damfine is a kind of apple, innit?”

There was nothing special about the dried apple, but in my opinion if you have a secret compartment in your lute case and don’t use it to hide things, there is something terribly, terribly wrong with you.

“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.”

Pride is always a better lever against the nobility than reason.

I looked down at the board. “The point isn’t to win?” I asked. “The point,” Bredon said grandly, “is to play a beautiful game.” He lifted his hands and shrugged, his face breaking into a beatific smile. “Why would I want to win anything other than a beautiful game?”

“Songs choose their hour and their own season. When your tune’s tin, there is a reason. The tone of a tune is your heart’s mettle, and there’s no clear water from a muddy well. All you can do is let the silt settle, or you’ll sound sour as a broken bell.”

There are secrets of the mouth and secrets of the heart. Most secrets are secrets of the mouth. Gossip shared and small scandals whispered. These secrets long to be let loose upon the world. A secret of the mouth is like a stone in your boot. At first you’re barely aware of it. Then it grows irritating, then intolerable. Secrets of the mouth grow larger the longer you keep them, swelling until they press against your lips. They fight to be let free. Secrets of the heart are different. They are private and painful, and we want nothing more than to hide them from the world. They do not swell and press against the mouth. They live in the heart, and the longer they are kept, the heavier they become.

nothing in the world is harder than convincing someone of an unfamiliar truth.

“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.”

“That way, when he finds the answers, they’ll be precious to him. The harder the question, the harder we hunt. The harder we hunt, the more we learn.

“This is an old, old piece of forest. You don’t see the blade anywhere near where folk have settled. We’re off the edge of the map here.” “We’re hardly on the edge of the map,” I said. “We know exactly where we are.” Marten snorted. “Maps don’t just have outside edges. They have inside edges. Holes. Folk like to pretend they know everything about the world. Rich folk especially. Maps are great for that. On this side of the line is Baron Taxtwice’s field, on that side is Count Uptemuny’s land.” Marten spat. “You can’t have blanks on your maps, so the folks who draw them shade in a piece and write, ‘The Eld.’” He shook his head. “You might as well burn a hole right through the map for what good that does. This forest is big as Vintas. Nobody owns it. You head off in the wrong direction in here, you’ll walk a hundred miles and never see a road, let alone a house or plowed field. There are places around here that have never felt the press of a man’s foot or heard the sound of his voice.”

“The poorer you are, the more your pride is worth.

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

Only a fool disbelieves what he sees with his own eyes.

Pride and folly, they go together like two tightly grasping hands.

But a leader is not a muscle. A leader is a mind.”

Cyphus bears the blue flame. Stercus is in thrall of iron. Ferule chill and dark of eye. Usnea lives in nothing but decay. Grey Dalcenti never speaks. Pale Alenta brings the blight. Last there is the lord of seven: Hated. Hopeless. Sleepless. Sane. Alaxel bears the shadow’s hame.”

no man is brave that has never walked a hundred miles. If you want to know the truth of who you are, walk until not a person knows your name. Travel is the great leveler, the great teacher, bitter as medicine, crueler than mirror-glass. A long stretch of road will teach you more about yourself than a hundred years of quiet introspection.”

No story can move a thousand miles by word of mouth and keep its shape.

“I’ve waited a long time to show these flowers how pretty you are,”