Patrick Rothfuss - The Name of the Wind (2007)

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

Patrick Rothfuss
My parents danced together, her head on his chest. Both had their eyes closed. They seemed so perfectly content. 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. The image of them gently swaying to the music is how I picture love in my mind even after all these years.

Patrick Rothfuss
If there is one thing I will not abide it is the folly of a willful pride.

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

Patrick Rothfuss
Close your mouth, E'lir Kvothe, or I will feel obliged to put some vile tonic in it.

Patrick Rothfuss
I have known her longer, my smile said. True, you have been inside the circle of her arms, tasted her mouth, felt the warmth of her, and that is something I have never had. But there is a part of her that is only for me. You cannot touch it, no matter how hard you might try. And after she has left you I will still be here, making her laugh. My light shining in her. I will still be here long after she has forgotten your name.

Patrick Rothfuss
There is nothing quite so delightfully mysterious as a secret in your own backyard.

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.

Patrick Rothfuss
How odd to watch a mortal kindle / Then to dwindle day by day / Knowing their bright souls are tinder / And the wind will have its way

Patrick Rothfuss
Perhaps the greatest faculty our minds possess is the ability to cope with pain.

Patrick Rothfuss
Sleep marks passing time, giving us distance from the things that have hurt us. When a person is wounded they will often fall unconscious. Similarly, someone who hears traumatic news will often swoon or faint. This is the mind's way of protecting itself from pain.

Patrick Rothfuss
After a certain point is reached the numbers cease to matter, and all that remains is the faceless mass of a crowd.

Patrick Rothfuss
Auri," I asked slowly, "are you joking with me?" She looked up and grinned. "Yes I am," she said proudly. "Isn't it wonderful?

Patrick Rothfuss
It's hard to be wrongfully accused, but it's worse when the people looking down on you are clods who have never read a book or traveled more than twenty miles from the place they were born.

Patrick Rothfuss
Only priests and fools are fearless and I've never been on the best of terms with God.

Patrick Rothfuss
Denna is a wild thing," I explained. "Like a hind or a summer storm. If a storm blows down your house, or breaks a tree, you don't say the storm was mean. It was cruel. It acted according to its nature and something unfortunately was hurt. The same is true of Denna.

Patrick Rothfuss
Just pity him, my boy. Tomorrow we'll be on our way, but he'll have to keep his own disagreeable company until the day he dies.

Patrick Rothfuss
Old Cob tucked away his bowl of stew with the predatory efficency of a lifetime bachelor.

Patrick Rothfuss
With his eyes and those hands there won't be a woman safe in all the world when he starts hunting after the ladies.' 'Courting, dear,' my father corrected gently. 'Semantics,' she shrugged.

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.

Patrick Rothfuss
All stories are true, Skarpi said. But this one really happened, if that's what you mean. He took another slow drink, then smiled again, his bright eyes dancing. More or less. You have to be a bit of a liar to tell a story the right way. Too much truth confuses the facts. Too much honesty makes you sound insincere.

Patrick Rothfuss
The Chancellor looked down at the empty table for a minute. Then he shrugged, looked up, and gave a surprisingly jaunty smile. "All in favor of admitting first-term Kvothe's reckless use of sympathy as proof of mastery of basic principles of sympathy vote by show of hands.

Patrick Rothfuss
I have, of course, been called many other things. Most of them uncouth, although very few were unearned

Patrick Rothfuss
I also felt guilty about the three pens I'd stolen, but only for a second. And since there was no convenient way to give them back, I stole a bottle of ink before I left.

Patrick Rothfuss
If I seem to wander, if I seem to stray, remember that true stories seldom take the straightest way

Patrick Rothfuss
Someone's parents have been singing entirely the wrong sort of songs.

Patrick Rothfuss
If you are going to impose your will on the world, you must have control over what you believe.

Patrick Rothfuss
Abenthy gave me an appraising look. I'd been waiting for it. It was the look that said, "You don't sound as young as you look." I hoped he'd come to grips with it fairly soon. It gets tiresome being spoken to as if you are a child, even if you happen to be one.

Patrick Rothfuss
He had a bright, reckless tenor that was always wandering off, looking for notes in the wrong places.

Patrick Rothfuss
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 woman 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.

Patrick Rothfuss