Quotes by Patrick Rothfuss

Elodin pointed down the street. What color is that boys shirt?Blue.What do you mean by blue? Describe it.I struggled for a moment, failed. So blue is a name?It is a word. 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 mans will. But a word is nothing but a painting of a fire. A name is the fire itself.My head was swimming by this point. I still dont understand.He laid a hand on my shoulder. Using words to talk of words is like using a pencil to draw a picture of itself, on itself. Impossible. Confusing. Frustrating. He lifted his hands high above his head as if stretching for the sky. But there are other ways to understanding! he shouted, laughing like a child. He threw both arms to the cloudless arch of sky above us, still laughing. Look! he shouted tilting his head back. Blue! Blue! Blue!

So blue is a name?It is a word. Words are pale shadows of forgotten names. As humans have power, words have power. Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest of hearts. There are seven words that will make a person love you. There are ten words tat will break a strong mans will. But a word is nothing but a painting of a fire. A name is te fire itself.My head was swimming at this point. I still dont understand.He laid a hand on my shoulder. Using words to talk of words is like using a pencil to draw a picture of itself, on itself. Impossible. Confusing. Frustrating. He lifted his hands high above his head as if stretching for the sky. But there are other ways of understanding! he shouted, laughing like a child. He threw both arms to the cloudless arch of sky above us, still lauging. Look! he shouted tilting his head back. Blue! Blue! Blue!

Anything you say at this point cannot be trusted. You know I am well and truly angry, so you are in the grip of fear. This means I cannot trust any word you say, as it comes from fear. You are clever, and charming, and a liar. I know you can bend the world with your words. So I will not listen.

But only a fool claims there is no such thing as love. When you see two young ones taring at each other with dewy eyes, there it is. So thick you can spread it on your brread and eat it. When you see a mother with her child, you see love. When you feel it roil in your belly, you know what it is. Even if you cannot give voice to it in words.

What? No defense? Any student of mine must be able to defend his ideas against an attack. No matter how you spend your life, your wit will defend you more often than a sword. Keep it sharp!

Its a shame you left without a word, you know. She was just beginning to trust you before that. Before you got angry. Before you ran off. Just like every other man in her life. Lusting after her, full of sweet words, then just walking away. Leaving her alone. Good thing shes used to it by now, isnt it? Otherwise you might have hurt her. Otherwise you just might have broken that poor girls heart

I slept and I woke. She gave me a ring made from a leaf, a cluster of golden berries, a flower that opened and closed at the stroking of a finger....And once, when I startled awake with my face wet and my chest aching, she reached out to lay her hand on top of mine. The gesture was so tentative, her expression so anxious, you would think she had never touched a man before. As if she was worried I might break or burn or bite. Her cool hand lay on mine for a moment, gentle as a moth. She squeezed my hand softly, waited, then pulled away.It struck me as odd at the time. But I was too clouded with confusion and grief to think clearly. Only now, looking back, do I realize the truth of things. With all the awkwardness of a young lover, she was trying to comfort me, and she didnt have the slightest idea how.

Kvothe looked at Bast for a long moment. “Oh Bast,” he said softly to his student. His smile was gentle and sad. “I know what sort of story I’m telling. This is no comedy.”“This is the end of the story, Bast. We all know that.” Kvothe’s voice was matter-of-fact, as casual as if he were describing yesterday’s weather. “I have led an interesting life, and this reminiscence has a certain sweetness to it. But . . .”Kvothe drew a deep breath and let it out gently. “. . . but this is not a dashing romance. This is no fable where folk come back from the dead. It’s not a rousing epic meant to stir the blood. No.We all know what kind of story this is.

Then I played the song that hides in the center of me. That wordless music that moves through the secret places in my heart. I played it carefully, strumming it slow and low into the dark stillness of the night. I would like to say it is a happy song, that it is sweet and bright, but it is not.

It’s like this: if you have one piece of cake, and you eat it, that’s fine.If you have two pieces of cake, you should probably share some with a friend. But maybe not. Occasionally we could all use two pieces of cake.But if you have a whole cake, and you eat *all* of it, that’s not very cool. It’s not just selfish, it’s kinda sick and unhealthy.

After an awkward pause, Bast extended his hand. Chronicler hesitated for a bare moment before reaching out quickly, as if he were sticking his hand into a fire. Nothing happened, both of them seemed moderately surprised.Amazing, isnt it? Kvothe addressed them bitingly. Five fingers and flesh with blood beneath. One could almost believe that on the other end of that hand lay a person of some sort.

They were the best sort of friends. The sort everyone hopes for but no one deserves, least of all me.

His voice is like a thunderstorm, and his hands know every secret hidden deep beneath the cool, dark earth.

I am sorry to tell you this thing. Youu are a good man, and a pretty thing. But still, you are only a man. All you have to offer the world is your anger.

There is a great difference between a gift given freely, and one thats meant to tie you to a man.

The wild women in his lap, my father enthused, laying their breasts on his head.There was a moment of stunned silence. Then my mother spoke slowly, with an edge to her voice. I think you mean wild beasts laying their heads in his lap.Do I?

It had felt as if I were truly awake for the first time, true knowledge running like ice in my blood.The memory exhilirated me for a moment, then left me with a broken cord of loss.

The law of sympathy is one of the most basic parts of magic. It states that the more similar two objects are, the greater the sympathetic link. The greater the link, the more easily they influence each other.

She didnt know any better. Nobody had ever told her that she couldnt. Because of this, she moved through the city like some faerie creature. She walked roads no one else could see, and it made her music wild and strange and free.

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.