Author:: Patrick Rothfuss
Full Title:: The Name of the Wind
Tags:#media/book
- themes::
- theme 1
- Summary::
- summary 1
* highlights from 2021-02-08
* “A troublesome question?” “Those tend to be the only worthwhile kind.” ([Location 553](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0010SKUYM&location=553))
* My mind was learning to work in different ways, becoming stronger. It felt the same way your body feels after a day of splitting wood, or swimming, or sex. You feel exhausted, languorous, and almost Godlike. This feeling was similar, except it was my intellect that was weary and expanded, languid and latently powerful. I could feel my mind starting to awaken. ([Location 1362](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0010SKUYM&location=1362))
* Being able to think about two disparate things at once, aside from being wonderfully efficient, was roughly akin to being able to sing harmony with yourself. It turned into a favorite game of mine. After two days of practicing I was able to sing a trio. Soon I was doing the mental equivalent of palming cards and juggling knives. ([Location 1402](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0010SKUYM&location=1402))
* “The difference is between saying something to a person, and saying something about a person. The first might be rude, but the second is always gossip.” ([Location 1517](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0010SKUYM&location=1517))
* The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind. ([Location 1533](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0010SKUYM&location=1533))
* And if you had the right sort of mind, the sort of mind that actually sees what it looks at, ([Location 1748](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0010SKUYM&location=1748))
* folly of a willful pride.” ([Location 1789](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0010SKUYM&location=1789))
* Nothing happened, both of them seemed moderately surprised. “Amazing, isn’t 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.” ([Location 1797](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0010SKUYM&location=1797))
* A poet is a musician who can’t sing. Words have to find a man’s mind before they can touch his heart, and some men’s minds are woeful small targets. Music touches their hearts directly no matter how small or stubborn the mind of the man who listens.” ([Location 1933](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0010SKUYM&location=1933))
* A clever, thoughtless person is one of the most terrifying things there is. ([Location 1962](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0010SKUYM&location=1962))
* The saying “time heals all wounds” is false. Time heals most wounds. The rest are hidden behind this door. ([Location 2264](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0010SKUYM&location=2264))
* Waterside is where people are poor. That makes them beggars, thieves, and whores. Hillside is where people are rich. That makes them solicitors, politicians, and courtesans. ([Location 2614](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0010SKUYM&location=2614))
* Fear tends to come from ignorance. Once I knew what the problem was, it was just a problem, nothing to fear. ([Location 3621](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0010SKUYM&location=3621))
* Quite the contrary. It reassured me. I had been feeling rather out of my element until Ambrose let me know, in his own special way, that there wasn’t much difference between the University and the streets of Tarbean. No matter where you are, people are basically the same. Besides, anger can keep you warm at night, and wounded pride can spur a man to wondrous things. ([Location 4319](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0010SKUYM&location=4319))
* 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! ([Location 4630](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0010SKUYM&location=4630))
* I wanted to get inside so badly I could taste it. It probably shows a perverse element of my personality that even though I was finally inside the Archives, surrounded by endless secrets, that I was drawn to the one locked door I had found. Perhaps it is human nature to seek out hidden things. ([Location 5064](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0010SKUYM&location=5064))
* There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man. ([Location 5082](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0010SKUYM&location=5082))
* We were none of us particularly drunk. But then again, none of us were particularly sober, either. Our exact positioning between those two points is a matter of pointless conjecture, and I will waste no time on it. ([Location 5222](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0010SKUYM&location=5222))
* That’s why stories appeal to us. They give us the clarity and simplicity our real lives lack.” ([Location 5323](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0010SKUYM&location=5323))
* People noticed, and by the end of the term I had a reputation for reckless bravery. But the truth is, I was merely fearless. There’s a difference, you see. In Tarbean I’d learned real fear. I feared hunger, pneumonia, guards with hobnail boots, older boys with bottleglass knives. Confronting Ambrose required no real bravery on my part. I simply couldn’t muster any fear of him. I saw him as a puffed-up clown. I thought he was harmless. I was a fool. ([Location 5569](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0010SKUYM&location=5569))
* He just didn’t want them to happen. To really fear something you have to dwell on it. And since there was nothing that preyed on Bast’s waking mind in this fashion, there was nothing his heart truly feared. ([Location 5584](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0010SKUYM&location=5584))
* AS WITH ALL TRULY wild things, care is necessary in approaching them. Stealth is useless. Wild things recognize stealth for what it is, a lie and a trap. While wild things might play games of stealth, and in doing so may even occasionally fall prey to stealth, they are never truly caught by it. ([Location 5616](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0010SKUYM&location=5616))
* Borrowing from a friend seemed like the simplest option, but I valued my handful of friends too much to risk losing them over money. As my father used to say: “There are two sure ways to lose a friend, one is to borrow, the other to lend.” ([Location 5644](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0010SKUYM&location=5644))
* All in all, it was a long-standing and uneasy truce where both sides complained while maintaining a grudging tolerance. Those people did have their uses after all, you just wouldn’t want your daughter marrying one…. ([Location 5672](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0010SKUYM&location=5672))
* First, I was driven. Other students could afford to stroll through their studies. Their parents or patrons would cover the expense. I, on the other hand, needed to climb the ranks in the Fishery quickly so I could earn money working on my own projects. Tuition wasn’t even my first priority anymore, Devi was. Second, I was brilliant. Not just your run-of-the-mill brilliance either. I was extraordinarily brilliant. Lastly, I was lucky. Plain and simple. ([Location 5836](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0010SKUYM&location=5836))
* Music is a proud, temperamental mistress. Give her the time and attention she deserves, and she is yours. Slight her and there will come a day when you call and she will not answer. ([Location 5902](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0010SKUYM&location=5902))
* Excellence is excellence’s only companion. ([Location 6338](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0010SKUYM&location=6338))
* Offstage I worry and sweat. Onstage I am calm as a windless winter night. ([Location 6388](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0010SKUYM&location=6388))
* Then the ending of the song struck me like a fist in my chest, as it always does, no matter where or when I listen to it. I buried my face in my hands and wept. Not for a broken lute string and the chance of failure. Not for blood shed and a wounded hand. I did not even cry for the boy who had learned to play a lute with six strings in the forest years ago. I cried for Sir Savien and Aloine, for love lost and found and lost again, at cruel fate and man’s folly. And so, for a while, I was lost in grief and knew nothing. ([Location 6437](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0010SKUYM&location=6437))
* A moment in the mind is worth nine in the fire.” ([Location 7532](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0010SKUYM&location=7532))
* “You see, women are like fires, like flames. Some women are like candles, bright and friendly. Some are like single sparks, or embers, like fireflies for chasing on summer nights. Some are like campfires, all light and heat for a night and willing to be left after. Some women are like hearthfires, not much to look at but underneath they are all warm red coal that burns a long, long while. ([Location 7741](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0010SKUYM&location=7741))
* “‘Expect disaster every seven years,’” ([Location 7923](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0010SKUYM&location=7923))
* “Beer dulls a memory, brand sets it burning, but wine is the best for a sore heart’s yearning.” ([Location 8195](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0010SKUYM&location=8195))
* Lovely voice, light of foot, quick of tongue, men’s adoration and women’s scorn in roughly equal amounts.” ([Location 8213](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0010SKUYM&location=8213))
* We Ruh are meant to travel, son. When my blood tells me to wander, I know enough to trust it. ([Location 8232](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0010SKUYM&location=8232))
* I’d learned how to size up a town. It’s a lot like reading your audience when you’re playing in a tavern. The stakes are higher of course, play the wrong song in a tavern and people might hiss you, but misjudge an entire town and things can get uglier than that. ([Location 8814](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0010SKUYM&location=8814))
* When necessity demands it, I’m an excellent liar. Not the noblest of skills, but useful. It ties closely to acting and storytelling, and I learned all three from my father, who was a master craftsman. ([Location 9013](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0010SKUYM&location=9013))
* “We want the sweet things, but we need the unpleasant ones.” ([Location 9413](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0010SKUYM&location=9413))
* I opened my mouth to howl, to cry, to curse him. But something other tore from my throat, a word I did not know and could not remember. ([Location 10613](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0010SKUYM&location=10613))
* “I will teach you to understand,” he said easily. “The nature of names cannot be described, only experienced and understood.” “Why can’t it be described?” I asked. “If you understand a thing, you can describe it.” ([Location 10814](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0010SKUYM&location=10814))
* “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 man’s will. But a word is nothing but a painting of a fire. A name is the fire itself.” ([Location 10819](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0010SKUYM&location=10819))
* “You see, there’s a fundamental connection between seeming and being. Every Fae child knows this, but you mortals never seem to see. We understand how dangerous a mask can be. We all become what we pretend to be.” ([Location 11520](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0010SKUYM&location=11520))
* “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.” ([Location 11524](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0010SKUYM&location=11524))
* She isn’t seen as beautiful. She is beautiful, seen.” ([Location 11531](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0010SKUYM&location=11531))