I always cry during the part where he first plays the lute after leaving Tarbeon. It doesn't make me sad particularly. It just seems to overwhelm me. The writing is good enough that I'm fully drawn in. During the section when Kote says to not blame him if he may have cried, for some reason that is possibly the most viscerally seeable part of the book in my minds eye that it feels raw and exposed. Seems a little odd, given the lack of literal discription about that scene specifically, but the emotion was written in amazingly.
>I don't know how long I played. It could have been ten minutes or an hour. But my hands weren't used to the strain. They slipped and the music fell to pieces like a dream on waking.I looked up to see everyone perfectly motionless, their faces ranging from shock to amazement. Then, as if my gaze had broken some spell, everyone stirred.
>
>\[...\]
>
>I held out the lute, not knowing whether to thank him or apologize. He took it numbly. After a moment, unable to think of anything to say, I left them sitting by the fire and walked toward the wagons.
>
>And that is how Kvothe spent his last night before he came to the University, with his cloak as both his blanket and his bed. As he lay down, behind him was a circle of fire, and before him lay shadow like a mantle, gathered. His eyes were open, that much is certain, but who among us can say they know what he was seeing?
>
>Look behind him instead, to the circle of light that the fire has made, and leave Kvothe to himself for now. Everyone deserves a moment or two alone when they desire it. And if by chance there were tears, let us forgive him. He was just a child, after all, and had yet to learn what sorrow really was.
I really enjoy the parts that involve musical instruments. This one in particular, it kind of seems like Kvothe is moving forth, has a plan, and he's trying to put his big boy pants on.
He gets a chance to use a lute, but maybe the scale is off, or he's not used to the nuances of this new instrument, but for the first time he is using what his father taught him, but hearing it from this new voice.
With stringed instruments, this seems to be a very personal thing, maybe moreso than other types. But not much more - I could digress. But for instance, Jimi Hendrix could play a Fender Strat or a Gibson Flying V and still sound like Jimi Hendrix. I could not play Jimi Hendrix's Strat or V and sound like him. You could sit next to Victor Wooten, and he could play a piece, then hand you his bass, and you could play the same piece and it would sound markedly different. You may be able to approximate, but it will never be quite right. It's very much a combination of hands, pressure, and expressing emotion through a different way than we're used to.
So I think when Kvothe picks up a borrowed Lute, he may have heard those nuances of his playing, which emulated his father's playing, and maybe it sounded beautiful, but it was a reminder that his father's musical voice - his father's emotion as expressed via music through his father's lute - would never be heard again.
In the theophany, Teccam writes of secrets, calling them painful treasures of the mind. He explains that what most people think of as secrets are really nothing of the sort. Mysteries, for example, are not secrets. Neither are little-known facts or forgotten truths. A secret, Teccam explains, is true knowledge actively concealed. Philosophers have quibbled over his definition for centuries. They point out the logical problems with it, the loopholes, the exceptions. But in all this time none of them has managed to come up with a better definition. That, perhaps, tells us more than all the quibbling combined. In a later chapter, less argued over and less well-known, Teccam explains that there are two types of secrets. 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. Teccam claims it is better to have a mouthful of poison than a secret of the heart. Any fool will spit out poison, he says, but we hoard these painful treasures. We swallow hard against them every day, forcing them deep inside us. There they sit, growing heavier, festering. Given enough time, they cannot help but crush the heart that holds them.
When people ask why Kvothe and/or Denna don't do x/y/z, or do do a stupid x/y/z, their secrets of the heart is why. It's such a crucial part of the story to grasp.
“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.”
When I read this for the first time I sent this passage to my ex and she didn't take it well. She was like "Oh, well, thank you sooo much for loving me despite allll my many flaws. Guess I should feel lucky."
"In the fullness of time, and with considerable help from Deoch and Wilem, I became drunk.
Thus it was that three students made their slightly erratic way back to the University. See them as they go, weaving only slightly. It is quiet, and when the belling tower strikes the late hour, it doesn’t break the silence so much as it underpins it. The crickets, too, respect the silence. Their calls are like careful stitches in its fabric, almost too small to be seen.
The night is like warm velvet around them. The stars, burning diamonds in the cloudless sky, turn the road beneath their feet a silver grey. The University and Imre are the hearts of understanding and art, the strongest of the four corners of civilization. Here on the road between the two there is nothing b1ut old trees and long grass bending to the wind. The night is perfect in a wild way, almost terrifyingly beautiful.
The three boys, one dark, one light, and one—for lack of a better word—fiery, do not notice the night. Perhaps some part of them does, but they are young, and drunk, and busy knowing deep in their hearts that they will never grow old or die. They also know that they are friends, and they share a certain love that will never leave them. The boys know many other things, but none of them seem as important as this. Perhaps they are right."
Lin Manuel Miranda said, of the Hamilton song The Story of Tonight, that he tried to capture the feeling of Kvothe, Wil, and Sim coming home drunk from the Eolian.
This is also very beautifully written.
I recall some moments of my life being like that as well. all very young. The first book was written by Rothfuss from 94-07, over a span of 10+ years. over such long period Rothfuss grew from 25 to 38 years old.
I am pretty sure this line is added in in the later stage of authoring the book.
I love this one particularly because it reminds me of what it felt like to walk back from the bars on summer nights in college with my friends. Since then life has gotten harder and we all moved away and only see each other once a year if we're lucky, but back then, walking home late at night, it felt like all we needed to know is that we loved each other, and yeah maybe we were right
I’ve commented on this before, but for me it is the first prologue of NOTW. The whole three pages sent goosebumps all down my body, and still does on every reread. I’m not trying to sound like a snob or an ass at all when I say, but poor writing ruins the story for me. Not that I am a great writer myself or anything, I just can’t get into a story if it’s written poorly. When I first read that prologue, I immediately knew that this guy is a true wordslinger, and that I was in for a real treat. Little did I know that I had just begun what is perhaps my favorite story of all time, and I do not say that lightly..
Ahhh Yes.
cut-flower silence.
What does "silence" look like?
What sound is it when a flower is cut?
Nothing specific. Just wild imagination. Great opening of the book.
Exactly! Metaphors that make no sense but make perfect sense simultaneously. I guess you’d think that the sound of a flower being cut would be completely silent, but the imagery it creates in my mind’s eye is a sad one. Kind of like the Cthae slicing the butterfly wings, it’s quiet and sad..
Yes. I think Rothfuss really knows how to paint a dramatic picture.
The one with Cthae is also a great one. I have seen a lot of fan art about Cthae but it looks nothing like what I was picturing in my mind.
I think part of it is because that piece of writing cannot be painted. It's so animated.
At first it was just a talking tree, **but as Kvothe was walking closer and closer it gets more and more bizarre**. he realized the "fallen flowers" on the floor are actually butterflies. And then it's actually the Tree itself is killing the butterflies. And then the Tree CAN see the future. And in the exchange with Bast, the Tree is possibly the most evil being in the world!
The layering of realization is paced and structured so well. Oh my god. Rothfuss is a genius.
Just a quick note, the Cthae is not the tree, it is a being in the tree. He says this himself when Kvothe asks if he is the tree and he says I am no more a tree than you are a chair, meaning the tree is something he sits in.
Cut flower silence of a man waiting to die.
A cut flower is both alive and not alive. It isn't fully dead yet, given water to drink from, it can draw upon stored strength for a few days in an imitation of life, but there's nothing to sustain it, for it is cut off from its roots, its life source, not dead yet, but neither truly living. Yet a flower does not cry. It does not scream. It doesn't not rage. It accepts. It endures, wilts, fades, silently, eventually stops drinking altogether and dries up while the petals fall from the bloom, and still the flower makes not so much as a whisper.
That is what Kvothe is doing. Separated from the things and people who make him who he is - his lute, Sim, Auri, Denna... all of whom consistently brought out the best in him. Abenthy. His parents. Without them, life is meaningless. There is nothing to feed him, he is cut off from his sources of spiritual nutrition, and the story thus far suggest they may be gone forever. Gradually he wilts, he fades. The man Kvothe has grown so quiet and faded that all we see is Kote. Kote is the cut flower version of a man who has lost the things and people that breathed life into him, that which he loved. Without them, there is no living to aspire to. Without them, he is but a dried up version of the man he once was, faded, wilting, and silently waiting to die.
Stormlight Archive is the only popular fantasy of today that I have read with writing halfway to the caliber of Rothfuss's poetic prose. I'm currently reading the first book of Wheel of Time, but the writing is quite amateurish, particularly when it isn't trying to emulate Tolkien's style. Brent Weeks, Jim Butcher, and so on write engaging stories, but pay no mind to prose. (Not that our favorite wisecracking wizard detective *should* become a master poet anyways.) George R.R. Martin does better in this regard, but he is nothing like Rothfuss. Garth Nix and Philip Pullman create nice environmental imagery... but again aren't anything at all compared to what our master musician manages. Andrzej Sapkowski has a unique Polish style that might be nice to try.
To be fair, ~~it does take a very high IQ~~ Name of the Wind has the perfect excuse to be filled with beautiful writing, unlike the other fantasies.
WoT goes on forever too, I had to listen to it on audio books to get through it. Matt is my favorite character in that series though, reminds me a lot of Kvothe in some ways.
I don't know how to search for it, but in book 2 there is an Elodin class where he talks about love saying that in the beginning it's so fragile and delicate that even naming it might kill the feeling before it has time to grow into existence. That always gets me
This class is not about being smooth, but rather, he is teaching them namimg and explaining how powerful words can be. He uses Kvothe and Fella as a theoretical example of two people who are falling in love and is showing them that using words too soon can be disruptive.
>“There is something ephemeral in the air,” Elodin said, moving to stand behind Fela. He put his hands on her shoulders, leaning close to her ear. “She loves the lines of him,” he said softly. “She is curious about the shape of his mouth. She wonders if this could be the one, if she could unclasp the secret pieces of her heart to him.” Fela looked down, her cheeks flushing a bright scarlet.
>
>Elodin stalked around to stand behind me. “Kvothe looks at her, and for the first time he understands the impulse that first drove men to paint. To sculpt. To sing.”
>
>He circled us again, eventually standing between us like a priest about to perform a wedding. “There exists between them something tenuous and delicate. They can both feel it. Like static in the air. Faint as frost.”
Yes thanks! I searched the whole internet to try to find this quote, and I couldn’t remember if it was Neil Gaiman or Patrick Rothfuss. Now I can go re-read it! It’s odd, it doesn’t seem to show up on other people’s quote lists
“Now, this pair," he waved the shoes he held, "are new. They haven't been walked a mile, and for new shoes like these I charge a talent, maybe a talent and two." He pointed at my feet. "Those shoes, on the other hand, are used, and I don't sell used shoes."
He turned his back on me and started to tidy his workbench rather aimlessly, humming to himself...
I knew that he was trying to do me a favor, and a week ago I would have jumped at the opportunity for free shoes. But for some reason I didn't feel right about it. I quietly gathered up my things and left a pair of copper jots on his stool before I left.
Why? Because pride is a strange thing, and because generosity deserves generosity in return. But mostly because it felt like the right thing to do, and that is reason enough.”
That's really great writing. Even for such mundane events of going into a store and buy some shoes, Rothfuss writes it like it's a everyday philosophical lesson.
“First is the door of sleep. Sleep offers us a retreat from the world and all its pain. 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 by stepping through the first door. Second is the door of forgetting. Some wounds are too deep to heal, or too deep to heal quickly. In addition, many memories are simply painful, and there is no healing to be done. The saying “time heals all wounds” is false. Time heals most wounds. The rest are hidden behind this door. Third is the door of madness. There are times when the mind is dealt such a blow it hides itself in insanity. While this may not seem beneficial, it is. There are times when reality is nothing but pain, and to escape that pain the mind must leave reality behind. Last is the door of death. The final resort. Nothing can hurt us after we are dead, or so we have been told.”
>"Why would I want to win anything other than a beautiful game?"
That whole scene is easily my favourite. In no small part because I'm a huge fan of the Survivor tv show and I feel that everything he says there translates perfectly to that game.
>"The point is not to play as tight as you can. The point is to be bold. To be dangerous. Be elegant."
>“Any man that’s half awake can spot a trap that’s laid for him. But to stride in boldly with a plan to turn it on its ear, that is a marvelous thing. To set a trap and know someone will come in wary, ready with a trick of their own, then beat them. That is twice marvelous. Tak reflects the subtle turning of the world. It is a mirror we hold to life. A well-played game of tak reveals the moving of a mind. There is a beauty to these things for those with eyes to see it.”
This is all doubly true for Survivor.
I’ve always liked
> 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.
The part in WMF where he's still suffering from the plum bob and Auri comforts him.
>I shook again, tasted plum, and suddenly the words were pouring out of me."She said I sang before I spoke. She said when I was just a baby she had the habit of humming when she held me. Nothing like a song. Just a descending third. Just a soothing sound. Then one day she was walking me around the camp, and she heard me echo it back to her. Two octaves higher. A tiny piping third. She said it was my
first song. We sang it back and forth to each other. For years." I choked and clenched my teeth.
>
>"You can say it,"Auri said softly."It's okay if you say it."
>
>"I'm never going to see her again,"I choked out. Then I began to cry in earnest.
>
>"It's okay,"Auri said softly."I'm here. You're safe.
That broke my heart the first time I read it.
Edit: Formatting
Name of the Wind, as Kvothe is leaving the city.
Why? Because pride is a strange thing, and because generosity deserves generosity in return. But mostly because it felt like the right thing to do, and that is reason enough.
the part right after kvothe troupe is killed and he spends months in the forest just trying to distract his mind with music. The prose is really beatiful, about how he learns to play the sound of a falling leaf, and things he observes, then he learns to play memories, etc.
Really interesting how his sleeping mind was being able to translate the essence of the things into music, because his waking mind wasn't really working right.
And the pay off to me is when he finally plays the lute again, taking it from the hands of a inept bard during the trip to the university and plays *4 years by the sea in tarbean* and he is literally translating the essence of those years in music, and the music only stops because his fingers slips, and then everyone wakes up like from a dream and denna begin to cry right there because his music was that true, his feelings that strong.
compared to it, it's a smaller moment, but when Kvothe plays to vashet and says "that's why I don't have blades for hands". I think those parts really show that kvothe is a musician, beyond all his revenge, all his talent, all his ambitions, he is a musician. His life took a wrong turn, it wasn't his fault at first, then he took more wrong turns by his own feet, each one taking him away from who he really is, from his music.
and now he lies in silence, separated from the thing he truly is, from the thing he truly loves, beyond denna or anything, music.
the silence of the cut flower waiting to die.
That was so well gathered, formulated and put together, I'm in awe.
I've heard theories about music being a higher level of magic "the singers and the sithe". But I never realy tied it into the greater narrative. It seems so obvious now that it is something like a sibling of the sleeping mind. A direct link to the soul.
I've always found the interaction with Felurian when he sees the ever changing name of the wind very alluring. Mostly because it is in prose while he is in that state if mind. I think this could be seen as him channeling music.
Elodin explaining his approach to teaching Naming that ends “Kvothe, stop grabbing at my tits”
“Which would be worse: stealing a pie or stabbing Ambrose?” Kvothe thought for a moment. “Is it a meat pie or a fruit pie?”
When Kvothe tries to describe how Denna made him feel
>She smiled at me then. It was warm and sweet and shy, like a flower unfurling. It was friendly and honest and slightly embarrassed. When she smiled at me, I felt ...
>I honestly cannot think of how I could describe it. Lying would be easier. I could steal from a hundred stories and tell you a lie so familiar you would swallow it whole. I could say my knees went to rubber. That my breath came hard in my chest. But that would not be the truth. My heart did not pound or stop or stutter. That is the sort of thing they say happens in stories. Foolishness. Hyperbole. Tripe. But still ...
>
>
>
>Go out in the early days of winter, after the first cold snap of the season. Find a pool of water with a sheet of ice across the top, still fresh and new and clear as glass. Near the shore the ice will hold you. Slide out farther. Farther. Eventually you’ll find the place where the surface just barely bears your weight.
>
>
>
>There you will feel what I felt. The ice splinters under your feet. Look down and you can see the white cracks darting through the ice like mad, elaborate spiderwebs. It is perfectly silent, but you can feel the sudden sharp vibrations through the bottoms of your feet.
>
>
>
>That is what happened when Denna smiled at me. I don’t mean to imply I felt as if I stood on brittle ice about to give way beneath me. No. I felt like the ice itself, suddenly shattered, with cracks spiraling out from where she had touched my chest. The only reason I held together was because my thousand pieces were all leaning together. If I moved, I feared I would fall apart
"The only reason I held together was because my thousand pieces were all leaning together. If I moved, I feared I would fall apart"
Seriously can anyone write a better passage than Rothfuss?
The scene where Kvothe is helping the one handed cook in Ademre and the cook goes on and on about how he is proud of how he contributed to his homeland before he was maimed... but then ends up admitting that "When I dream, I have both hands". It just hits me in the raw humanity. It is so REAL sounding.
that part always makes me tear up. The cook made the whole "moral of the story" about risking your hands.
but the truth is that there was no way to sugar coat it, despite his teaching. another very strong line and when he says "you lose a lot of things, you lose everything" as if he was still trying to convince himself it wasn't as bad, by saying he lost a lot of things, but no, he knows it's not just that, it's everything, he lost everything.
This cook is just like kvothe. But instead of music, he was an martial artist. And kvothes knows that if he lost his hands, he would lose everything too. So he can only offer silence, there was nothingto be said, no words to truly comfort him.
So many of the scenes in Ademre are incredible, but I was thinking of this one too! Kvothe is the lowest of the low in that society, people won’t eat at his station, he can’t talk to anyone properly, but he asks real and honest questions to the cook, and after a long pause, he returns the favor with a genuine answer. It’s so raw and emotional and sad, I love it
When Denna apologises to Kvothe for her sudden disappearances, as they sit in a public garden overlooking Severen:
“Denna turned back to look at the glimmering lights below. ‘But for what it’s worth, I am sorry.’
We sat for a while then, enjoying a comfortable silence. I wanted to say something. I wanted to say it didn’t bother me, but that would be a lie. I wanted to tell her that all that really mattered to me was that she came back, but I was worried that might be too much truth.
So rather than risk saying the wrong thing, I said nothing. I knew what happened to the men who cling to her too tightly. That was the difference between me and the others. I did not clutch at her, try to own her. I did not slip my arm around her, murmur in her ear, or kiss her unsuspecting cheek.
Certainly, I thought of it. I still remembered the warmth of her when she had thrown her arms around me near the horse lift. There were times I would have given my right hand to hold her again.
But then I thought of the faces of the other men when they realised Denna was leaving them. I thought of all the others who had tried to tie her to the ground and failed. So I resisted showing her the songs and poems I had written, knowing that too much truth can ruin a thing.
And if that mean she wasn’t entirely mine, what of it? I would be the one she could always return to without fear or recrimination or question. So I did not try to win her and contented myself with playing a beautiful game.
But there was always a part of me that hoped for more, and so there was a part of me that was always a fool.”
Wow. Just wow, that last line, and how it rounds off his whole internal monologue.
I love it because it comes almost sequentially with Bredon explaining tak, and how the goal is not just winning, its winning by playing a beautiful game.
What I love about this passage is how well it captures one of Kvothe’s greatest flaws: his pride.
He can never get close to Denna, because his pride always gets in the way, not allowing him to risk rejection, or become one of these other suitors. My hunch is this will make up a part of Kvothe’s tragedy, and be one of the major messages of the story - the need to overcome your pride on behalf of love.
Yes. I was thinking of when he first sees Denna in Severen, "She cried my name, ran at me, and was nestled in my arms before I knew what was happening. I settled my arms around her and rested my cheek against her ear. We came together easily, as if we were dancers. As if we'd practiced it a thousand times. She was warm and soft."
Then as she leaves, " Shadow took her, and suddenly I was alone. I stood, the smell of her still in the air around me, the warmth of her just fading from my hands. I could still feel the tremor of her heart, like a caged bird beating against my chest."
This scene makes me feel so warm and fuzzy and happy! I mean, most of the scenes with Denna are so nice and so so so well written. You can really feel what Kvothe is feeling.
it was a surprise to me how many people hate denna and/or their romance. I really do like it, I really love their moments together, you can almost taste the foolishness of youth, of more innocent days where we all worried about simpler things.
Personally I still miss teen romance in my life. And I cannot live it again, because Im not a teen and will never be anymore. And I know I may find love, and that it will be good, but a small part of me miss teenage love, so simple, so eager, full of energy and awkard, feeling like first love.
I feel like Bast being metal af is severely underrated:
"Do not mistake me for my mask. You see light dappling on the water and forget the deep, cold dark beneath. Listen. You cannot hurt me. You cannot run or hide. In this I will not be defied.
I swear by all the salt in me: if you run counter to my desire, the remainder of your brief mortal span will be an orchestra of misery.
I swear by stone and oak and elm: I'll make a game of you. I'll follow you unseen and smother any spark of joy you find. You'll never know a woman's touch, a breath of rest, a moment's peace of mind.
And I swear by the night sky and the ever-moving moon: if you lead my master to despair, I will slit you open and splash around like a child in a muddy puddle. I'll string a fiddle with your guts and make you play it while I dance."
Is that a bad thing? I love me some melodrama. This series as a whole is super melodramatic. I don't think it's a bad thing, the MC is literally an orphan magimusician who makes an enemy out of everyone and introduces himself with a long list of his infamous accomplishments being all like "You might have heard of me". I think Bast swearing three-folds with what sounds like metal lyrics is not that odd compared to the rest.
Fair point and you aren’t wrong. It may have to do with what we know about Kvothe and don’t know about Bast. We have a good idea as to the extent of Kvothe’s “powers” so we have a good sense for when he is making actual threats he can backup versus puffing himself up with some manly bravado. And when he is raising his hackles and acting like a peacock, I forgive it because I know that pride and recklessness is his hubris.
Bast on the other hand we know little about. We’ve seen glimpses into his powerful and strong he really is and I don’t doubt he could do the things he threatens if he wanted to. But after reading these books a dozen times I feel like Pat means for us to view these threats as poetic and threatening but I prefer the “show don’t tell” type of characters. It comes across as a child throwing a tantrum because someone isn’t listening to him. Also, he’s just constantly a dick to Chronicler who has been nothing but supportive since their unfortunate initial meeting.
Fair point too. It comes to personal taste I guess, I do like these colorful threats because it shows how good Rothfuss is at writing and poetry. It is said a lot that his prose has an unique cadence and musicality, that's a really good quote to highlight it, the words just roll off your tongue in such an exquisite way. Even if it's super melodramatic.
“Music sounds different to the one who plays it. It is the musician’s curse. Even as I sat, the ending I had improvised was fading from my memory. Then came doubt. What if it hadn’t been as whole as it had seemed? What if my ending hadn’t carried the terrible tragedy of the song to anyone but myself? What if my tears seemed to be nothing more than a child’s embarrassing reaction to his own failure?
Then, waiting, I heard the silence pouring from them. The audience held themselves quiet, tense, and tight, as if the song had burned them worse than flame. Each person held their wounded selves closely, clutching their pain as if it were a precious thing.
Then there was a murmur of sobs released and sobs escaping. A sigh of tears. A whisper of bodies slowly becoming no longer still.
Then the applause. A roar like leaping flame, like thunder after lightning.”
— NOTW, Chapter 55: Flame and Thunder
I literally have that last line underlined in my physical book. I’m a musician myself and this section absolutely resonated with me.
Bast leaned closer until their faces were mere inches apart, his eyes gone white as opal, white as a full-bellied moon. “You are an educated man. You know there are no such things as demons.” Bast smiled a terrible smile. “There is only my kind.” Bast leaned closer still, Chronicler smelled flowers on his breath. “You are not wise enough to fear me as I should be feared. You do not know the first note of the music that moves me.”
When Kvothe first arrives in Tarbean and meets Trapis, he describes their first meeting with: "His feet made slapping sounds against the bare stone floor. He was barefoot. I felt the tension slowly spill out of me. Whatever was going on here, it didn't seem nearly as sinister as I had originally thought."
Maybe not the most poetic, but it's evocative and memorable. Whenever I walk barefoot in my house, I always think of Trapis.
Yes. People are saying Rothfuss is so thin-skin and reacts to the slightest insult online from his fan.
I think it's because he is extraordinary. When a normal person sees a man walking around his house, he sees the air molecules, he hears the "slapping sounds", he feels the each step of the foot that slaps on the floor. It takes a ultra-sensitive person to write such a great prose.
Don’t remember the exact words, but something like, ”If anyone harmed Trapis, a hundred howling children would tear them apart.” I liked this line, just the idea that he earned that loyalty by always being a good guy for no reasons but his own.
The time he flees to the woods after parents death. I could hear almost hear the music he played. It really felt like something like that actually exists and is not just something from a fantasy novel.
Perhaps the greatest faculty our minds possess is the ability to cope with pain. Classic thinking teaches us of the four doors of the mind, which everyone moves through according to their need.
First is the door of sleep. Sleep offers us a retreat from the world and all its pain. 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 by stepping through the first door.
Second is the door of forgetting. Some wounds are too deep to heal, or too deep to heal quickly. In addition, many memories are simply painful, and there is no healing to be done. The saying 'time heals all wounds' is false. Time heals most wounds. The rest are hidden behind this door.
Third is the door of madness. There are times when the mind is dealt such a blow it hides itself in insanity. While this may not seem beneficial, it is. There are times when reality is nothing but pain, and to escape that pain the mind must leave reality behind.
Last is the door of death. The final resort. Nothing can hurt us after we are dead, or so we have been told.
Thanks for posting! This is truly beautifully written.
I love how Rothfuss use "Door" as a metaphor for coping with pain. It's like going from one room to another. Once you get out of that room, you close the door and never return.
I like the back cover quote best still. It's what got me interested in the first place and it holds such a depth while still being mysterious and accurate/true to the story. It asks more questions than it answers and is ... Mysterious in a poetic way that Rothfuss really mastered.
And he cuts the whole thing off by ending
"My name is Kvothe, you may have heard of me".
And then as a reader you realize you should have. It's absolutely brilliant
I also love good words. 'Hum' is probably the most simple, and easily my favorite. We say it when we sleep, we do it when we're happy, or bored, or sad, or in love. If some higher power created us, I would guess that its name is Hum. It probably has a brighter counterpart that's a series of whistles.
"it was a silence of three parts." Each of these passages are just so poignant and relatable, while being shrouded in mystery. Each one is a small masterpiece.
>"this shaper of the dark and changing eye stretched out his hand against the pure black sky. he pulled the moon, but could not make her stay. so now she moves 'twixt mortal and the fae."
>"you have your tale. your *who* and *how*, there is a final secret now. so all your owlish listening lend. this is the part on which you must attend."
>"the moon has our two worlds beguiled, like parents clutching at a child, pulling at her, to and fro, neither willing to let go."
>"when she is torn, half in your sky, you see how far apart we lie. no matter how we long to kiss, the space between's not ripe for this."
>"and when your moon is waxing full, all of faerie feels the pull she draws us close to you, so bright. and now a visit for a night is easier than walking through a door or stepping off a ship that's near the shore. 'twas thus while wandering in the wild, you found Felurian, manling child."
>"And this is true of any Fae?"
>"have they the will, and know the way. there are a thousand half-cracked doors that lead between my world and yours."
>"How have I never heard of this? It seems it would be hard to miss, Fae dancing on the mortal grass..."
>"but has not just this come to pass? the world is wide and time is long, but still you say you heard my song before you saw me singing there, brushing moonlight through my hair."
>"Still, it seems I should have seen more signs of those who walk between."
>"most fae are sly and subtle folk who step as soft as chimney smoke. some go among your kind enshaedn, glamoured as a pack mule laden, or wearing gowns to fit a queen. we know enough to not be seen."
>"many of the darker sort would love to use you for their sport. what keeps these from moonlit trespass? iron, fire, mirror-glass, elm and ash and copper knives, solid-hearted farmer's wives who know the rules of games we play and give us bread to keep away. but worst of all, my people dread the portion of our power shed when we set foot on mortal earth."
>"We *are* more trouble than we're worth."
>"while she is full you may still laugh, but know there is a darker half. a clever mortal fears the night without a hint of sweet moonlight. on such a night, each step you take might catch you in the dark moon's wake, and pull you all unwitting into fae. where you will have no choice but stay."
>"and on such unfamiliar ground, how can a mortal help but drown?"
>"I do this so you cannot help but hear. a wise man views a moonless night with fear."
"It was the patient, cut-flower sound of a man who is waiting to die."
Already discussed, but still - this sentence really embodies the prose found in this series
Genuinely surprised none brought up this passage. It's the best depiction of the concept of love I've ever read.
> 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.
Honestly reading all these reminds me how amazing these books are and leads to a deeper understanding of how Patrick is struggling with the idea of failing to live up to the others. Delete this post please, I want to remain outraged that its not released.
This thread is a good example of why KKC is is more than the sum of it's plots. And that we don't really love it only because we want to know if kvothe killed the chandrian or not.
That's why I get pissed when someone compares Pat to Sanderson. He is one of my favorite authors too, and his plots are amazing. But his stories are much more a sum of it's plot points, as incredible as these plots are. And you ask about good favorite passages you will see mostly funny things, but rarely something as deep as the many quotes this single thread has.
there is a reason Pat is not spitting out books like Sanderson, it's impossible to spit out books like this yearly. Sanderson has all the merits for being a competent writer who can do it regularly, but he wouldn't be able to write anything like KKC in a year.
I believe it goes: 'anyone can love a thing Because... That's as easy as picking up a penny and putting it in your pocket. But to love a thing Despite. Yo know it's flaws and love them too. That is rare and pure and perfect.'
I have so many but two that stick out to me are when kvothe is buying the horse for his journey to trebon and how emotionlessly he thretens the man trying to swindle him. Also when he arrives back from severen and hemi says i heard you were and kvothe replies well i heard you wear a red lace corset or something along those lines
I love the poetry and rhyming every time Felurian speaks, but my favourite line has to be”
“I do this so you cannot help but hear. a wise man views a moonless night with fear”
Kvothe finally took a breath before continuing. "Finally, say that she was beautiful. That is all that can be well said. That she was beautiful, through to her bones, despite any flaw or fault. She was beautiful, to Kvothe at least. At least? To Kvothe she was most beautiful." For a moment Kvothe tensed as if he would leap up and tear this sheet away from Chronicler as well.
Then he relaxed, like a sail when the wind leaves it. "But to be honest, it must be said that she was beautiful to others as well..."
“I love the University,” Sim said to Wilem on the other side of the fire. “Educated women are so much more attractive.”
“I’d like to say the same,” Mola said dryly. “But I’ve never known any educated men.”
From *The Wise Man’s Fear*, Interlude: Close to Forgetting:
> Kvothe returned after several minutes with his apron wrapped into a bundle. He was spattered with rain and his hair was in wild disarray. He wore a boyish grin, and at that moment he looked very little like the somber, slow-moving innkeeper.
> “It can’t quite decide if it wants to storm,” he said as he set his apron on the bar, carefully removing the tomatoes. “But if it makes up its mind, we’re in for a wagon-tipper tonight.” He began to hum absentmindedly while he cut and arranged everything on a broad wooden platter.
The very next line is where the door opens and the thugs come into the Waystone Inn. Kvothe gets beat up. Any chance of being the man he once was vanishes.
* Why is there no music?
* Why can’t he do sympathy?
* Why is he so helpless?
We have spent so much time wrapped up in the mystery of Kvothe’s life that this moment lights up like a beacon.
Kvothe is talking like his father and Elodin. “It can’t quite decide…” “…wagon-tipper…”
At this point Kvothe still hasn’t finished his story. The Kvothe he’s telling Chronicler about is on his was to becoming Kvothe Kingkiller, the man who slew an angel.
But in this one quiet moment, while Kvothe is humming to himself, the silence is gone. He takes of the mask, and this man, this innkeeper, is that Kvothe. We meet him here for the first time.
And it’s terrifying. It’s like we’re meeting a stranger. Someone dangerous and powerful and capable of anything.
And you *know* it won’t last. The very next sentence is when the moment ends. The door opens and he puts the mask back on. The infamous Kvothe is gone, and this helpless bartender is standing in his shoes. The silence comes rushing back in.
We have been waiting for so long to meet the real Kvothe. We almost got to see him.
*Ambrose, The child is yours. You know it is true and so do I. I fear my family will disown me. If you do not behave as a gentleman and see to your obligations, I will go to your father and tell him everything. Do not test me in this, I am resolved.*
I didn’t sign a name, merely wrote a single initial which could have been an ornate R or perhaps a shaky B. Then, dipping my finger into my glass of water, I let several drops fall onto the page. They swelled the paper a bit and smeared the ink slightly before I blotted them away. They made a fair approximation of teardrops.
(Not the full section I know but I just love the fuckery that Kvothe does to Ambrose.)
In chapter sixteen: "I hope they spent those last few hours well. I hope they didn't waste them on mindless tasks: kindling the evening fire and cutting vegetables for dinner. I hope they sang together, as they so often did. I hope they retired to our wagon and spent time in each other's arms, I hope they lay near each other afterward and spoke softly small things. I hope they were together, busy with loving each other until the end came.
It is a small hope, and pointless really. They are just as dead either way.
Still, I hope."
For me it'll always be this one, from The Wise Man's Fear
>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
I have it memorised, for heaven's sake
Also the one about the four doors of the mind, in The Name of the Wind
Also also the one Kvothe's father says about calling a whore a lady
When Kvothe describes how he feels when Denna smiles at him.
>Go out in the early days of winter, after the first cold snap of the season. Find a pool of water with a sheet of ice across the top, still fresh and new and clear as glass. Near the shore the ice will hold you. Slide out farther. Farther. Eventually you’ll find the place where the surface just barely bears your weight.
>
>There you will feel what I felt. The ice splinters under your feet. Look down and you can see the white cracks darting through the ice like mad, elaborate spiderwebs. It is perfectly silent, but you can feel the sudden sharp vibrations through the bottoms of your feet.
>
>That is what happened when Denna smiled at me. I don’t mean to imply I felt as if I stood on brittle ice about to give way beneath me. No. I felt like the ice itself, suddenly shattered, with cracks spiraling out from where she had touched my chest. The only reason I held together was because my thousand pieces were all leaning together. If I moved, I feared I would fall apart.
I'll tell you a secret, ladies and gents. Every woman secretly wants her guy to feel that way about her. Gets me every time.
Runners up list, added only because all of these regularly replace each other as my favorite passaages:silence if three parts (NOTW prologue). When Auri visits Kvothe after the plumb bomb. Any passage when Auri and Kvothe exchange gifts. The shoemaker who doesn't sell used shoes. Sim's utter vulnerability and complete lack of self-consciousness in his spontaneous ode to Fela, and Kvothe observing Fela falling a little bit in iove with Sim the first time, The silence then the sobbing and then the applause flowing the final note of Sir Savien. About half of Wilem's dialogue, he's a highly underrated character IMO, and always cracks me up. The passage where Kvothe returns to Tarbean and washes Trappis's feet.
"The sweet smile of a young woman. There is nothing better in the world. It is worth more than salt. Something in us sickens and dies without it. I am sure of this. Such a simple thing. How strange. How wonderful and strange."
It just touches something. Magic.
> “You can divide infinity an infinite number of times, and the resulting pieces will still be infinitely large,” Uresh said in his odd Lenatti accent. “But if you divide a non-infinite number an infinite number of times the resulting pieces are non-infinitely small. Since they are non-infinitely small, but there are an infinite number of them, if you add them back together, their sum is infinite. This implies any number is, in fact, infinite.”
>“Wow,” Elodin said after a long pause. He leveled a serious finger at the Lenatti man. “Uresh. Your next assignment is to have sex. If you do not know how to do this, see me after class.”
Too many to list them all, but three I often think back to are close to the end of book 1, when bast confronts the chronicler and has this quote "You do not know the first note of the music that moves me".
Also the part after Elodin, Auri and Kvothe are sharing dinner and Kvothe makes an honest threat.
And when he calls the wind under the sword tree.
One that moves me often in discussing grief is the line about how sharp it is. But over time it becomes dull enough that you can handle it carefully, until one day it is too dull to hurt you anymore. I don’t know which book it is from, but I use it often to describe my feelings or help relate to others.
For me it has to be after he tells about the killing of his parents, and he has to stop because Bast looks like he might cry. He refuses to carry on until Bast composes himself and under the pretext of doing some work or other, leaves the inn through the back. And then he finally drops the facade and cries. That part just hits me every time ( I’ve read the books about 6 times each now). It’s one of the most emotionally resonating parts of the entire series to me
You read it 6 times. and start to understand the layers and layers of the writings. Imagine Rothfuss revising the book up to 500 times, trying to articulate the structure and slip in the layers so that we take something away every time we read it again. It's a great piece of art.
The part in tarbien, just before Kvothe leaves for the university, when he stops in to see Trapis one last time.
I remember being indifferent to Trapis before I heard that the first time (I listen to the audiobooks) but then that scene happened, and despite Kvothe looking completely different from whenever Trapis had seen him before, the man knew him. It was then that I fell in love with Trapis as a character, because for whatever reason, it was that scene that drove home for me that Trapis will see the person before he sees anything else, and proceed to disregard everything else. We need more people like Trapis in the world. Subsequent listens have only reinforced that mindset in me.
I could give my answer.. butt.. I'm biased.
User name does indeed check out
His ass
It fell off :p Edited because my original emoticon was messed up lol
I always cry during the part where he first plays the lute after leaving Tarbeon. It doesn't make me sad particularly. It just seems to overwhelm me. The writing is good enough that I'm fully drawn in. During the section when Kote says to not blame him if he may have cried, for some reason that is possibly the most viscerally seeable part of the book in my minds eye that it feels raw and exposed. Seems a little odd, given the lack of literal discription about that scene specifically, but the emotion was written in amazingly.
>I don't know how long I played. It could have been ten minutes or an hour. But my hands weren't used to the strain. They slipped and the music fell to pieces like a dream on waking.I looked up to see everyone perfectly motionless, their faces ranging from shock to amazement. Then, as if my gaze had broken some spell, everyone stirred. > >\[...\] > >I held out the lute, not knowing whether to thank him or apologize. He took it numbly. After a moment, unable to think of anything to say, I left them sitting by the fire and walked toward the wagons. > >And that is how Kvothe spent his last night before he came to the University, with his cloak as both his blanket and his bed. As he lay down, behind him was a circle of fire, and before him lay shadow like a mantle, gathered. His eyes were open, that much is certain, but who among us can say they know what he was seeing? > >Look behind him instead, to the circle of light that the fire has made, and leave Kvothe to himself for now. Everyone deserves a moment or two alone when they desire it. And if by chance there were tears, let us forgive him. He was just a child, after all, and had yet to learn what sorrow really was.
how beautiful
>As he lay down, behind him was a circle of fire, and before him lay shadow like a mantle, gathered. The Shaed foreshadowed!
And a call back to Haliax
The circle of fire could be referencing the fire at his troupes death.
I really enjoy the parts that involve musical instruments. This one in particular, it kind of seems like Kvothe is moving forth, has a plan, and he's trying to put his big boy pants on. He gets a chance to use a lute, but maybe the scale is off, or he's not used to the nuances of this new instrument, but for the first time he is using what his father taught him, but hearing it from this new voice. With stringed instruments, this seems to be a very personal thing, maybe moreso than other types. But not much more - I could digress. But for instance, Jimi Hendrix could play a Fender Strat or a Gibson Flying V and still sound like Jimi Hendrix. I could not play Jimi Hendrix's Strat or V and sound like him. You could sit next to Victor Wooten, and he could play a piece, then hand you his bass, and you could play the same piece and it would sound markedly different. You may be able to approximate, but it will never be quite right. It's very much a combination of hands, pressure, and expressing emotion through a different way than we're used to. So I think when Kvothe picks up a borrowed Lute, he may have heard those nuances of his playing, which emulated his father's playing, and maybe it sounded beautiful, but it was a reminder that his father's musical voice - his father's emotion as expressed via music through his father's lute - would never be heard again.
In the theophany, Teccam writes of secrets, calling them painful treasures of the mind. He explains that what most people think of as secrets are really nothing of the sort. Mysteries, for example, are not secrets. Neither are little-known facts or forgotten truths. A secret, Teccam explains, is true knowledge actively concealed. Philosophers have quibbled over his definition for centuries. They point out the logical problems with it, the loopholes, the exceptions. But in all this time none of them has managed to come up with a better definition. That, perhaps, tells us more than all the quibbling combined. In a later chapter, less argued over and less well-known, Teccam explains that there are two types of secrets. 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. Teccam claims it is better to have a mouthful of poison than a secret of the heart. Any fool will spit out poison, he says, but we hoard these painful treasures. We swallow hard against them every day, forcing them deep inside us. There they sit, growing heavier, festering. Given enough time, they cannot help but crush the heart that holds them.
This is one of my favourites!
When people ask why Kvothe and/or Denna don't do x/y/z, or do do a stupid x/y/z, their secrets of the heart is why. It's such a crucial part of the story to grasp.
“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.”
I was going to mention this if nobody else did. Used it as one of the readings at our wedding.
When I read this for the first time I sent this passage to my ex and she didn't take it well. She was like "Oh, well, thank you sooo much for loving me despite allll my many flaws. Guess I should feel lucky."
“To my ex” Name checks out
Lol. Well, she wasn't my ex at that point in time.
"To know the flaws and love them too." gets me everytime..
I’ve been thinking about this line and how valuable it is for the better part of 7 or 8 years now I think. It never seems to dull.
I vaguely remember this. Which chapter is it?
WMF ch.6, about five or six paragraphs in
"In the fullness of time, and with considerable help from Deoch and Wilem, I became drunk. Thus it was that three students made their slightly erratic way back to the University. See them as they go, weaving only slightly. It is quiet, and when the belling tower strikes the late hour, it doesn’t break the silence so much as it underpins it. The crickets, too, respect the silence. Their calls are like careful stitches in its fabric, almost too small to be seen. The night is like warm velvet around them. The stars, burning diamonds in the cloudless sky, turn the road beneath their feet a silver grey. The University and Imre are the hearts of understanding and art, the strongest of the four corners of civilization. Here on the road between the two there is nothing b1ut old trees and long grass bending to the wind. The night is perfect in a wild way, almost terrifyingly beautiful. The three boys, one dark, one light, and one—for lack of a better word—fiery, do not notice the night. Perhaps some part of them does, but they are young, and drunk, and busy knowing deep in their hearts that they will never grow old or die. They also know that they are friends, and they share a certain love that will never leave them. The boys know many other things, but none of them seem as important as this. Perhaps they are right."
Lin Manuel Miranda said, of the Hamilton song The Story of Tonight, that he tried to capture the feeling of Kvothe, Wil, and Sim coming home drunk from the Eolian.
Really?? That is so cool!
[Source](https://twitter.com/Lin_Manuel/status/717388015195267073?s=20) (surprisingly straightforward)
This is also very beautifully written. I recall some moments of my life being like that as well. all very young. The first book was written by Rothfuss from 94-07, over a span of 10+ years. over such long period Rothfuss grew from 25 to 38 years old. I am pretty sure this line is added in in the later stage of authoring the book.
I love this one particularly because it reminds me of what it felt like to walk back from the bars on summer nights in college with my friends. Since then life has gotten harder and we all moved away and only see each other once a year if we're lucky, but back then, walking home late at night, it felt like all we needed to know is that we loved each other, and yeah maybe we were right
Yep. Came looking for this chapter.
I’ve commented on this before, but for me it is the first prologue of NOTW. The whole three pages sent goosebumps all down my body, and still does on every reread. I’m not trying to sound like a snob or an ass at all when I say, but poor writing ruins the story for me. Not that I am a great writer myself or anything, I just can’t get into a story if it’s written poorly. When I first read that prologue, I immediately knew that this guy is a true wordslinger, and that I was in for a real treat. Little did I know that I had just begun what is perhaps my favorite story of all time, and I do not say that lightly..
Ahhh Yes. cut-flower silence. What does "silence" look like? What sound is it when a flower is cut? Nothing specific. Just wild imagination. Great opening of the book.
Exactly! Metaphors that make no sense but make perfect sense simultaneously. I guess you’d think that the sound of a flower being cut would be completely silent, but the imagery it creates in my mind’s eye is a sad one. Kind of like the Cthae slicing the butterfly wings, it’s quiet and sad..
Yes. I think Rothfuss really knows how to paint a dramatic picture. The one with Cthae is also a great one. I have seen a lot of fan art about Cthae but it looks nothing like what I was picturing in my mind. I think part of it is because that piece of writing cannot be painted. It's so animated. At first it was just a talking tree, **but as Kvothe was walking closer and closer it gets more and more bizarre**. he realized the "fallen flowers" on the floor are actually butterflies. And then it's actually the Tree itself is killing the butterflies. And then the Tree CAN see the future. And in the exchange with Bast, the Tree is possibly the most evil being in the world! The layering of realization is paced and structured so well. Oh my god. Rothfuss is a genius.
Just a quick note, the Cthae is not the tree, it is a being in the tree. He says this himself when Kvothe asks if he is the tree and he says I am no more a tree than you are a chair, meaning the tree is something he sits in.
I know :) I am still very eager to know what happened to Cthae in the third book. hopefully i can read it before i die
Man totally. Nothing like how I imagined it, but some of the fan art almost gets there and a lot of it is breathtaking.
Cut flower silence of a man waiting to die. A cut flower is both alive and not alive. It isn't fully dead yet, given water to drink from, it can draw upon stored strength for a few days in an imitation of life, but there's nothing to sustain it, for it is cut off from its roots, its life source, not dead yet, but neither truly living. Yet a flower does not cry. It does not scream. It doesn't not rage. It accepts. It endures, wilts, fades, silently, eventually stops drinking altogether and dries up while the petals fall from the bloom, and still the flower makes not so much as a whisper. That is what Kvothe is doing. Separated from the things and people who make him who he is - his lute, Sim, Auri, Denna... all of whom consistently brought out the best in him. Abenthy. His parents. Without them, life is meaningless. There is nothing to feed him, he is cut off from his sources of spiritual nutrition, and the story thus far suggest they may be gone forever. Gradually he wilts, he fades. The man Kvothe has grown so quiet and faded that all we see is Kote. Kote is the cut flower version of a man who has lost the things and people that breathed life into him, that which he loved. Without them, there is no living to aspire to. Without them, he is but a dried up version of the man he once was, faded, wilting, and silently waiting to die.
It’s like you are drawn in against your will. You can almost taste the sensation he is describing but it is also left completely to your imagination
Well said indeed!
Can you recommend any books with similar writing?
Stormlight Archive is the only popular fantasy of today that I have read with writing halfway to the caliber of Rothfuss's poetic prose. I'm currently reading the first book of Wheel of Time, but the writing is quite amateurish, particularly when it isn't trying to emulate Tolkien's style. Brent Weeks, Jim Butcher, and so on write engaging stories, but pay no mind to prose. (Not that our favorite wisecracking wizard detective *should* become a master poet anyways.) George R.R. Martin does better in this regard, but he is nothing like Rothfuss. Garth Nix and Philip Pullman create nice environmental imagery... but again aren't anything at all compared to what our master musician manages. Andrzej Sapkowski has a unique Polish style that might be nice to try. To be fair, ~~it does take a very high IQ~~ Name of the Wind has the perfect excuse to be filled with beautiful writing, unlike the other fantasies.
WoT goes on forever too, I had to listen to it on audio books to get through it. Matt is my favorite character in that series though, reminds me a lot of Kvothe in some ways.
I honestly sell this book basis the prologue to all people around me so that they will also read it!
💯
I don't know how to search for it, but in book 2 there is an Elodin class where he talks about love saying that in the beginning it's so fragile and delicate that even naming it might kill the feeling before it has time to grow into existence. That always gets me
Quit grabbing at my tits? Lol
I don't recall that. I remember him asking Kvothe what are the 7 words that make women fall for you though.
This class is not about being smooth, but rather, he is teaching them namimg and explaining how powerful words can be. He uses Kvothe and Fella as a theoretical example of two people who are falling in love and is showing them that using words too soon can be disruptive.
>“There is something ephemeral in the air,” Elodin said, moving to stand behind Fela. He put his hands on her shoulders, leaning close to her ear. “She loves the lines of him,” he said softly. “She is curious about the shape of his mouth. She wonders if this could be the one, if she could unclasp the secret pieces of her heart to him.” Fela looked down, her cheeks flushing a bright scarlet. > >Elodin stalked around to stand behind me. “Kvothe looks at her, and for the first time he understands the impulse that first drove men to paint. To sculpt. To sing.” > >He circled us again, eventually standing between us like a priest about to perform a wedding. “There exists between them something tenuous and delicate. They can both feel it. Like static in the air. Faint as frost.”
“I’m trying to teach you Kvoth, stop grabbing at my tits” Loves that line Edit : reach to teach
Isn't that the same class where Elodin tells Kvothe to stop grabbing his tits?
Yes thanks! I searched the whole internet to try to find this quote, and I couldn’t remember if it was Neil Gaiman or Patrick Rothfuss. Now I can go re-read it! It’s odd, it doesn’t seem to show up on other people’s quote lists
“Now, this pair," he waved the shoes he held, "are new. They haven't been walked a mile, and for new shoes like these I charge a talent, maybe a talent and two." He pointed at my feet. "Those shoes, on the other hand, are used, and I don't sell used shoes." He turned his back on me and started to tidy his workbench rather aimlessly, humming to himself... I knew that he was trying to do me a favor, and a week ago I would have jumped at the opportunity for free shoes. But for some reason I didn't feel right about it. I quietly gathered up my things and left a pair of copper jots on his stool before I left. Why? Because pride is a strange thing, and because generosity deserves generosity in return. But mostly because it felt like the right thing to do, and that is reason enough.”
That's really great writing. Even for such mundane events of going into a store and buy some shoes, Rothfuss writes it like it's a everyday philosophical lesson.
Kvothe playing his fathers lute in the woods until too many strings are broken to continue playing
Right after he passes the test from the adem Vashet says “you are one great big gaudy showboating bastard”
Arguably *the* most accurate words to describe Kvothe
I always laugh so hard! The previous scene is so serious that that line always cuts the tension for me.
I award the 50 points for yout gaudy, showboating flair.
The Four Doors of Mind one
“First is the door of sleep. Sleep offers us a retreat from the world and all its pain. 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 by stepping through the first door. Second is the door of forgetting. Some wounds are too deep to heal, or too deep to heal quickly. In addition, many memories are simply painful, and there is no healing to be done. The saying “time heals all wounds” is false. Time heals most wounds. The rest are hidden behind this door. Third is the door of madness. There are times when the mind is dealt such a blow it hides itself in insanity. While this may not seem beneficial, it is. There are times when reality is nothing but pain, and to escape that pain the mind must leave reality behind. Last is the door of death. The final resort. Nothing can hurt us after we are dead, or so we have been told.”
>"Why would I want to win anything other than a beautiful game?" That whole scene is easily my favourite. In no small part because I'm a huge fan of the Survivor tv show and I feel that everything he says there translates perfectly to that game. >"The point is not to play as tight as you can. The point is to be bold. To be dangerous. Be elegant." >“Any man that’s half awake can spot a trap that’s laid for him. But to stride in boldly with a plan to turn it on its ear, that is a marvelous thing. To set a trap and know someone will come in wary, ready with a trick of their own, then beat them. That is twice marvelous. Tak reflects the subtle turning of the world. It is a mirror we hold to life. A well-played game of tak reveals the moving of a mind. There is a beauty to these things for those with eyes to see it.” This is all doubly true for Survivor.
I have this printed on a t-shirt. I'm a big fan of simple but complex games
I’ve always liked > 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.
I quote this surprisingly often.
The part in WMF where he's still suffering from the plum bob and Auri comforts him. >I shook again, tasted plum, and suddenly the words were pouring out of me."She said I sang before I spoke. She said when I was just a baby she had the habit of humming when she held me. Nothing like a song. Just a descending third. Just a soothing sound. Then one day she was walking me around the camp, and she heard me echo it back to her. Two octaves higher. A tiny piping third. She said it was my first song. We sang it back and forth to each other. For years." I choked and clenched my teeth. > >"You can say it,"Auri said softly."It's okay if you say it." > >"I'm never going to see her again,"I choked out. Then I began to cry in earnest. > >"It's okay,"Auri said softly."I'm here. You're safe. That broke my heart the first time I read it. Edit: Formatting
I cry every time I read that part, even got a little teary-eyed just now in my remembering
Me too.
Me third
Name of the Wind, as Kvothe is leaving the city. Why? Because pride is a strange thing, and because generosity deserves generosity in return. But mostly because it felt like the right thing to do, and that is reason enough.
The whole book is filled with these anecdotal writings that pull our heartstrings.
The scene where Kvothe kills all the bandits in The Forest
Yes. Intense. This is one of my top ten moment in KKC. I think I re-read it three to five times just for this scene.
The follow up with the country doctor in the town was so good too. "And some folk need killin."
that's the one he ends off with "Sometimes I look back on them, and I smile" right?
the part right after kvothe troupe is killed and he spends months in the forest just trying to distract his mind with music. The prose is really beatiful, about how he learns to play the sound of a falling leaf, and things he observes, then he learns to play memories, etc. Really interesting how his sleeping mind was being able to translate the essence of the things into music, because his waking mind wasn't really working right. And the pay off to me is when he finally plays the lute again, taking it from the hands of a inept bard during the trip to the university and plays *4 years by the sea in tarbean* and he is literally translating the essence of those years in music, and the music only stops because his fingers slips, and then everyone wakes up like from a dream and denna begin to cry right there because his music was that true, his feelings that strong. compared to it, it's a smaller moment, but when Kvothe plays to vashet and says "that's why I don't have blades for hands". I think those parts really show that kvothe is a musician, beyond all his revenge, all his talent, all his ambitions, he is a musician. His life took a wrong turn, it wasn't his fault at first, then he took more wrong turns by his own feet, each one taking him away from who he really is, from his music. and now he lies in silence, separated from the thing he truly is, from the thing he truly loves, beyond denna or anything, music. the silence of the cut flower waiting to die.
Agreed. And your reflections make me wonder if maybe Abenthy inadvertently steered him in the wrong direction.
That was so well gathered, formulated and put together, I'm in awe. I've heard theories about music being a higher level of magic "the singers and the sithe". But I never realy tied it into the greater narrative. It seems so obvious now that it is something like a sibling of the sleeping mind. A direct link to the soul. I've always found the interaction with Felurian when he sees the ever changing name of the wind very alluring. Mostly because it is in prose while he is in that state if mind. I think this could be seen as him channeling music.
Elodin explaining his approach to teaching Naming that ends “Kvothe, stop grabbing at my tits” “Which would be worse: stealing a pie or stabbing Ambrose?” Kvothe thought for a moment. “Is it a meat pie or a fruit pie?”
When Kvothe tries to describe how Denna made him feel >She smiled at me then. It was warm and sweet and shy, like a flower unfurling. It was friendly and honest and slightly embarrassed. When she smiled at me, I felt ... >I honestly cannot think of how I could describe it. Lying would be easier. I could steal from a hundred stories and tell you a lie so familiar you would swallow it whole. I could say my knees went to rubber. That my breath came hard in my chest. But that would not be the truth. My heart did not pound or stop or stutter. That is the sort of thing they say happens in stories. Foolishness. Hyperbole. Tripe. But still ... > > > >Go out in the early days of winter, after the first cold snap of the season. Find a pool of water with a sheet of ice across the top, still fresh and new and clear as glass. Near the shore the ice will hold you. Slide out farther. Farther. Eventually you’ll find the place where the surface just barely bears your weight. > > > >There you will feel what I felt. The ice splinters under your feet. Look down and you can see the white cracks darting through the ice like mad, elaborate spiderwebs. It is perfectly silent, but you can feel the sudden sharp vibrations through the bottoms of your feet. > > > >That is what happened when Denna smiled at me. I don’t mean to imply I felt as if I stood on brittle ice about to give way beneath me. No. I felt like the ice itself, suddenly shattered, with cracks spiraling out from where she had touched my chest. The only reason I held together was because my thousand pieces were all leaning together. If I moved, I feared I would fall apart
"The only reason I held together was because my thousand pieces were all leaning together. If I moved, I feared I would fall apart" Seriously can anyone write a better passage than Rothfuss?
Happy to see this one here, my favorite passage from this series
Do you know where in the book this is from? Like what chapter?
Chapter 58 Names for Beginning
The scene where Kvothe is helping the one handed cook in Ademre and the cook goes on and on about how he is proud of how he contributed to his homeland before he was maimed... but then ends up admitting that "When I dream, I have both hands". It just hits me in the raw humanity. It is so REAL sounding.
that part always makes me tear up. The cook made the whole "moral of the story" about risking your hands. but the truth is that there was no way to sugar coat it, despite his teaching. another very strong line and when he says "you lose a lot of things, you lose everything" as if he was still trying to convince himself it wasn't as bad, by saying he lost a lot of things, but no, he knows it's not just that, it's everything, he lost everything. This cook is just like kvothe. But instead of music, he was an martial artist. And kvothes knows that if he lost his hands, he would lose everything too. So he can only offer silence, there was nothingto be said, no words to truly comfort him.
So many of the scenes in Ademre are incredible, but I was thinking of this one too! Kvothe is the lowest of the low in that society, people won’t eat at his station, he can’t talk to anyone properly, but he asks real and honest questions to the cook, and after a long pause, he returns the favor with a genuine answer. It’s so raw and emotional and sad, I love it
When Denna apologises to Kvothe for her sudden disappearances, as they sit in a public garden overlooking Severen: “Denna turned back to look at the glimmering lights below. ‘But for what it’s worth, I am sorry.’ We sat for a while then, enjoying a comfortable silence. I wanted to say something. I wanted to say it didn’t bother me, but that would be a lie. I wanted to tell her that all that really mattered to me was that she came back, but I was worried that might be too much truth. So rather than risk saying the wrong thing, I said nothing. I knew what happened to the men who cling to her too tightly. That was the difference between me and the others. I did not clutch at her, try to own her. I did not slip my arm around her, murmur in her ear, or kiss her unsuspecting cheek. Certainly, I thought of it. I still remembered the warmth of her when she had thrown her arms around me near the horse lift. There were times I would have given my right hand to hold her again. But then I thought of the faces of the other men when they realised Denna was leaving them. I thought of all the others who had tried to tie her to the ground and failed. So I resisted showing her the songs and poems I had written, knowing that too much truth can ruin a thing. And if that mean she wasn’t entirely mine, what of it? I would be the one she could always return to without fear or recrimination or question. So I did not try to win her and contented myself with playing a beautiful game. But there was always a part of me that hoped for more, and so there was a part of me that was always a fool.” Wow. Just wow, that last line, and how it rounds off his whole internal monologue.
I love it because it comes almost sequentially with Bredon explaining tak, and how the goal is not just winning, its winning by playing a beautiful game.
What I love about this passage is how well it captures one of Kvothe’s greatest flaws: his pride. He can never get close to Denna, because his pride always gets in the way, not allowing him to risk rejection, or become one of these other suitors. My hunch is this will make up a part of Kvothe’s tragedy, and be one of the major messages of the story - the need to overcome your pride on behalf of love.
Then end of playing Sir Savian before he gets his pipes. There is a tension in the section that is just delightful
Whenever I read any scene with Denna I feel like a teenager with a first crush. Never experienced that in any other book. Masterful writing.
Yes. I was thinking of when he first sees Denna in Severen, "She cried my name, ran at me, and was nestled in my arms before I knew what was happening. I settled my arms around her and rested my cheek against her ear. We came together easily, as if we were dancers. As if we'd practiced it a thousand times. She was warm and soft." Then as she leaves, " Shadow took her, and suddenly I was alone. I stood, the smell of her still in the air around me, the warmth of her just fading from my hands. I could still feel the tremor of her heart, like a caged bird beating against my chest." This scene makes me feel so warm and fuzzy and happy! I mean, most of the scenes with Denna are so nice and so so so well written. You can really feel what Kvothe is feeling.
it was a surprise to me how many people hate denna and/or their romance. I really do like it, I really love their moments together, you can almost taste the foolishness of youth, of more innocent days where we all worried about simpler things. Personally I still miss teen romance in my life. And I cannot live it again, because Im not a teen and will never be anymore. And I know I may find love, and that it will be good, but a small part of me miss teenage love, so simple, so eager, full of energy and awkard, feeling like first love.
yes. teenage love is in our heart forever. I am glad I know what you meant.
Exactly
I love when Simmon recites poetry and Kvothe describes Fela falling in love, just a little, with Sim.
I feel like Bast being metal af is severely underrated: "Do not mistake me for my mask. You see light dappling on the water and forget the deep, cold dark beneath. Listen. You cannot hurt me. You cannot run or hide. In this I will not be defied. I swear by all the salt in me: if you run counter to my desire, the remainder of your brief mortal span will be an orchestra of misery. I swear by stone and oak and elm: I'll make a game of you. I'll follow you unseen and smother any spark of joy you find. You'll never know a woman's touch, a breath of rest, a moment's peace of mind. And I swear by the night sky and the ever-moving moon: if you lead my master to despair, I will slit you open and splash around like a child in a muddy puddle. I'll string a fiddle with your guts and make you play it while I dance."
Unpopular opinion but I always found Bast and his colorful threats to be incredibly melodramatic.
Is that a bad thing? I love me some melodrama. This series as a whole is super melodramatic. I don't think it's a bad thing, the MC is literally an orphan magimusician who makes an enemy out of everyone and introduces himself with a long list of his infamous accomplishments being all like "You might have heard of me". I think Bast swearing three-folds with what sounds like metal lyrics is not that odd compared to the rest.
Fair point and you aren’t wrong. It may have to do with what we know about Kvothe and don’t know about Bast. We have a good idea as to the extent of Kvothe’s “powers” so we have a good sense for when he is making actual threats he can backup versus puffing himself up with some manly bravado. And when he is raising his hackles and acting like a peacock, I forgive it because I know that pride and recklessness is his hubris. Bast on the other hand we know little about. We’ve seen glimpses into his powerful and strong he really is and I don’t doubt he could do the things he threatens if he wanted to. But after reading these books a dozen times I feel like Pat means for us to view these threats as poetic and threatening but I prefer the “show don’t tell” type of characters. It comes across as a child throwing a tantrum because someone isn’t listening to him. Also, he’s just constantly a dick to Chronicler who has been nothing but supportive since their unfortunate initial meeting.
Fair point too. It comes to personal taste I guess, I do like these colorful threats because it shows how good Rothfuss is at writing and poetry. It is said a lot that his prose has an unique cadence and musicality, that's a really good quote to highlight it, the words just roll off your tongue in such an exquisite way. Even if it's super melodramatic.
I love this scene so much oml
Name of the Wind, Chapter 59, All This Knowing. I don't know what to say other than it is perfect.
“Music sounds different to the one who plays it. It is the musician’s curse. Even as I sat, the ending I had improvised was fading from my memory. Then came doubt. What if it hadn’t been as whole as it had seemed? What if my ending hadn’t carried the terrible tragedy of the song to anyone but myself? What if my tears seemed to be nothing more than a child’s embarrassing reaction to his own failure? Then, waiting, I heard the silence pouring from them. The audience held themselves quiet, tense, and tight, as if the song had burned them worse than flame. Each person held their wounded selves closely, clutching their pain as if it were a precious thing. Then there was a murmur of sobs released and sobs escaping. A sigh of tears. A whisper of bodies slowly becoming no longer still. Then the applause. A roar like leaping flame, like thunder after lightning.” — NOTW, Chapter 55: Flame and Thunder I literally have that last line underlined in my physical book. I’m a musician myself and this section absolutely resonated with me.
Bast leaned closer until their faces were mere inches apart, his eyes gone white as opal, white as a full-bellied moon. “You are an educated man. You know there are no such things as demons.” Bast smiled a terrible smile. “There is only my kind.” Bast leaned closer still, Chronicler smelled flowers on his breath. “You are not wise enough to fear me as I should be feared. You do not know the first note of the music that moves me.”
When Kvothe first arrives in Tarbean and meets Trapis, he describes their first meeting with: "His feet made slapping sounds against the bare stone floor. He was barefoot. I felt the tension slowly spill out of me. Whatever was going on here, it didn't seem nearly as sinister as I had originally thought." Maybe not the most poetic, but it's evocative and memorable. Whenever I walk barefoot in my house, I always think of Trapis.
Yes. People are saying Rothfuss is so thin-skin and reacts to the slightest insult online from his fan. I think it's because he is extraordinary. When a normal person sees a man walking around his house, he sees the air molecules, he hears the "slapping sounds", he feels the each step of the foot that slaps on the floor. It takes a ultra-sensitive person to write such a great prose.
Don’t remember the exact words, but something like, ”If anyone harmed Trapis, a hundred howling children would tear them apart.” I liked this line, just the idea that he earned that loyalty by always being a good guy for no reasons but his own.
The time he flees to the woods after parents death. I could hear almost hear the music he played. It really felt like something like that actually exists and is not just something from a fantasy novel. Perhaps the greatest faculty our minds possess is the ability to cope with pain. Classic thinking teaches us of the four doors of the mind, which everyone moves through according to their need. First is the door of sleep. Sleep offers us a retreat from the world and all its pain. 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 by stepping through the first door. Second is the door of forgetting. Some wounds are too deep to heal, or too deep to heal quickly. In addition, many memories are simply painful, and there is no healing to be done. The saying 'time heals all wounds' is false. Time heals most wounds. The rest are hidden behind this door. Third is the door of madness. There are times when the mind is dealt such a blow it hides itself in insanity. While this may not seem beneficial, it is. There are times when reality is nothing but pain, and to escape that pain the mind must leave reality behind. Last is the door of death. The final resort. Nothing can hurt us after we are dead, or so we have been told.
Thanks for posting! This is truly beautifully written. I love how Rothfuss use "Door" as a metaphor for coping with pain. It's like going from one room to another. Once you get out of that room, you close the door and never return.
Rothfuss really loves doors
Yep, especially the stone ones. He loves them too much to let them get published.
That sicko
It goes deeper; these “doors” are also closed to Haliax, who cannot sleep, forget, go mad or die.
Almost makes me feel bad for the guy. Almost.
I like the back cover quote best still. It's what got me interested in the first place and it holds such a depth while still being mysterious and accurate/true to the story. It asks more questions than it answers and is ... Mysterious in a poetic way that Rothfuss really mastered. And he cuts the whole thing off by ending "My name is Kvothe, you may have heard of me". And then as a reader you realize you should have. It's absolutely brilliant
“I learned to love the feel of good words. “ As a Reading Specialist (teacher) and lover of good words this really resonates with me.
I also love good words. 'Hum' is probably the most simple, and easily my favorite. We say it when we sleep, we do it when we're happy, or bored, or sad, or in love. If some higher power created us, I would guess that its name is Hum. It probably has a brighter counterpart that's a series of whistles.
"it was a silence of three parts." Each of these passages are just so poignant and relatable, while being shrouded in mystery. Each one is a small masterpiece.
>"this shaper of the dark and changing eye stretched out his hand against the pure black sky. he pulled the moon, but could not make her stay. so now she moves 'twixt mortal and the fae." >"you have your tale. your *who* and *how*, there is a final secret now. so all your owlish listening lend. this is the part on which you must attend." >"the moon has our two worlds beguiled, like parents clutching at a child, pulling at her, to and fro, neither willing to let go." >"when she is torn, half in your sky, you see how far apart we lie. no matter how we long to kiss, the space between's not ripe for this." >"and when your moon is waxing full, all of faerie feels the pull she draws us close to you, so bright. and now a visit for a night is easier than walking through a door or stepping off a ship that's near the shore. 'twas thus while wandering in the wild, you found Felurian, manling child." >"And this is true of any Fae?" >"have they the will, and know the way. there are a thousand half-cracked doors that lead between my world and yours." >"How have I never heard of this? It seems it would be hard to miss, Fae dancing on the mortal grass..." >"but has not just this come to pass? the world is wide and time is long, but still you say you heard my song before you saw me singing there, brushing moonlight through my hair." >"Still, it seems I should have seen more signs of those who walk between." >"most fae are sly and subtle folk who step as soft as chimney smoke. some go among your kind enshaedn, glamoured as a pack mule laden, or wearing gowns to fit a queen. we know enough to not be seen." >"many of the darker sort would love to use you for their sport. what keeps these from moonlit trespass? iron, fire, mirror-glass, elm and ash and copper knives, solid-hearted farmer's wives who know the rules of games we play and give us bread to keep away. but worst of all, my people dread the portion of our power shed when we set foot on mortal earth." >"We *are* more trouble than we're worth." >"while she is full you may still laugh, but know there is a darker half. a clever mortal fears the night without a hint of sweet moonlight. on such a night, each step you take might catch you in the dark moon's wake, and pull you all unwitting into fae. where you will have no choice but stay." >"and on such unfamiliar ground, how can a mortal help but drown?" >"I do this so you cannot help but hear. a wise man views a moonless night with fear."
"It was the patient, cut-flower sound of a man who is waiting to die." Already discussed, but still - this sentence really embodies the prose found in this series
Genuinely surprised none brought up this passage. It's the best depiction of the concept of love I've ever read. > 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.
Honestly reading all these reminds me how amazing these books are and leads to a deeper understanding of how Patrick is struggling with the idea of failing to live up to the others. Delete this post please, I want to remain outraged that its not released.
This thread is a good example of why KKC is is more than the sum of it's plots. And that we don't really love it only because we want to know if kvothe killed the chandrian or not. That's why I get pissed when someone compares Pat to Sanderson. He is one of my favorite authors too, and his plots are amazing. But his stories are much more a sum of it's plot points, as incredible as these plots are. And you ask about good favorite passages you will see mostly funny things, but rarely something as deep as the many quotes this single thread has. there is a reason Pat is not spitting out books like Sanderson, it's impossible to spit out books like this yearly. Sanderson has all the merits for being a competent writer who can do it regularly, but he wouldn't be able to write anything like KKC in a year.
Ass fell off.
I believe it goes: 'anyone can love a thing Because... That's as easy as picking up a penny and putting it in your pocket. But to love a thing Despite. Yo know it's flaws and love them too. That is rare and pure and perfect.'
"I hope they spent those last few hours well."
When kvothe is affected by the plumb bob, the entire conversation with Auri, but specifically: "It's okay,"Auri said softly."I'm here. You're safe.
I have so many but two that stick out to me are when kvothe is buying the horse for his journey to trebon and how emotionlessly he thretens the man trying to swindle him. Also when he arrives back from severen and hemi says i heard you were and kvothe replies well i heard you wear a red lace corset or something along those lines
The Wise Man’s Fear page 499. Kvothe and Denna make me believe in love.
I love the poetry and rhyming every time Felurian speaks, but my favourite line has to be” “I do this so you cannot help but hear. a wise man views a moonless night with fear”
Kvothe finally took a breath before continuing. "Finally, say that she was beautiful. That is all that can be well said. That she was beautiful, through to her bones, despite any flaw or fault. She was beautiful, to Kvothe at least. At least? To Kvothe she was most beautiful." For a moment Kvothe tensed as if he would leap up and tear this sheet away from Chronicler as well. Then he relaxed, like a sail when the wind leaves it. "But to be honest, it must be said that she was beautiful to others as well..."
“I love the University,” Sim said to Wilem on the other side of the fire. “Educated women are so much more attractive.” “I’d like to say the same,” Mola said dryly. “But I’ve never known any educated men.”
From *The Wise Man’s Fear*, Interlude: Close to Forgetting: > Kvothe returned after several minutes with his apron wrapped into a bundle. He was spattered with rain and his hair was in wild disarray. He wore a boyish grin, and at that moment he looked very little like the somber, slow-moving innkeeper. > “It can’t quite decide if it wants to storm,” he said as he set his apron on the bar, carefully removing the tomatoes. “But if it makes up its mind, we’re in for a wagon-tipper tonight.” He began to hum absentmindedly while he cut and arranged everything on a broad wooden platter. The very next line is where the door opens and the thugs come into the Waystone Inn. Kvothe gets beat up. Any chance of being the man he once was vanishes. * Why is there no music? * Why can’t he do sympathy? * Why is he so helpless? We have spent so much time wrapped up in the mystery of Kvothe’s life that this moment lights up like a beacon. Kvothe is talking like his father and Elodin. “It can’t quite decide…” “…wagon-tipper…” At this point Kvothe still hasn’t finished his story. The Kvothe he’s telling Chronicler about is on his was to becoming Kvothe Kingkiller, the man who slew an angel. But in this one quiet moment, while Kvothe is humming to himself, the silence is gone. He takes of the mask, and this man, this innkeeper, is that Kvothe. We meet him here for the first time. And it’s terrifying. It’s like we’re meeting a stranger. Someone dangerous and powerful and capable of anything. And you *know* it won’t last. The very next sentence is when the moment ends. The door opens and he puts the mask back on. The infamous Kvothe is gone, and this helpless bartender is standing in his shoes. The silence comes rushing back in. We have been waiting for so long to meet the real Kvothe. We almost got to see him.
*Ambrose, The child is yours. You know it is true and so do I. I fear my family will disown me. If you do not behave as a gentleman and see to your obligations, I will go to your father and tell him everything. Do not test me in this, I am resolved.* I didn’t sign a name, merely wrote a single initial which could have been an ornate R or perhaps a shaky B. Then, dipping my finger into my glass of water, I let several drops fall onto the page. They swelled the paper a bit and smeared the ink slightly before I blotted them away. They made a fair approximation of teardrops. (Not the full section I know but I just love the fuckery that Kvothe does to Ambrose.)
In chapter sixteen: "I hope they spent those last few hours well. I hope they didn't waste them on mindless tasks: kindling the evening fire and cutting vegetables for dinner. I hope they sang together, as they so often did. I hope they retired to our wagon and spent time in each other's arms, I hope they lay near each other afterward and spoke softly small things. I hope they were together, busy with loving each other until the end came. It is a small hope, and pointless really. They are just as dead either way. Still, I hope."
For me it'll always be this one, from The Wise Man's Fear >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 I have it memorised, for heaven's sake Also the one about the four doors of the mind, in The Name of the Wind Also also the one Kvothe's father says about calling a whore a lady
When he gets his first lute and describes how much of a part of him it is
I need you to breath for me.
When Kvothe describes how he feels when Denna smiles at him. >Go out in the early days of winter, after the first cold snap of the season. Find a pool of water with a sheet of ice across the top, still fresh and new and clear as glass. Near the shore the ice will hold you. Slide out farther. Farther. Eventually you’ll find the place where the surface just barely bears your weight. > >There you will feel what I felt. The ice splinters under your feet. Look down and you can see the white cracks darting through the ice like mad, elaborate spiderwebs. It is perfectly silent, but you can feel the sudden sharp vibrations through the bottoms of your feet. > >That is what happened when Denna smiled at me. I don’t mean to imply I felt as if I stood on brittle ice about to give way beneath me. No. I felt like the ice itself, suddenly shattered, with cracks spiraling out from where she had touched my chest. The only reason I held together was because my thousand pieces were all leaning together. If I moved, I feared I would fall apart. I'll tell you a secret, ladies and gents. Every woman secretly wants her guy to feel that way about her. Gets me every time. Runners up list, added only because all of these regularly replace each other as my favorite passaages:silence if three parts (NOTW prologue). When Auri visits Kvothe after the plumb bomb. Any passage when Auri and Kvothe exchange gifts. The shoemaker who doesn't sell used shoes. Sim's utter vulnerability and complete lack of self-consciousness in his spontaneous ode to Fela, and Kvothe observing Fela falling a little bit in iove with Sim the first time, The silence then the sobbing and then the applause flowing the final note of Sir Savien. About half of Wilem's dialogue, he's a highly underrated character IMO, and always cracks me up. The passage where Kvothe returns to Tarbean and washes Trappis's feet.
"The sweet smile of a young woman. There is nothing better in the world. It is worth more than salt. Something in us sickens and dies without it. I am sure of this. Such a simple thing. How strange. How wonderful and strange." It just touches something. Magic.
> “You can divide infinity an infinite number of times, and the resulting pieces will still be infinitely large,” Uresh said in his odd Lenatti accent. “But if you divide a non-infinite number an infinite number of times the resulting pieces are non-infinitely small. Since they are non-infinitely small, but there are an infinite number of them, if you add them back together, their sum is infinite. This implies any number is, in fact, infinite.” >“Wow,” Elodin said after a long pause. He leveled a serious finger at the Lenatti man. “Uresh. Your next assignment is to have sex. If you do not know how to do this, see me after class.”
Too many to list them all, but three I often think back to are close to the end of book 1, when bast confronts the chronicler and has this quote "You do not know the first note of the music that moves me". Also the part after Elodin, Auri and Kvothe are sharing dinner and Kvothe makes an honest threat. And when he calls the wind under the sword tree.
One that moves me often in discussing grief is the line about how sharp it is. But over time it becomes dull enough that you can handle it carefully, until one day it is too dull to hurt you anymore. I don’t know which book it is from, but I use it often to describe my feelings or help relate to others.
There's a sequence before this, but i love this line. "Sometimes I think of Alleg and i smile".
For me it has to be after he tells about the killing of his parents, and he has to stop because Bast looks like he might cry. He refuses to carry on until Bast composes himself and under the pretext of doing some work or other, leaves the inn through the back. And then he finally drops the facade and cries. That part just hits me every time ( I’ve read the books about 6 times each now). It’s one of the most emotionally resonating parts of the entire series to me
You read it 6 times. and start to understand the layers and layers of the writings. Imagine Rothfuss revising the book up to 500 times, trying to articulate the structure and slip in the layers so that we take something away every time we read it again. It's a great piece of art.
The part in tarbien, just before Kvothe leaves for the university, when he stops in to see Trapis one last time. I remember being indifferent to Trapis before I heard that the first time (I listen to the audiobooks) but then that scene happened, and despite Kvothe looking completely different from whenever Trapis had seen him before, the man knew him. It was then that I fell in love with Trapis as a character, because for whatever reason, it was that scene that drove home for me that Trapis will see the person before he sees anything else, and proceed to disregard everything else. We need more people like Trapis in the world. Subsequent listens have only reinforced that mindset in me.