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Any student of mine must be able to defend his ideas against an attack. No matter how you spend your life, your wit will defend you more often than a sword. Keep it sharp!
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There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man.
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'I’ll admit, I was disappointed to learn that dragons didn’t exist. That’s a hard lesson for a boy to learn.'Chronicler smiled. 'Honestly, I was a little disappointed myself. I went looking for a legend and found a lizard. A fascinating lizard, but a lizard just the same.'
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She looked at me. Looked away. 'You think too much of me.'I smiled. 'Perhaps you think too little of yourself.'
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I write what I don't know. It's way more interesting.
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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.
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He picked the rock back up. 'Do you believe that it floated?''No!' I sulked, rubbing my temples.'Good. It didn’t. Never fool yourself into perceiving things that don’t exist.'
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It’s hard to be wrongfully accused, but it’s worse when the people looking down on you are clods who have never read a book or traveled more than twenty miles from the place they were born.
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'All stories are true,' Skarpi said. 'But this one really happened, if that’s what you mean.' He took another slow drink, then smiled again, his bright eyes dancing. 'More or less. You have to be a bit of a liar to tell a story the right way. Too much truth confuses the facts. Too much honesty makes you sound insincere.'
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'How do they feel about demons off in Atur?' he asked.'Scared.' My father tapped his temple. 'All that religion makes their brains soft.'
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Fear tends to come from ignorance. Once I knew what the problem was, it was just a problem, nothing to fear.
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'Piss on etiquette,' Threpe said petulantly. 'Etiquette is a set of rules people use so they can be rude to each other in public.'
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Everyone thinks chemistry and alchemy are so similar, but they’re really not. They’re not even related. They just happen to live in the same house.
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My name is Kvothe, pronounced nearly the same as 'Quothe.' Names are important as they tell you a great deal about a person. I’ve had more names than anyone has a right to.The Adem call me Maedre. Which, depending on how it’s spoken, can mean 'The Flame,' 'The Thunder,' or 'The Broken Tree.'
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Wisdom precludes boldness.
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'Why do we stop for the greystones?''Tradition, my boy,' he said grandly, throwing his arms wide. 'And superstition. They are one and the same, anyway.'
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'It's the questions we can't answer that teach us the most. They teach us how to think. If you give a man an answer, all he gains is a little fact. But give him a question and he'll look for his own answers.
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Lord but I dislike poetry. How can anyone remember words that aren’t put to music?
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As my father used to say: 'There are two sure ways to lose a friend, one is to borrow, the other to lend.'
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Wilem tapped Simmon’s shoulder. 'He’s telling the truth.'Simmon glanced over at him. 'Why do you say that?''He sounds more sincere than that when he lies.'
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Nothing makes a man feel older than a young woman.
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Mauthen ain’t much for listenen. Nothin’ plugs a man’s ears like money.
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My father had a dark glimmer in his eye as he moved behind her. 'Old?' He spoke in a low voice as he began to rub her shoulders again. 'Woman, I have a mind to prove you wrong.'She smiled a wry smile. 'Sir, I have a mind to let you.'
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'You don’t seem the superstitious type.''I’m not,' Ben said. 'I’m careful. There’s a difference.'