“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.”

“Think of all the stories you've heard, Bast. You have a young boy, the hero. His parents are killed he sets out for vengeance. What next?"Bast hesitated, his expression puzzled. Chronicler answered the question instead. "He finds help. A clever talking squirrel. An old drunken swordsman. A mad hermit in the woods. That sort of thing."Kvothe nodded. "Exactly! He finds the mad hermit in the woods, proves himself worthy, and learns the names of all things, just like Taborlin the Great. Then with these powerful magics at his beck and call, what does he do?"Chronicler shrugged. "He finds the villains and kills them." "Of course," Kvothe said grandly. "Clean, quick, and easy as lying. We know how it ends practically before it starts. That's why stories appeal to us. They give us the clarity and simplicity our real lives lack.”

“What makes you think I am not teaching you? Aside from the fact that you refuse to learn.”

“Music is a proud, temperamental mistress. Give her the time and attention she deserves, and she is yours. Slight her and there will come a day when you call and she will not answer. So I began sleeping less to give her the time she needed.”

“If you fall, you fall," Elodin shrugged. "Sometimes falling teaches us things too." In dreams you often fall before you wake.”

“I can't count the men who have tried to seduce me away from my virtue by teaching me how to defend it.”

“We are the Edema Ruh, and the thing we value most every man possesses. You can tell us your story.”