Soft fantasy worlds have a much looser cause-and-effect relationship. Alchemists can turn lead into gold and nobody wonders about how it will impact the currency system. Someone waves a wand and turns an elephant into a mouse and nobody worries about conservation of mass.

Close your mouth, E'lir Kvothe, or I will feel obliged to put some vile tonic in it.

Words have to find a man's mind before they can touch his heart, and some men's minds are woefully small targets.

There is a difference between something being essential, and it being necessary. If you take your favorite book and strip it down to what is merely essential to tell the story, it would be butchery. The end result would horrify you. Essential is the bones of the story, but the soul lives somewhere else.

...nothing in the world is harder than convincing someone of an unfamiliar truth.

How odd to watch a mortal kindle / Then to dwindle day by day / Knowing their bright souls are tinder / And the wind will have its way

Remember this son, if you forget everything else. A poet is a musician who can't sing. Words have to find a man's mind before they can touch his heart. And, some men's minds are woeful small targets. Music touches their hearts directly, no matter how small or stubborn the mind of the man who listens.