But how awful would that be? How terrible to live surrounded by the stark, sharp, hollowness of things that simply were enough?

It was the patient, cut-flower sound of a man who is waiting to die.

I've got a solid grounding in history, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, etc etc. That means I actually have a good idea about how societies change and evolve. I know how a lot of them have actually functioned through the years. I can put together a culture that's cool and different, while still being logically consistent, so that it feels real. So many fantasy worlds are either implausible, cookie-cutter, or both. Mine aren't.

The Chancellor looked down at the empty table for a minute. Then he shrugged, looked up, and gave a surprisingly jaunty smile. "All in favor of admitting first-term Kvothe's reckless use of sympathy as proof of mastery of basic principles of sympathy vote by show of hands.

The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind.

A long stretch of road will teach you more about yourself than a hundred years of quiet introspection

It's one thing to not want an evil-sorcerer type villain in your story, but it's another thing to avoid having any sort of antagonist at all. A story without an antagonist gets weird pretty quick.