Reading can almost be viewed as empathy training. Movies have better action scenes, sure. But books are uniquely suited to showing you the inside of another person's head. That is the root of empathy. That's the first step to understanding you're not alone in the world.
Patrick RothfussIt'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.
Patrick RothfussThe 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.
Patrick RothfussIt is quite a thing. There are so many men, all endlessly trying to sweep me off my feet. And there is one of you, trying just the opposite. Making sure my feet are firm beneath me lest I fall.
Patrick RothfussThe thing that helps me do a good job is that I don't feel the need to explain everything about the world to my reader. I'm not writing a history text on the Four Corners. I'm telling a story that's set there. The setting belongs in the background for the most part, and it's easy for fantasy authors to forget that. That's one of the unfortunate parts of Tolkien's legacy, in my opinion. Read the first hundred pages of the Fellowship of the Ring and you start to get pissed, "Shut up about the Shire's museums! Isn't the world supposed to be in peril or something?"
Patrick Rothfuss