Patrick Rothfuss Quotes

We all become what we pretend to be.

Each woman is like an instrument, waiting to be learned, loved, and finely played, to have at last her own true music made.

Stand alone books are nice because they have everything all in one tidy little package. Neverwhere was awesome because you get action, adventure, character development, the exploration of a strange world, PLUS resolution of all the problems and mysteries at the end. No lines no waiting. That's very satisfying. Multi-volume stories are satisfying too, just in a different way.

But it isn’t a rough draft either. The one I turned in several months ago was rough. There were some bad plot holes, some logical inconsistencies, pacing problems, and not nearly enough lesbian unicorns.

Elodin looked at me. "What a remarkably honest threat," he said. "Normally they're much more growlish and gristly than that." "Gristly?" I asked, emphasizing the 't.' "Don't you mean grisly?" "Both," he said. "Usually there's a lot of, 'I'll break your knees. I'll break your neck.'" He shrugged. "Makes me think of gristle, like when you're boning a chicken.

You never do things the easy way, do you?" she said. "There's an easy way?" I asked.

I think the best part of being an author is that I get to learn about anything I want and explain it away as research.

But sometimes the best help a person can find is helping someone else.

...if I have ever met someone without a single shadow on their heart, it was surely a child too young for speaking.

There are few things as nauseating as pure obedience.

Speculative fiction is where my heart lies. It's what I read growing up, and it's what I read as an adult.

It's hard for me to take myself too seriously when I'm constantly experiencing firsthand what an incredible gimp I can be.

Too much truth confuses the facts. Too much honesty makes you sound insincere.

Pride is always a better lever against the nobility than reason.

I'm not a stereotypical professor type. I don't smoke a pipe and wear a tweedy jacket. I'm more like a student who stayed at the university for so long that they gave him a job to keep him out of trouble.

Don't get me wrong, magic is cool. But a nervous mother singing to her child at night while something moves quietly through the dark outside her house? That's a story. Handled properly, it's more dramatic than any apocalypse or goblin army could ever be.

Sleep marks passing time, giving us distance from the things that have hurt us. When a person is wounded they will often fall unconscious. Similarly, someone who hears traumatic news will often swoon or faint. This is the mind's way of protecting itself from pain.

Humor is important for is pacing. If your whole book is just drama drama drama, it's going to wear down the reader.

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

One of my favorite artists on Deviantart.

You can have an interesting story about a person living an interesting life. And if it's done well, that is just as engaging as the end of the world. A million people dying - we can't process. One person, we can process.

I took a deep breath, 'I took the nahlrout because I didn't want to faint. I needed to let them know they couldn't hurt me. I've learned that the best way to stay safe is to make your enemies think you can't be hurt.' It sounded ugly to say it so starkly, but it was the truth. I looked at him defiantly.

I walked across the polished marble floor and sat on a red velvet lounging couch. I idly wondered how exactly one was supposed to lounge. I couldn't remember ever doing it myself. After a moment's consideration, I decided lounging was probably similar to relaxing, but with more money in your pocket.

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

It 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.

Isn't that the way of the world? We want the sweet things, but we need the unpleasant ones.

For most practical purposes Tarbean had two pieces: Waterside and Hillside. Waterside is where people are poor. That makes them beggars, thieves, and whores. Hillside is where people are rich. That makes them solicitors, politicians, and courtesans.

Coming to grips with being a bit of a celebrity. That's not anything I ever expected to have to deal with in my life.

I'm not a role model. I'm an aberation. A statistical anomoly. Following in my footsteps is about the dumbest thing you could ever do.

Auri," I asked slowly, "are you joking with me?" She looked up and grinned. "Yes I am," she said proudly. "Isn't it wonderful?

I was heavily influenced by my first attempt at a novel. I started a fantasy novel back in high school, and... well... it really sucked. It was a plotless, clichéd mess.

The second was some rather bad poetry, but it was short, and I forced my way through by gritting my teeth and occasionally closing one eye so as not to damage the entirety of my brain.

I don't really have a lot of expensive tastes. What else am I really going to do with my money? Buy a little red sports car? Wear a lot of jewelry? Build a castle? Well... I might do the last one. Maybe. Eventually. But that doesn't mean I can't run Worldbuilders too.

In my opinion there are two basic questions that any writer tries to answer. "What is?" is the question non-fiction asks. "What if?" is the question fiction asks. That's the question I'm more interested in.

Congratulations. That was the stupidest thing I've ever seen. Ever.

If you're going to have a book full of clever people and nobody ever jokes, it's just not going to ring true to the reader. That said, humor writing is the hardest kind of writing there is.

She reached up and lay her hand on my cheek. "You have the sweetest face," she said, looking at me dreamily. "It's like the perfect kitchen." I fought not to smile. This was the delirium. She'd fade in and out of it before the profound exhaustion dragged her down into unconsciousness. If you see someone spouting nonsense to themselves in an alleyway in Tarbean, odds are they're not actually crazy, just a sweet-eater deranged by too much denner. "A kitchen?" "Yes," she said. "Everything matches and the sugar bowl is right where it should be.

Generally my favorite remarks always come from my readers. I've had people say my books made them laugh, or cry, or that it frightened them late at night.

I won the only duel I ever lost.

My shrug was so nonchalant it would make a cat jealous

Over the last month I had pulled a woman from a blazing inferno. I had called fire and lighting down on assassins and escaped to safety. I had even killed something that could have been either a dragon or a demon, depending on your point of view. But there in that room was the first time I actually felt like any sort of hero. If you are looking for a reason for the man I would eventually become, if you are looking for a beginning, look there.

Whenever you write a character, you want to make them themselves, you want to make them unique. You don't want fifty characters in your book and they all pretty much act and think the same except they have different colored hair.

Did I ever mention I used to be a delivery driver too? I was. I can read a map. What’s more, using a brilliant mixture of zen navigation, Aristotelian logic, and pure rage I can get you your package and/or delicious sandwich relatively close to on-time.

Dawn was coming. The Waystone Inn lay in silence, and it was a silence of three parts.

Roses! I swear you men have all your romance from the same worn book. Flowers are a good thing, a sweet thing to give a lady. But it is always roses, always red, and always perfect hothouse blooms when they can come by them.

Just handle the books gently and you’ll get along fine.

My granda always told me that fall's the time to root up something you don't want coming back to trouble you.' Kote mimicked the quaver of an old man's voice. 'Things are too full of life in the spring months. In the summer, they're too strong and won't let go. Autumn...' He looked around at the changing leaves on the trees. 'Autumn's the time. In autumn everything is tired and ready to die.

We need time to relax and enjoy ourselves too, no matter how dark the story. The occasional humorous moment helps with that. That's one of the things that Joss Whedon excels at in his storytelling.