Patrick Rothfuss Quotes

Some people are going to be impatient no matter what. If I wrote two books a year, someone out there would be pissed I wasn't writing three.

Sometimes I go outside after a long stretch of writing and I'm surprised it's not raining. Or that it's daylight. Or that it's not the middle of winter. I don't know if that level of immersion is normal, but it's now I do things. I like it. It works well for me.

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.

Do you just want to get by? Or do you want to make me proud?

He was giving me enough rope to hang myself with. Apparently he didn't realize that once a noose is tied it will fit one neck as easily as another.

It's hard for a newbie author to get noticed.

I have a blog where I keep in touch with my fans. I write about things that are important to me. Sometimes on there I'll just tell a little story about the things that happen in my everyday life. People seem to enjoy them well enough.

A lot of new writers assume you have to know the where the story is going and that it flows out as molten gold. But really, sometimes you think you are going to one place, but then you decide that is dumb idea. Then you go somewhere else and it is a worse idea. But then you switch again and you might have a beautiful accident.

Over his own dark Cealdish beard. "Nothing like your marvelous facebear.

The truth is that the world is full of dragons, and none of us are as powerful or cool as we’d like to be. And that sucks. But when you’re confronted with that fact, you can either crawl into a hole and quit, or you can get out there, take off your shoes, and Bilbo it up.

I love worldbuilding. It's as much fun for me as writing itself. It's like a hobby of mine.

I am no poet. I do not love words for the sake of words. I love words for what they can accomplish. Similarly, I am no arithmetician. Numbers that speak only of numbers are of little interest to me.

I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep. You may have heard of me.

By your logic I should also be in charge of Solinade dances, needlework, and horse thieving.

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.

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

He then proceeded to shout at Alpha and Beta, a sign that he was in a genuine good mood. They took it as calmly as ever, in spite of the fact that he accused them of things I'm sure no donkey has ever willingly done, especially not Beta, who possessed impeccable moral character.

Nobody cooks using just one ingredient. Why would you write using just one flavor of story?

I spoke it soft, but close enough to brush against her lips. I spoke it quiet, but near enough so that the sound of it went twining through her hair. I spoke it hard and firm and dark and sweet.

You're sure your new roommate won't be like the last one who wore tinfoil socks and had a tendency to occasionally urinate in the refrigerator. You're sure you'll pass Math 106 this time around. You're determined to actually join some clubs this year and not just sit around in your dorm eating spray cheese from a can and watching youtube videos about cats.

But even this piece of flattery couldn't distract me from the fact that I was in the center of the Fae realm, blind, stark naked, and without the slightest idea of what was going on.

I have had a few gentlemen let me know they find my manly beardiness somewhat alluring. Never any ladies though.

There is something powerfully beguiling about the excited eyes of a young woman. They can pull all manner of nonsense out of a foolish young man, and I was no exception to this rule.

It's like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story.

Everything said, you couldn't hope for a nicer day to have a half dozen ex-soldiers with hunting bows relieve you of everything you owned.

I think authors are just realizing there's no real reason to feel limited to a narrow set of genre rules in their writing. There's no reason a mystery novel can't have fantastic elements in it. Similarly, there's no reason why your epic fantasy series can't have elements of a mystery.

I was nervous about writing Slow Regard.

One reason we love fiction is because stories have a comforting shape. They provide a resolution that's lacking in our regular lives.

Re'lar Kvothe," he said seriously. "I am trying to wake your sleeping mind to the subtle language the world is whispering. I am trying to seduce you into understanding. I am trying to teach you." He leaned forward until his face was almost touching mine. "Quit grabbing at my tits.

The boy grows upward, but the girl grows up.

Why are you smiling?' 'I'm relieved,' I said honestly. 'I was worried I'd given myself cadmium poisoning, or I had some mysterious disease. This is just someone trying to kill me.

All stories are true.

I grew up reading Tolkien, and I love him. But I love him in the way that you love that rambly old grandfather. You have to sit through some pretty off-topic stuff before he starts telling his cool old war stories.

It doesn't eat meat." I said. "It's a herbivore. It's like a big cow." Denna looked at me and started to laugh. Not hysterical laughter, but the helpless laughter of someone who's just heard something so funny they can't help but bubble over with it. She put her hands over her mouth and shook with it, the only sound was a low huffing that escaped through her fingers. There was another flash of blue fire from below. Denna froze midlaugh, then took her hands away from her mouth. She looked at me, her eyes wide, and spoke softly with a slight quaver in her voice, "Mooooo.

I have, of course, been called many other things. Most of them uncouth, although very few were unearned

My parents danced together, her head on his chest. Both had their eyes closed. They seemed so perfectly content. If you can find someone like that, someone who you can hold and close your eyes to the world with, then you're lucky. Even if it only lasts for a minute or a day. The image of them gently swaying to the music is how I picture love in my mind even after all these years.

I loved college. I wish I was still taking classes instead of teaching them.

in my opinion if you have a secret compartment in your lute case and don't use it to hide things, there is something terribly, terribly wrong with you.

If you're an actor, you know people are going to recognize you in a restaurant. If you're a rock star, you know people are going to stop you on the street and ask you for your autograph. But as an author? That's not something I was ready for.

Then I felt something inside me break and music began to pour out into the quiet. My fingers danced; intricate and quick they spun something gossamer and tremulous into the circle of light our fire had made. The music moved like a spiderweb stirred by a gentle breath, it changed like a leaf twisting as it falls to the ground, and it felt like three years Waterside in Tarbean, with a hollowness inside you and hands that ached from the bitter cold.

I'm a firm supporter of the word polyamory. But that one is close to my heart.

Stories only happen to people who can tell them.

I'd love to get a chance to talk shop with Joss Whedon. That's pretty high up there on the list.

It gets tiresome being spoken to as if you are a child, even if you happen to be one.

Performance and music are inexorably tied together. And hell, I'll watch Brittany's Toxic music video all day. But there's a difference between that and listening to Leo Kottke play guitar. One is entertainment. The other is Music.

That is how heavy a secret can become. It can make blood flow easier than ink.

He had a bright, reckless tenor that was always wandering off, looking for notes in the wrong places.

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