Top 500 Patrick Rothfuss Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “I always read. You know how sharks have to keep swimming or they die? I’m like that. If I stop reading, I die.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

52. “Bones mend. Regret stays with you forever.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

53. “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.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

54. “When the hearthfire turns to blue, what to do? what to do? run outside, run and hide when his eyes are black as crow? where to go? where to go? near and far. Here they are. see a man without a face? move like ghosts from place to place. whats their plan? whats their plan? Chandrian. Chandrian.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

55. “When we are children we seldom think of the future. This innocence leaves us free to enjoy ourselves as few adults can. The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

56. “My shrug was so nonchalant it would make a cat jealous.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

57. “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.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

58. “I was just wondering why you’re here.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

59. “Secrets of the heart. We swallow hard against them every day, forcing them deep inside us. There they sit, growing heavier, festering. Given enough time, they cannot help but crush the heart that holds them.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

60. “All explicit knowledge is translated knowledge, and all translation is imperfect.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

61. “I believe a writer’s most important skill lies in being able to see things from different perspectives.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

62. “My thought is, if you’re a book lover, you’re going to enjoy winning a book even if it’s not something you’d ordinarily pick up on your own. It’s a chance to expand your horizons a little.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

63. “I cannot help but wonder how many of us walk through our lives, day after day, feeling slightly broken and alone, surrounded all the time by others who feel exactly the same way.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

64. “85% of modern music doesn’t have a damn thing to do with music. It has to do with looking good. Name me one woman on the top ten right now who isn’t absolutely smoking hot. You think that’s a coincidence?”

— Patrick Rothfuss

65. “If you give a man an answer, all he gains is a little fact. But give him a question and he’ll look for his own answers.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

66. “You do not know the first note of the music that moves me.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

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

— Patrick Rothfuss

68. “That was another lesson I had learned perhaps too well: people meant pain.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

69. “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.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

70. “The boy grows upward, but the girl grows up.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

71. “A Tinker’s Debt is Always Paid: Once for a simple trade. Twice for freely given aid. Thrice for any insult made.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

72. “I learned to love the feel of good words.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

73. “With slow care rather than stealth we must approach the subject of a certain woman. Her wildness is of such degree, I fear approaching her too quickly even in a story. Should I move recklessly, I might startle even the idea of her into sudden flight.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

74. “If I could sum it up in 50 words, I wouldn’t have needed to write a whole novel about it.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

75. “I also felt guilty about the three pens I’d stolen, but only for a second. And since there was no convenient way to give them back, I stole a bottle of ink before I left.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

76. “I smiled,“Deoch, my heart is made of stronger stuff than glass. When she strikes she’ll find it strong as iron-bound brass, or gold and adamant together mixed. Don’t think I am unaware, some startled deer to stand transfixed by hunter’s horns. It’s she who should take care, for when she strikes, my heart will make a sound so beautiful and bright that it can’t help but bring her back to me in winged light.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

77. “You remind me of a willow.” She said easily. “Strong, deep-rooted, and hidden. You move easily when the storm comes, but never farther than you wish.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

78. “For me, language is something that I’ve always loved. When I read, that’s what I look for. When I write, that’s what I strive for.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

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

— Patrick Rothfuss

80. “I’ve waited a long time to show these flowers how pretty you are.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

81. “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.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

82. “The world is a mess and I just need to rule it.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

83. “In brief, worldbuilding is different than setting in my opinion. Setting is a room. A backdrop. It’s scenery. But without good worldbuilding, you can’t have realistic feeling scenery. You can’t have cool, unique backdrops for your story.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

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

— Patrick Rothfuss

85. “Looters become looted, while time and tide make us mercenaries all.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

86. “Lovely as the moon: not flawless, perhaps, but perfect.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

87. “Don’t get me wrong, hard and soft fantasy stories can both be good. But you need to know which camp you’re in. I’m into realism. I’m a hard fantasy guy.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

88. “Perhaps the greatest faculty our minds possess is the ability to cope with pain.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

89. “I looked down at the board. “The point isn’t to win?” I asked. “The point,” Bredon said grandly, “is to play a beautiful game.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

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

— Patrick Rothfuss

91. “Any joy that grows here is quickly choked by weeds. I am not some monster who destroys out of a twisted pleasure. I sow salt because the choice is between weeds and nothing.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

92. “Even a blind pig finds an acorn once in a while.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

93. “When you love something, you have to make sure it loves you back, or you’ll bring about no end of trouble chasing it.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

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

— Patrick Rothfuss

95. “Someone’s parents have been singing entirely the wrong sort of songs.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

96. “Second is the door of forgetting. Some wounds are too deep to heal, or too deep to heal quickly. In addition, many memories are simply painful, and there is no healing to be done. The saying “time heals all wounds” is false. Time heals most wounds. The rest are hidden behind this door.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

97. “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.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

98. “It’s easier to write about heartbreak after you’ve had your heart broken. You have more material to draw from, you can extrapolate from your own experiences and make reasonable assumptions about how your characters would feel and act.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

99. “I firmly believe that we’re all good people, but sometimes it’s hard to understand how to do good.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

100. “You are not wise enough to fear me as I should be feared. You do not know the first note of the music that moves me.”

— Patrick Rothfuss