Top 500 Patrick Rothfuss Quotes (2025 Update)
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201. “This is why we have music, after all. Words cannot always do the work we need them to. Music is there for when words fail us. Finally.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

202. “This was appropriate, as it was the greatest silence of the three, wrapping the others inside itself. It was deep and wide as autumn’s ending. It was heavy as a great river-smooth stone. It was the patient, cut-flower sound of a man who is waiting to die.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

203. “There is a great difference between being fearless and being brave.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

204. “As he continued to load the barrow, he moved slower and slower, like a machine winding down. Eventually he stopped completely and stood for a long minute, still as stone. Only then did his composure break. And even with no one there to see, he hid his face in his hands and wept quietly, his body wracked with wave on wave of heavy, silent sobs.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

205. “Como ya he dicho, existe una gran diferencia entre ser valiente y no tener miedo.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

206. “If we were living in a better age they’d build a temple around a woman like that.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

207. “No. You should take pleasure in following the Lethani. If you fight well, you should take pride in doing a thing well. For the fighting itself you should feel only duty and sorrow. Only barbarians and madmen take pleasure in combat. Whoever loves the fight itself has left the Lethani behind.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

208. “Excellence is excellence’s only companion.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

209. “I won the only duel I ever lost.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

210. “Upon him I will visit famine and a fire, Till all around him desolation rings And all the demons in the outer dark Look on amazed and recognize That vengeance is the business of a man.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

211. “It was shivery and scant. Scared. Skint. But just around the edges it was still scintillant.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

212. “The air was heavy with the smell of leather and dust, of old parchment and binding glue. It smelled of secrets.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

213. “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.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

214. “I should have been bolder and kissed her at the end. I should have been more cautious. I had talked too much. I had said too little.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

215. “I am telling you three times.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

216. “To be both rich and handsome was bad enough. But to have a voice like honey over warm bread on top of that was simply inexcusable.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

217. “To deem us simply enemies is to lose the true flavor of our relationship. It was more like the two of us entered into a business partnership in order to more efficiently pursue our mutual interest of hating each other.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

218. “If your name is getting too heavy, you should have Kvothe give you a new one.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

219. “Oh no. He was emberant. Incarnadine. He was bright with better bright beneath, like copper-gilded gold.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

220. “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.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

221. “Denna is a wild thing,” I explained. “Like a hind or a summer storm. If a storm blows down your house, or breaks a tree, you don’t say the storm was mean. It was cruel. It acted according to its nature and something unfortunately was hurt. The same is true of Denna.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

222. “Old Cob tucked away his bowl of stew with the predatory efficency of a lifetime bachelor.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

223. “There’s no good story that doesn’t touch the truth.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

224. “It’s my opinion that if you’re trying to tell a realistic story that centers around realistic characters, you can’t help but touch on important issues. Those issues are what make us human.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

225. “Never quenched. Though I am doused in you, I burn.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

226. “I’m not officially a collector, but I have a strange attraction and a weakness for keys and coins. Old keys and interesting coins.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

227. “A ghost wants revenge, a demon wants your soul, a shamble-man is hungry and cold. It makes them less terrible. Things we understand we can try to control. But Chandrian come like lightning from a clear blue sky. Just destruction. No rhyme or reason to it.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

228. “Isn’t that the way of the world? We want the sweet things, but we need the unpleasant ones.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

229. “She was regal as a queen. Eager as a child. Proud as a cat. And she was like none of those things. Nothing like them. Not in the least little bit.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

230. “Never fool yourself into perceiving things that don’t exist. It.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

231. “Then he turned it the third time, and the boy’s ass fell off.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

232. “I love her more than just a little. I think it’s because we’re both somewhat broken, in our own odd ways. More importantly, we’re both aware of it.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

233. “Abenthy gave me an appraising look. I’d been waiting for it. It was the look that said, “You don’t sound as young as you look.” I hoped he’d come to grips with it fairly soon. It gets tiresome being spoken to as if you are a child, even if you happen to be one.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

234. “If one student in ten had half his fire I’d teach with a whip and chair instead of chalk and slate.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

235. “She didn’t know any better. Nobody had ever told her that she couldn’t. Because of this, she moved through the city like some faerie creature. She walked roads no one else could see, and it made her music wild and strange and free.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

236. “You may have heard of me.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

237. “I don’t feel beholden to follow the real world at all. The important thing is to know WHY things turned out the way they did. You need to understand the reasons for events, or at least be able to make reasonable guesses about them.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

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

— Patrick Rothfuss

239. “Did you know I never paid taxes before I came here? The Edema don’t own property, as a rule.” He gestured at the inn. “I never understood how galling it was. Some smug bastard with a ledger comes into town, makes you pay for the privilege of owning something.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

240. “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.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

241. “The way I cook it’s more like mad science. There’s a lot of inspiration and dramatic failure with the occasional gorgeous success.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

242. “I swear I’ve never met a man who has your knack for lack of social grace. If you weren’t naturally charming, someone would have stabbed you by now.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

243. “These were bad memories, but over the years I had brought them out and handled them so often there was hardly a sharp edge left to them.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

244. “Songs choose their hour and their own season. When your tune’s tin, there is a reason. The tone of a tune is your heart’s mettle, and there’s no clear water from a muddy well. All you can do is let the silt settle, or you’ll sound sour as a broken bell.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

245. “What has made me most proud – the things that I’ve done that I feel the most pride about – is helping people care about making the world better.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

246. “He taught me more than all the others set end to end. If not for him, I would never have become the man I am today. I ask that you not hold it against him. He meant well.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

247. “Beyond all other trees,” she said with a curl of a smile on her elegant mouth, “the willow moves to the wind’s desire.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

248. “It was the sort of anger that comes to a slow boil inside the hearts of good men who want justice, and finding it out oftheir grasp, decide vengeance is the next best thing.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

249. “I can’t count the men who have tried to seduce me away from my virtue by teaching me how to defend it.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

250. “But only a fool claims there is no such thing as love. When you see two young ones taring at each other with dewy eyes, there it is. So thick you can spread it on your brread and eat it. When you see a mother with her child, you see love. When you feel it roil in your belly, you know what it is. Even if you cannot give voice to it in words.”

— Patrick Rothfuss