Top 500 Patrick Rothfuss Quotes (2026 Update)
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301. “So when I meet a woman, I should simply say, ‘You are beautiful?’” Tempi shook his head. “No. You would say simply ‘beautiful,’ and let the woman decide the rest of what you mean.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

302. “This was nothing,” I said nonchalantly. “Once I jumped off a roof.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

303. “And we sang! Her voice like burning silver, my voice an echoing answer. Savien sang solid, powerful lines, like branches of a rock-old oak, all the while Aloine was like a nightingale, moving in darting circles around the proud limbs of it.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

304. “Clean, quick, and easy as lying. We know how it ends practically before it starts. That’s why stories appeal to us. They give is the clarity and simplicity our real lives lack.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

305. “That is like throwing two virgins into a bed. Enthusiasm, passion, and ignorance are not a good combination. Someone is likely to get hurt.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

306. “Distrust turns quickly to dislike.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

307. “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.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

308. “I tend to think too much, Bast. My greatest successes came from decisions I made when I stopped thinking and simply did what felt right. Even if there was no good explanation for what I did.” He smiled wistfully. “Even if there were very good reasons for me not to do what I did.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

309. “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.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

310. “Science is just magic with better PR.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

311. “But no. It didn’t suit him. She should have known. He was not a one for fastening. For holding closed. Neither was he dark. Oh no. He was emberant. Incarnadine. He was bright with better bright beneath, like copper-gilded gold.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

312. “I’m about to die of terminal curiosity, you know.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

313. “Now,” Kvothe said angrily, “you’ve both acted understandably, but that does not by any means mean that either of you have behaved well.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

314. “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.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

315. “But no. There is a difference between the truth and what we wish were true.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

316. “Un hombre no debe ponerle nunca la mano encima a una mujer, salvo por amor.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

317. “Eventually, Bast spoke up. “May I ask a question, Reshi?” Kote smiled gently. “Always, Bast.” “A troublesome question?” “Those tend to be the only worthwhile kind.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

318. “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.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

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

— Patrick Rothfuss

320. “One of them had a large wooden sign nailed to its door proclaiming, NO SYMPATHY! I wondered what non-arcane visitors might think of the warning.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

321. “Once, I sang colors to a blind man. Seven hours I played, but at the end he said he saw them, green and red and gold.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

322. “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.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

323. “You see, a laurel needs rain to grow. I can’t do much about that. But I can keep that rain off a few musician’s heads, can’t I?” A sly smile wound its way onto his face. “So God will tend the laurels and keep them wet. And I will tend the players and keep them dry. And wiser minds than mine will decide when to bring the two together.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

324. “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.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

325. “In the midst of fear Lyra knelt by Lanre’s body and breathed his name. Her voice was a beckoning. Her voice was love and longing. Her voice called him to live again. But Lanre lay cold and dead.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

326. “I brought you a feather with the spring wind in it, but since you were late... ′ she looked a me gravely, ’you get a coin instead.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

327. “I’m not implying that fantasy is for kids. I’m saying that more and more people are finally realizing that there’s more to fantasy stories than elves and wizards and goblin armies.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

328. “The poorer you are, the more your pride is worth.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

329. “She’d strayed from the true way of things. First you set yourself to rights. And then your house. And then your corner of the sky. And after that... Well, then she didn’t rightly know what happened next. But she hoped that after that the world would start to run itself a bit, like a gear-watch proper fit and kissed wit oil. That was what she hoped would happen.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

330. “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.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

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

— Patrick Rothfuss

332. “Tak reflects the subtle turning of the world. It is a mirror we hold to life. No one wins a dance, boy. The point of dancing is the motion that a body makes. A well-played game of tak reveals the moving of a mind. There is a beauty to these things for those with eyes to see it.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

333. “He drew a slow, deliberate breath before speaking. “Quiet is not stupid,” he said, his voice flat. “You? Always talk. Chek chek chek chek chek.” He made a motion with one hand, like a mouth opening and closing. “Always. Like dog all night barking at tree. Try to be big. No. Just noise. Just dog.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

334. “These poor, rich men who, seeing that you can’t be caught, attempt to buy a thing they know cannot be bought.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

335. “That’s how you know it’s real medicine,” I said. “If it tasted good it would be candy.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

336. “That’s why stories appeal to us. They give us the clarity and simplicity our real lives lack.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

337. “But I don’t believe every bit of nonsense that gets rumored about.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

338. “Some places had names. Some places changed, or they were shy about their names. Some places had no names at all, and that was always sad. It was one thing to be private. But to have no name at all? How horrible. How lonely.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

339. “But he was coming. He would be here soon, all sweet and brave and shattered and kind. He would come carrying and clever-fingered and oh so unaware of oh so many things. He was rough against the world, but even so...”

— Patrick Rothfuss

340. “You’re right in a way,” he said. “But only an idiot sits in a burning house and thinks everything is fine because fruit is still sweet.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

341. “It was too full of love. Nothing could shift it. Nothing could turn it from itself. When all the world was palimpsest, it was a perfect palindrome. Inviolate.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

342. “Si estad leyendo esto, seguramente estoy muerto.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

343. “Yes, I cried at the end of it. I did then, and I have every time since. Even a reading of the story aloud will bring tears to my eyes. In my opinion, anyone who isn’t moved by it is less than human inside.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

344. “I realize that I cannot say enough. So. Since I cannot say enough, at least I will avoid saying to much”.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

345. “I heard you were in sime trouble,” I said nonchalantly. “So I thought I’d come and help.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

346. “He felt himself go cold as he suddenly realized what a dangerous game he was playing. So this is the difference between telling a story and being in one, he thought numbly, the fear.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

347. “You can’t write good characters if you can’t imagine what it’s like being in another person’s skin. And if you can imagine that, you naturally want other people’s lives to be better. You want to make that happen.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

348. “Anyone who thinks boys are innocent and sweet has never been a boy himself, or has forgotten it. And anyone who thinks men aren’t hurtful and cruel at times must not leave his house often.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

349. “Each of us has two minds: a waking mind and a sleeping mind. Our waking mind is what thinks and talks and reasons. But the sleeping mind is more powerful. It sees deeply to the heart of things. It is the part of us that dreams. It remembers everything. It gives us intuition. Your waking mind does not understand the nature of names. Your sleeping mind does. It already knows many things that your waking mind does not.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

350. “Tempi reached out and gripped my shoulder firmly. Then he looked up, met my eye, and held it for a brief moment. Such a rarity for him. He gave a small, quiet smile. “Proud,” he said.”

— Patrick Rothfuss