Top 500 Patrick Rothfuss Quotes (2026 Update)
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301. “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

302. “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

303. “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

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

— Patrick Rothfuss

305. “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

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

— Patrick Rothfuss

307. “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

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

— Patrick Rothfuss

309. “You know what’s strange?” I said to him through the door. “I tried to think of something funny I could do while you were gone, but I couldn’t.” I looked around at the room. “I think that means humor is rooted in social transgression. I can’t transgress because I can’t figure out what would be socially unacceptable. Everything seems the same to me.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

310. “You know, I could have carried you.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

311. “I realized how common this feeling is. I’ve had person after person tell me that they empathize with Auri. That they know where she’s coming from. I didn’t expect that. 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

312. “You can divide infinity an infinite number of times, and the resulting pieces will still be infinitely large,” Uresh said in his odd Lenatti accent. “But if you divide a non-infinite number an infinite number of times the resulting pieces are non-infinitely small. Since they are non-infinitely small, but there are an infinite number of them, if you add them back together, their sum is infinite. This implies any number is, in fact, infinite.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

313. “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

314. “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

315. “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

316. “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

317. “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

318. “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

319. “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

320. “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

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

— Patrick Rothfuss

322. “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

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

— Patrick Rothfuss

324. “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

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

— Patrick Rothfuss

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

— Patrick Rothfuss

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

— Patrick Rothfuss

328. “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

329. “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

330. “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

331. “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

332. “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

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

— Patrick Rothfuss

334. “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

335. “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

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

— Patrick Rothfuss

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

— Patrick Rothfuss

338. “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

339. “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

340. “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

341. “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

342. “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

343. “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

344. “Some things simply were too true to stay. Some merely came to visit for a while.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

345. “Todos nos convertimos en lo que pretendemos ser.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

346. “Anything you say at this point cannot be trusted. You know I am well and truly angry, so you are in the grip of fear. This means I cannot trust any word you say, as it comes from fear. You are clever, and charming, and a liar. I know you can bend the world with your words. So I will not listen.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

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

— Patrick Rothfuss

348. “Character is half the reason we read. We’re excited because of the plot, but we care because of the characters.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

349. “You’re important with your green eyes looking at me like I mean something. It’s okay that you have better things to do. It’s enough that I get you sometimes. Once in a while. I know I’m lucky for that, to get you just a little.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

350. “Owls are wise. They are careful and patient. Wisdom precludes boldness.”

— Patrick Rothfuss