Top 500 Patrick Rothfuss Quotes (2024 Update)
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301. “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

302. “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

303. “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

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

— Patrick Rothfuss

305. “I have always thought,” Alveron said at last, introducing the topic of our discussion, “that everyone has a question that rests in the center of who they are.” “How do you mean, your grace?” “I believe everyone has some question that drives them. A question that keeps them awake nights. A question they worry at like a dog with an old bone. If you understand a man’s question, it brings you closer to understanding the man himself.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

306. “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

307. “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

308. “De modo que esa es la diferencia entre contar una historia y estar dentro una historia: el miedo.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

309. “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

310. “Humor is important. If you’re going to tell any sort of realistic story, you’re going to have to have humor in it, because people are funny. Clever people especially.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

311. “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

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

— Patrick Rothfuss

313. “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

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

— 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. “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

317. “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

318. “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

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

— Patrick Rothfuss

320. “You go rummaging around in other people’s lives. You hear rumors and go digging for the painful truth beneath the lovely lies. You believe you have a right to these things. But you don’t.” He looked hard at the scribe. “When someone tells you a piece of their life, they’re giving you a gift, not granting you your due.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

321. “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

322. “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

323. “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

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

— Patrick Rothfuss

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

— Patrick Rothfuss

326. “Do you just want to get by? Or do you want to make me proud?”

— Patrick Rothfuss

327. “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

328. “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

329. “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

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

— Patrick Rothfuss

331. “There was a pointed silence from Ambrose, so I lowered my shirt and turned to face Fela, ignoring him entirely. “My lady scriv,” I said to her with a bow. A very slight bow, as my back wouldn’t permit a deep one. “Would you be so good as to help me locate a book concerning women? I have been instructed by my betters to inform myself on this most subtle subject.” Fela gave a faint smile and relaxed a bit.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

332. “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

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

— Patrick Rothfuss

334. “But even in the full flower of her fury, Carceret was perfectly in control. She didn’t lash out wildly or snarl at me. She kept her words inside her, burning them like fuel.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

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

— Patrick Rothfuss

336. “I’d love to take a stab at writing videogames. There are a lot of storytelling opportunities that really aren’t being taken advantage of in that field. I’d like to experiment with telling a truly non-linear story.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

337. “Ben’s training has given me a memory so clean and sharp I have to be careful not to cut myself sometimes.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

338. “I wanted to get inside so badly I could taste it. It probably shows a perverse element of my personality that even though I was finally inside the Archives, surrounded by endless secrets, that I was drawn to the one locked door I had found. Perhaps it is human nature to seek out hidden things. Perhaps it is simply my nature.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

339. “I believe it, Chronicler found himself thinking. Before it was just a story, but now I can believe it. This is the face of a man who has killed an angel.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

340. “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

341. “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

342. “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

343. “There is only one Whedon, and I am his prophet.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

344. “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

345. “It’s not prowess if you watch 5 hours of TV a day. It’s just how you choose to spend your time.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

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

— Patrick Rothfuss

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

— Patrick Rothfuss

348. “I don’t speak fluent bumpkin...”

— Patrick Rothfuss

349. “It was more exciting when I didn’t know I had permission.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

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

— Patrick Rothfuss