Patrick Rothfuss Book Quotes & Sayings

Each book needs a good beginning and a good ending. People get pissed off when you don't close things off properly at the end. — Patrick Rothfuss

Some people are going to be impatient no matter what. If I wrote two books a year, someone out there would be pissed I wasn't writing three. — Patrick Rothfuss

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

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

I'm obsessive. That's the word for me. I obsess - perhaps to the point where it's moderately dysfunctional. I tend to put a book through about 100 revisions. If anything, that's an understatement. If there's another author out there who does this sort of revision, I would really like to meet him. Maybe we could form some sort of support group. — Patrick Rothfuss

There is a difference between something being essential, and it being necessary. If you take your favorite book and strip it down to what is merely essential to tell the story, it would be butchery. The end result would horrify you. Essential is the bones of the story, but the soul lives somewhere else. — Patrick Rothfuss

Whenever you write a character, you want to make them themselves, you want to make them unique. You don't want fifty characters in your book and they all pretty much act and think the same except they have different colored hair. — Patrick Rothfuss

On the other hand, winning awards is cool. Aside from the warm fuzzy, it creates publicity, and that helps spread the word about the book.
Plus, this award was a plaque of some sort. I could have used that for all sorts of things. Obviously it would be useful for decorating the barren walls of my house and intimidating my enemies, but that's just for starters. — Patrick Rothfuss

My fear is, what is the larger effect of my book on the world and on the minds of the people who take the time to consume it? Am I contributing in a positive way to the overall kind of collective consciousness of people in the world? I worry about that. — Patrick Rothfuss

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

One thing I've learned now is that I should not say when a book is coming out until I'm sure I know. — Patrick Rothfuss

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

I hate it when I have to wait the next book in a series to come out.
Don't you hate it when you have to wait for the next book in a series to come out? — Patrick Rothfuss

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

Reading can almost be viewed as empathy training. Movies have better action scenes, sure. But books are uniquely suited to showing you the inside of another person's head. That is the root of empathy. That's the first step to understanding you're not alone in the world. — Patrick Rothfuss

Half a King is my favorite book by Joe Abercrombie so far, and that's saying something. — Patrick Rothfuss

I'm struggling with what is epic. People decided I was epic - if by epic, do you mean a big, heavy book? 'David Copperfield' is a big book - is it epic? Amount of time covered, length, drama, or story - that's the real appeal - if the story is long you have a better chance of becoming more connected. — Patrick Rothfuss

Reading aloud sounds like a good idea, but honestly, it doesn't work very well. Good dialogue in a book doesn't actually bear much resemblance to real-life dialogue. For example, if you've ever seen a word-for-word transcript of people talking, it doesn't read off the page very well. The trick is to make it *seem* like it's being spoken, not to make it speakable. — Patrick Rothfuss

One of the things I hear a lot from people is how they found my book, or how they've shared it with other people.
This always warms my bitter old heart, not just because I like selling more books, (though I do) but because reccomending a book to a friend is one of the most sincere forms of flattery there is. If you read someone I wrote and like it enough to tell a friend, that means I've done something right. That means more to me than any sort of professional review ... . — Patrick Rothfuss

All men press, one way or another," she said with mock severity.
"They're still keeping to their book then?"
Denna's expression grew rueful and she sighed. "I used to hope they'd disregard the book with age. Instead I've found they've merely turned a page. — Patrick Rothfuss

It's hard to be wrongfully accused, but it's worse when the people looking down on you are clods who have never read a book or traveled more than twenty miles from the place they were born. — Patrick Rothfuss