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When left to its own devices it tends to make me look as if I’ve been set afire.

Patrick Rothfuss

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Patrick Rothfuss
Age: 51
Born: 1973
Born: June 6
Novelist
Teacher
Writer
Madison
Wisconsin
Patrick James Rothfuss
Make
Afire
Tends
Devices
Left
Look
Looks

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That was another lesson I had learned perhaps too well: people meant pain.
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Perhaps the greatest faculty our minds possess is the ability to cope with pain.
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If you open the door and realize things like the fact that Batman is occupying the same narrative space that Robin Hood used to fill 400 years ago, then you have the freedom to ignore the pointless what is literature discussion and just talk about stories.
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In brief, worldbuilding is different than setting in my opinion. Setting is a room. A backdrop. It's scenery. But without good worldbuilding, you can't have realistic feeling scenery. You can't have cool, unique backdrops for your story.
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Feel free to call me by my first name: Master.
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I also felt guilty about the three pens I'd stolen, but only for a second. And since there was no convenient way to give them back, I stole a bottle of ink before I left.
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When someone writes something dazzlingly brilliant, people want to imitate it. The result is a lot of less-than-brilliant knock-offs. Elves, Dwarves, Goblin army, cursed ring, evil sorcerer. Tolkien did it. It rocked. Let's move on. Let's do something new.
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Simmon pushed his hair out of his eyes, laughing boyishly. You can't argue your way out of this one! She's obviously stupid for you. And you're just plain stupid, so it's a great match.
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Then I played the song that hides in the center of me. That wordless music that moves through the secret places in my heart. I played it carefully, strumming it slow and low into the dark stillness of the night. I would like to say it is a happy song, that it is sweet and bright, but it is not.
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With slow care rather than stealth we must approach the subject of a certain woman. Her wildness is of such degree, I fear approaching her too quickly even in a story. Should I move recklessly, I might startle even the idea of her into sudden flight.
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How odd to watch a mortal kindle / Then to dwindle day by day / Knowing their bright souls are tinder / And the wind will have its way
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It's hard for a newbie author to get noticed.
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Humor is hard, hard, hard. And if you fail with humor, you don't fail halfway. You drop the ball humor-wise and everyone notices.
Patrick Rothfuss
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As a writer, I first felt successful before I was published.
Patrick Rothfuss
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The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind.
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Sleep marks passing time, giving us distance from the things that have hurt us. When a person is wounded they will often fall unconscious. Similarly, someone who hears traumatic news will often swoon or faint. This is the mind's way of protecting itself from pain.
Patrick Rothfuss
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All stories are true.
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Now it's virtually impossible to write a game that successfully provides challenge and frustration, and that's a shame. We are going to lose something that makes scientists, that makes doers, that makes hard-minded, witty, clever people, and I worry that those people aren't being made these days.
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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.
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I think the tendency to over-explain and over describe is one of the most common failings in fantasy. It's an unfortunate piece of Tolkien's legacy. Don't get me wrong, Tolkien was a great worldbuilder, but he got a little caught up describing his world at times, at the expense of the overall story.
Patrick Rothfuss