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I don't feel beholden to follow the real world at all. The important thing is to know WHY things turned out the way they did. You need to understand the reasons for events, or at least be able to make reasonable guesses about them.

Patrick Rothfuss

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Patrick Rothfuss
Age: 51
Born: 1973
Born: June 6
Novelist
Teacher
Writer
Madison
Wisconsin
Patrick James Rothfuss
Real
Events
Important
Least
Needs
Understand
Beholden
Thing
Able
Guesses
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Reason
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Reasons
Things
Feel
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More quotes by Patrick Rothfuss

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Half a King is my favorite book by Joe Abercrombie so far, and that's saying something.
Patrick Rothfuss
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I've always liked the moonless night best. It's easier to say things in the dark. It's easier to be yourself.
Patrick Rothfuss
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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.
Patrick Rothfuss
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Secrets of the heart. We swallow hard against them every day, forcing them deep inside us. There they sit, growing heavier, festering. Given enough time, they cannot help but crush the heart that holds them.
Patrick Rothfuss
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For most practical purposes Tarbean had two pieces: Waterside and Hillside. Waterside is where people are poor. That makes them beggars, thieves, and whores. Hillside is where people are rich. That makes them solicitors, politicians, and courtesans.
Patrick Rothfuss
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The seeds of the past bear fruit in the present.
Patrick Rothfuss
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That was another lesson I had learned perhaps too well: people meant pain.
Patrick Rothfuss
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All the truth in the world is held in stories.
Patrick Rothfuss
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Using words to talk of words is like using a pencil to draw a picture of itself, on itself. Impossible. Confusing. Frustrating ... but there are other ways to understanding.
Patrick Rothfuss
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I'd like to work with some of the videogame companies for the simple fact that they obviously need some sort of writer's help. I play videogames, and lately it's hard for me to enjoy them because I'm spending all my time cringing at the corny dialogue, thin characters, and glaring plot holes.
Patrick Rothfuss
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But to love something despite. To know the flaws and love them too. This is rare and pure and perfect.
Patrick Rothfuss
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When we are children we seldom think of the future. This innocence leaves us free to enjoy ourselves as few adults can. The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind.
Patrick Rothfuss
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I don't think people need to know much about me to understand the book, or to enjoy it. The book stands by itself. Over the last several years, my life has been all about writing these books, but the books aren't about my life.
Patrick Rothfuss
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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.
Patrick Rothfuss
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You can have an interesting story about a person living an interesting life. And if it's done well, that is just as engaging as the end of the world. A million people dying - we can't process. One person, we can process.
Patrick Rothfuss
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I've waited a long time to show these flowers how pretty you are.
Patrick Rothfuss
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Writing a good query letter has very little to do with writing a good novel. But if you can't write the one, it makes it really hard to get the other published.
Patrick Rothfuss
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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.
Patrick Rothfuss
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When you read a fantasy novel part of the fun is getting to explore a new world. Everyone knows that. But I believe the same is true about characters. You can explore interesting people in the same way that you explore a town or a culture.
Patrick Rothfuss
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Language is inexorably tied to power and understanding. And power and understanding are the roots of magic. Just the act of writing something down is a magical act.
Patrick Rothfuss