Patrick Rothfuss Quotes (91 Quotes)

Call a jack a jack. Call a spade a spade. But always call a whore a lady. Their lives are hard enough, and it never hurts to be polite.

I wanted to tell her that she was the first beautiful thing I had seen in three years. That the sight of her yawning to the back of her hand was enought to drive the breath from me. How I sometimes lost the sense of her words in the sweet fluting of her voice. I wanted to say that if she were with me then somehow nothing could ever be wrong for me again.

Remember this, son, if you forget everything else. A poet is a musician who can't sing. Words have to find a man's mind before they can touch his heart, and some men's minds are woeful small targets. Music touches their hearts directly no matter how small or stubborn the mind of the man who listens.

You see, women are like fires, like flames. Some women are like candles, bright and friendly. Some are like single sparks, or embers, like fireflies for chasing on summer nights. Some are like campfires, all light and heat for a night and willing to be left after. Some women are like hearthfires, not much to look at but underneath they are all warm red coal that burns a long, long while.

I spoke it soft, but close enough to brush against her lips. I spoke it quiet, but near enough so that the sound of it went twining through her hair. I spoke it hard and firm and dark and sweet.

The second was some rather bad poetry, but it was short, and I forced my way through by gritting my teeth and occasionally closing one eye so as not to damage the entirety of my brain.

Congratulations. That was the stupidest thing I've ever seen. Ever.

If I'd been whoring before class and waved a corset at him, no one would have thought twice about it!

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.

A tree doesn't make a thunderstorm, but any fool knows where lightning's going to strike.

I swear I've never met a man who has your knack for lack of social grace. If you weren't naturally charming, someone would have stabbed you by now.

The seeds of the past bear fruit in the present.

Damn chicken. Come eat your dinner. I'm cold.

If there is one thing I will not abide it is the folly of a willful pride.

She taught me I should never do anything in private I did not want talked about in public, and cautioned me not to talk in my sleep.

All the truth in the world is held in stories.

I walked across the polished marble floor and sat on a red velvet lounging couch. I idly wondered how exactly one was supposed to lounge. I couldn't remember ever doing it myself. After a moment's consideration, I decided lounging was probably similar to relaxing, but with more money in your pocket.

Then he turned it the third time, and the boy's ass fell off.

Do you just want to get by? Or do you want to make me proud?

If you are going to impose your will on the world, you must have control over what you believe.

Si estad leyendo esto, seguramente estoy muerto

Ambrose, your presence is the horseshit frosting on the horseshit cake that is the admissions interview process.

I won the only duel I ever lost

There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man.

Everyone knew what he was thinking. Certainly there were demons in the world. But they were like Tehlu's angels. They were like heroes and kings. They belonged in stories. They belonged out there. Taborlin the Great called up fire and lightning to destroy demons. Tehlu broke them in his hands and sent them howling into the nameless void. Your childhood friend didn't stomp one to death on the road to Baedn-Bryt. It was ridiculous.

I'll string a fiddle with your guts and make you play it while I dance.

Some of my Arcanum bunkmates taught me a card game called dogs-breath. I returned the favor by giving an impromptu lesson in psychology, probability, and manual dexterity. I won almost two whole talents before they stopped inviting me back to their games.

Barbarian that I am, I had eaten all of it. It had tasted quite nice too. Still, I took note of this fact and resigned myself to throw away half of a perfectly good cheese if it was set in front of me. Such is the price of civilization.

If your name is getting too heavy, you should have Kvothe give you a new one.

To be both rich and handsome was bad enough. But to have a voice like honey over warm bread on top of that was simply inexcusable.

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.

It was the patient, cut-flower sound of a man who is waiting to die.

The boy grows upward, but the girl grows up.

Books are a poor substitute for female companionship, but they are easier to find.

It is quite a thing. There are so many men, all endlessly trying to sweep me off my feet. And there is one of you, trying just the opposite. Making sure my feet are firm beneath me lest I fall.

Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts.

Fear tends to come from ignorance. Once I knew what the problem was, it was just a problem, nothing to fear.

It wasn't even a good note.'If you are reading this I am probably dead.'What sort of a note is that?

There are two sure ways to lose a friend, one is to borrow, the other is to lend.

But even this piece of flattery couldn't distract me from the fact that I was in the center of the Fae realm, blind, stark naked, and without the slightest idea of what was going on.

It's a shame you left without a word, you know. She was just beginning to trust you before that. Before you got angry. Before you ran off. Just like every other man in her life. Lusting after her, full of sweet words, then just walking away. Leaving her alone. Good thing she's used to it by now, isn't it? Otherwise you might have hurt her. Otherwise you just might have broken that poor girl's heart

You know, I could have carried you.

Feel free to call me by my first name: Master.

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.

There is a sort of camaraderie that rarely exists except between men who have fought the same enemies and know the same women.

Dawn was coming. The Waystone Inn lay in silence, and it was a silence of three parts.

I've waited a long time to show these flowers how pretty you are

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.

It's like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story.

Too much of honesty makes you sound insincere