Patrick Rothfuss
It all began when Pat Rothfuss was born to a marvelous set of parents. Throughout his formative years they encouraged him to do his best, gave him good advice, and were no doubt appropriately dismayed when he failed to live up to his full potential.
In high-school Pat was something of a class clown. His hobbies included reading a novel or two a day and giving relationship advice to all his friends despite the fact that he had never so much as kissed a girl. He also role-played and wrote terrible stories about elves. He was pretty much a geek.
Most of Pat's adult life has been spent in the University Wisconsin Stevens Point. In 1991 he started college in order to pursue a career in chemical engineering, then he considered clinical psychology. In 1993 he quit pretending he knew what he wanted to do with his life, changed his major to "undecided," and proceeded to study whatever amused him. He also began writing a book....
For the next seven years Pat studied anthropology, philosophy, eastern religions, history, alchemy, parapsychology, literature, and writing. He studied six different martial arts, practiced improv comedy, learned how to pick locks, and became a skilled lover of women. He also began writing a satirical advice column which he continues to this day: The College Survivial Guide. Through all of this he continued to work on his novel.
In 2000 Pat went to grad school for English literature. Grad school sucked and Pat hated it. However, Pat learned that he loved to teach. He left in 2002 with his masters degree, shaking the dust from his feet and vowing never to return. During this period of time his novel was rejected by roughly every agent in the known universe.
Now Pat teaches half-time at his old school as an assistant-sub-lecturer. He is underpaid but generally left alone to do as he sees fit with his classes. He is advisor for the college feminists, the fencing club, and, oddly enough, a sorority. He still roll-plays occasionally, but now he does it in an extremely sophisticated, debonair way.
Through a series of lucky breaks, he has wound up with the best agent and editor imaginable, and the first book of his trilogy has been published under the title "The Name of the Wind."
Though it has only been out since April 2007, it has already been sold in 26 foreign countries and won several awards.
Pat has been described as "a rough, earthy iconoclast with a pipeline to the divine in everyone's subconscious." But honestly, that person was pretty drunk at the time, so you might want to take it with a grain of salt.
“You,” I said, “are sweet music in a distant room.”
“You still think I've gone cracked in the head," Ben said, amused. "Listen, if tomorrow we pulled into Biren and someone told you there were shamble-men in the woods, would you believe them?" My father shook his head. "What if two people told you?" Another shake.Ben leaned forward on his stump. "What if a dozen people told you, with perfect earnestness, that shamble-men were out in the fields, eating-""Of course I wouldn't believe them," my father said, irritated. "It's ridiculous.""Of course it is," Ben agreed, raising a finger. "But the real question is this: Would you go into the woods?”
“En el último mes había librado a una mujer de un feroz incendio. Había invocado al fuego y al rayo para librarme de unos asesinos. Había matado a una bestia que podía ser un dragón o un demonio, dependiendo de tu punto de vista. Pero allí, en esa habitación, fue la primera vez que me sentí de verdad como una especie de héroe. Si buscáis una razón que explique por qué me convertí en lo que me convertí, si buscáis un principio, ahí es donde debéis mirar.”
“I've always liked the moonless night best. It's easier to say things in the dark. It's easier to be yourself.”
“If you can find someone like that, someone who you can hold and close your eyes to the world with, then you're lucky.”
“Words have to find a man's mind before they can touch his heart, and some men's minds are woefully small targets.”
“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.”
“Ambrose turned on his heel and stormed off, but before he made it through the door, Elodin burst out singing:‘He's a well-bred ass, you can see it in his stride!And for a copper penny he will let you take a ride!”
“La gentileza es el lujo de los sabios.”
“El orgullo es el lujo de los fuertes.”
“A veces, caer también nos enseña cosas. En los sueños, muchas veces caes antes de despertar.”
“Eres un vino dulce en mi boca, una canción en mi garganta, y la risa en mi corazón.”
“Somos una pareja encantadora de idiotas llorones, ¿Verdad?”
“Me refiero a que cuando te tengo a mi lado es fácil olvidar.-¿Olvidar qué?-Todo -respondió, y por un instante su voz dejó de sonar alegre-. Todo lo malo de mi vida. Quién soy.”
“-Estoy harta de que solo me valoren por mi intelecto.-Se recostó en la silla y estiró los brazos por encima de la cabeza-. ¿Cuándo encontraré a un chico guapo que solo me quiera por mi cuerpo?”
“-Aquí todos son inteligentes -repuso Fela-. Y Sim es simpático, pero...-Ese es el problema -la atajé-. Que es simpático. Es amable y la gente interpreta la amabilidad como debilidad. Y es feliz, lo que la gente interpreta como estupidez.”
“Pero no basta con querer algo para que sea verdad.”
“Los hechos pequeños nos llevan al gran conocimiento -recitó-. De igual modo, los nombres pequeños nos llevan a los grandes nombres.”
“There is nothing quite so delightfully mysterious as a secret in your own backyard.”
“What makes you think I am not teaching you? Aside from the fact that you refuse to learn.”
“My shrug was so nonchalant it would make a cat jealous”
“Benim yüzümden susayım deme Kvothe, yoksa sesini özlerim.”
“When a man gives you a rose what you see may not be what he intends. You may think he sees you as delicate or frail. Perhaps you dislike a suitor who considers you sweet and nothing else. Perhaps the stem is thorn, and you assume he thinks you likely to hurt a hand too quick to touch. But if he trims the thorns you might think he has no liking for a thing that can defend itself with sharpness. There's so many ways a thing can be interpreted.”
“The trouble is, when you gift a girl with flowers your choice can be construed so many different ways. A man might give you a rose because he feels you are beautiful, or because he fancies their shade or shape or softness similar to your lips. Roses are expensive, and perhaps he wishes to show through a valuable gift that you are valuable to him. When a man gives you a rose what you see may not be what he intends. You may think he sees you as delicate or frail. Perhaps you dislike a suitor who considers you sweet and nothing else. Perhaps the stem is thorn, and you assume he thinks you likely to hurt a hand too quick to touch. But if he trims the thorns you might think he has no liking for a thing that can defend itself with sharpness. There's so many ways a thing can be interpreted.”
“I can't count the men who have tried to seduce me away from my virtue by teaching me how to defend it.”
“...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. When someone tells you a piece of their life, they're giving you a gift, not granting you your due.”
“But to love something despite. To know the flaws and love them too. This is rare and pure and perfect.”
“The air was heavy with the smell of leather and dust, of old parchment and binding glue. It smelled of secrets.”
“My bad luck got tangled up with my bad decisions, and I'm paying for it.”
“Why would I want to win anything other than a beautiful game?”
“-Creo que las cosas siempre van mal de un modo u otro -declaró-. Quizá sea que solo nosotros, los mayores, nos damos cuenta.”
“His voice is like a thunderstorm, and his hands know every secret hidden deep beneath the cool, dark earth.”
“Llevaba la pobreza colgada del cuello como una piedra.”
“It was more exciting when I didn't know I had permission.”
“One wife, you're happy, two and you're tired, three and they'll hate each other, four and they'll hate you.”
“On his first hand he wore rings of stone, Iron, Amber, Wood and Bone. There were rings unseen on his second hand, One blood in a flowing band, One was air all whisper thin, And the ring of ice had a flaw within. Full faintly shone the ring of flame, And the final ring was without name.”
“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.”
“si vuelves a decirme una frase de siete palabras, me desmayo. (Denna)”
“La dulce sonrisa de una mujer joven: no hay nadamejor en el mundo. Es más valiosa que la sal. Sin ella, algoenferma y muere dentro de nosotros. Estoy seguro. Unacosa tan simple. Qué raro. Qué maravilloso y qué raro.”
“That was another lesson I had learned perhaps too well: people meant pain.”
“[Simmon] "Go on."I [Kvothe] stayed where I was. "It's not that easy.""Nothing's ever easy with you," Wilem muttered.”
“When she spoke her voice was clear. "I do this so you cannot help but hear. a wise man views a moonless night with fear.”
“...if I have ever met someone without a single shadow on their heart, it was surely a child too young for speaking.”
“But sometimes the best help a person can find is helping someone else.”
“Demasiados pensamientos, mi Kvothe. Sabes demasiado para ser feliz".”
“Hasta el mejor de los perros muerde cuando se cansa de que lo maltraten.”
“Si encuentras a una persona así, alguien a quien puedas abrazar y con la que puedas cerrar los ojos a todo lo demás, puedes considerarte muy afortunado. Aunque solo dure un minuto, o un día.”
“El orgullo herido puede alentar a un hombre a hacer cosas maravillosas”
“A recuperar lo q deje guardado en el baul de la indiferencia”
“Hagas lo que hagas en la vida, tu ingenio te defenderá más a menudo que una espada. ¡Cultívalo!.”