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.
“He then proceeded to shout at Alpha and Beta, a sign that he was in a genuine good mood. They took it as calmly as ever, in spite of the fact that he accused them of things I'm sure no donkey has ever willingly done, especially not Beta, who possessed impeccable moral character.”
“We are the Edema Ruh, and the thing we value most every man possesses. You can tell us your story.”
“La vida es demasiado corta para que os preocupéis por cosas sin importancia.”
“Beer dulls a memory, brand sets it burning, but wine is the best for a sore heart's yearning.”
“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”
“We love what we love. Reason does not enter into it.”
“Entonces me sonrió. Era una sonrisa dulce, cariñosa y tímida, como una flor que se abre. Era cordial, sincera y ligeramente turbada.”
“Por desgracia, la vida casi nunca tiene un guión tan meticuloso.”
“¿Para qué puede servir esto? ¿Cómo puedo explicárosla si yo nunca la he entendido?”
“Estuviera donde estuviese, siempre era el centro de todas las miradas.— Kvothe frunció el ceño—. No me interpretéis mal. No quiero decir que fuera llamativa, ni vanidosa. Si miramos el fuego es porque parpadea, porque resplandece. Lo que atrae nuestra mirada es la luz, pero lo que hace que un hombre se acerque al fuego no tiene nada que ver con su resplandor. Lo que te atrae del fuego es el calor que sientes cuando te acercas a él.”
“El orgullo es absurdo, pero es una fuerza poderosa.”
“Para temer de verdad algo tienes que detenerte a pensar en ello.”
“Por eso nos gustan las historias. Nos ofrecen la claridad y la sencillez de que carece nuestra vida real.”
“La esperanza es un juego estúpido.”
“Sobre él verteré el hambre y el fuego hasta que la desolación lo aturda y todos los demonios de la oscuridad exterior miren asombrados y reconozcan que la especialidad del hombre es la venganza.”
“Quizá sea propio de la naturaleza humana buscar cosas ocultas.”
“El sueño nos ofrece un refugio del mundo y de todo su dolor.”
“El poder está bien, y la estupidez es, por lo general, inofensiva. Pero el poder y la estupidez juntos son peligrosos.”
“Las palabras tienen que encontrar la mente de un hombre si pretenden llegar a su corazón.”
“I guess I'm destined to be loveless”
“You know, I could have carried you.”
“I was just wondering why you're here.”
“I need you to breathe for me.”
“There can be many opinions on a thing, but there is only one truth."Vashet smiled lazily. "And if the pursuit of the truth was my goal, that would concern me." She gave a long yawn, stretching like a happy cat. "Instead I will focus on the joy in my heart, [...}”
“There is a great deal of difference between a penis and a heart.”
“This is the nature of love." Vashet said. "To attempt to describe it will drive a woman mad. This is what keeps poets scribbling endlessly away. If one could pin it to paper all complete, the others would lay down their pens. But it cannot be done.”
“I would never normally approach a woman in this way, but I couldn't help but notice that you have the eyes of a lady I was once desperately in love with. ""What a shame to love only once," she said, showing her white teeth in a wicked smile. "I've heard some men can manage twice or even more."I ignored her gibe. "I am only a fool once. Never will I love again.”
“If you fall, you fall," Elodin shrugged. "Sometimes falling teaches us things too." In dreams you often fall before you wake.”
“Fear tends to come from ignorance. Once I knew what the problem was, it was just a problem, nothing to fear.”
“Vashet: “I will admit, I’ve never had a studen offer himself up for a vicious beating in order to prove he’s worth my time.”Kvothe: “That was nothing. Once I jumped off a roof.”
“Owls are wise. They are careful and patient. Wisdom precludes boldness. That is why owls make poor heroes.”
“Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts.”
“I have, of course, been called many other things. Most of them uncouth, although very few were unearned”
“...nothing in the world is harder than convincing someone of an unfamiliar truth.”
“Pride is always a better lever against the nobility than reason.”
“Feel free to call me by my first name: Master.”
“I always read. You know how sharks have to keep swimming or they die? I’m like that. If I stop reading, I die.”
“...unwise love is the truest love.”
“A tree doesn't make a thunderstorm, but any fool knows where lightning's going to strike.”
“Too much honesty makes you sound insincere.”
“There was nothing special about the dried apple, but in my opinion if you have a secret compartment in your lute case and don't use it to hide things, there is something terribly, terribly wrong with you.”
“We all become what we pretend to be.”
“No man is brave that has never walked a hundred miles. If you want to know the truth of who you are, walk until not a person knows your name. Travel is the great leveler, the great teacher, bitter as medicine, crueler than mirror-glass. A long stretch of road will teach you more about yourself than a hundred years of quiet.”
“Las mejores mentiras son las sencillas”
“Si es algo que sabe todo el mundo, no puedo permitirme el lujo de preguntarlo.”
“Ah,' the innkeeper said. 'So you were getting ready to drink then?''Tiny Gods, yes,' Bast said. 'To great excess. What the hell else is there to do?”
“Just because I tread heavily on propriety's toes doesn't mean I can't play the game when it's of use to me.”
“But it isn’t a rough draft either. The one I turned in several months ago was rough. There were some bad plot holes, some logical inconsistencies, pacing problems, and not nearly enough lesbian unicorns.”
“Just a little. Just the first faint breath of love... It wasn’t dramatic, like some bolt of lightning with a crack of thunder following. It was more like when flint strikes steel and the spark fades almost too fast for you to see. But still, you know it’s there, down where you can’t see, kindling.”
“There are few things as nauseating as pure obedience.”