Patrick > Patrick's Quotes

“The fish trap exists because of the fish. Once you've gotten the fish you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit. Once you've gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of meaning. Once you've gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can talk with him?”
― Zhuangzi, Chuang Tsu: Inner Chapters

“Do you know what it's like to run spellcheck for six hours? It's like a party in purgatory. A party in purgatory where all they have to drink is sugar-free Kool-aid, and the only game to play is Monopoly, and none of your friends show up.”
― Patrick Rothfuss

“We are more than the parts that form us. ”
― Patrick Rothfuss

“Wil Wheaton Says: Don't be a dick.”
― Wil Wheaton

“Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.”
― T.S. Eliot

“It's the questions we can't answer that teach us the most. They teach us how to think. If you give a man an answer, all he gains is a little fact. But give him a question and he'll look for his own answers.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man's Fear

“There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man's Fear

“Anyone can love a thing because. That's as easy as putting a penny in your pocket.
But to love something despite. To know the flaws and love them too. That is rare and pure and perfect.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man's Fear

“We love the things we love for what they are.”
― Robert Frost

“No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.”
― Robert Frost

“Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.”
― Robert Frost

“Sought we the Scrivani word-work of Surthur
Long-long in ledger all hope forgotten
Yet fast-found for friendship fair the book-bringer
Hot comes the huntress Fela, flushed with finding
Breathless her breast her high blood rising
To ripen the red-cheek rouge-bloom of beauty.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man's Fear

“When I was a child, adults would tell me not to make things up, warning me of what would happen if I did. As far as I can tell so far, it seems to involve lots of foreign travel and not having to get up too early in the morning.”
― Neil Gaiman, Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fiction and Illusions

“What I say is, a town isn’t a town without a bookstore. It may call itself a town, but unless it’s got a bookstore, it knows it’s not foolin’ a soul.”
― Neil Gaiman, American Gods

“Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes, and forgot.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 3: Dream Country

“This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until its done. It's that easy, and that hard.”
― Neil Gaiman

“Everyone looks retarded once you set your mind to it.”
― David Sedaris

“A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.”
― Steve Martin

“I can't give you a sure-fire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time.”
― Herbert Bayard Swope

“Words are pale shadows of forgotten names. As names have power, words have power. Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

“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.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

“...it is better to have a mouthful of poison than a secret of the heart.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man's Fear

“Don't get me wrong, magic is cool. But a nervous mother singing to her child at night while something moves quietly through the dark outside her house? That's a story. Handled properly, it's more dramatic than any apocalypse or goblin army could ever be.”
― Patrick Rothfuss

“As for monkeys, I would have five, and they would be named: See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil, Do Pretty Much Whatever The Hell You Want, and Expensive Attorney.”
― Tad Williams

“He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder.”
― Tad Williams, The Dragonbone Chair

“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”
― Neil Gaiman, Coraline

“I would argue that masturbation is the human animal's most important adaptation. The very cornerstone of our technological civilization. Our hands evolved to grip tools, all right—including our own. You see, thinkers, inventors, and scientists are usually geeks, and geeks have a harder time getting laid than anyone. Without the built-in sexual release valve provided by masturbation, it's doubtful that early humans would have ever mastered the secrets of fire or discovered the wheel. And you can bet that Galileo, Newton, and Einstein never would have made their discoveries if they hadn't first been able to clear their heads by slapping the salami (or "knocking a few protons off the old hydrogen atom"). The same goes for Marie Curie. Before she discovered radium, you can be certain she first discovered the little man in the canoe.”
― Ernest Cline, Ready Player One

“I watched a lot of YouTube videos of cute geeky girls playing '80s cover tunes on ukuleles. Technically, this wasn't part of my research, but I had a serious cute-geeky-girls-playing-ukuleles fetish that I can neither explain nor defend.”
― Ernest Cline, Ready Player One

“If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.”
― Dalai Lama XIV

“My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.”
― Dalai Lama XIV