Patrick Rothfuss Quotes

Writing is more about imagination than anything else. I fell in love with words. I fell in love with storytelling.

I think that one of the things you have to do to become a storyteller is spend a lot of time reading stories.

How many times can you put together 26 different stories without running out?

Don’t try to write a novel. Write short stories and then figure out how to connect them.

When I start to write, I see my stories as a kind of movie. For instance, I ask myself, "What kind of opening do I want for this book?"

Every story teaches me how to write it. Unfortunately, it doesn't teach me how to write the next one.

You learn by writing short stories. Keep writing short stories. The money's in novels, but writing short stories keeps your writing lean and pointed.

A short story is a love affair, a novel is a marriage. A short story is a photograph; a novel is a film.

I'm still getting to the good part / the breaking down / learning how to write my story.

I grew up with some kind of storytelling instinct, and when I write, my default setting is to find a story and then to tell it. It's the only way I know how to write.

I taught writing for a while and whenever somebody would tell me they were going to write about their dad, I would tell them they might as well go write about killing puppies because neither story was going to work. It just doesn't work.

I have written a great many stories and I still don't know how to go about it except to write it and take my chances.

Every story teaches you how to write that story but not the next story.

Stop trying to write sentences and start trying to write stories.

An idea might spark an essay, but never a story.

I wanted to write a story that was different than what I've done before - so I decided to write dual love stories that will keep the reader wondering how the stories will come together by the end.

These are rules I've picked up along the way to help me remain invisible when I'm writing a book, to help me show rather than tell what's taking place in the story.

Each story tells me how to write it, but not the one afterwards.

I didn't want to just write stories that were entertaining. Nor did I want to be so scholarly that people couldn't digest it.

When you're putting together a story, sometimes you just have to skip over the boring bits.

I loved and still love watching words flower into sentences and sentences blossom into stories.

The story is always better than your ability to write it.

I don't really have those kinds of intentions when I write a scene. I try to follow the internal logic of the fiction, rather than make an argument or an assertion.

If you write one story, it may be bad; if you write a hundred, you have the odds in your favor.

Daydreaming had started me on the way; but story writing once I was truly in its grip, took me and shook me awake.