Patrick Rothfuss Quotes

I like to make all my characters interesting. Be they male, female or creatures unknown.

I may have played romantic roles, but each character has been different, with his own personality.

I was attempting to write the story of my life. It wasn't so much about plot. It was much more about character.

I want each character to be as unique as possible. I want them to reflect something of who they are in the way that they move and in how their bodies work. That was foremost in my head when I was writing Salvage: I wanted every gesture, every little movement, to really carry meaning and communicate meaning to the reader. I was very conscious of that when I was writing.

I'm not sure that I have a favorite either on-screen or in the books! Whenever I'm writing, I'm always really excited to dive back into each character.

I think because I write so many short stories, it's not that hard to come up with characters that are not me.

Authors have to write for their characters, for who they are, that's the strength of books. Don't worry about censors. Just write the story you need to tell and the rewards will come.

I want every character be an outsider in some way.

Each of my books is different. Deliberately... I wanted to create my society, my people, in their fullness.

People are always thinking that I'm the main character in my books, but each one has been different, and sometimes they've been men.

I like diversity; I want one character to be very different from the next. I love to live with a character for a long time if I can, but I like one character to be different from the next.

I create each character as an individual, coming from a certain place, sounding a certain way, having been introduced to things a certain way.

I'd like to know what I could do if I really had the time to spend on writing a book, with no columns or shows to do at the same time.

I cannot write any sort of story unless there is at least one character in it for whom I have physical desire.

I write books because I have always been fascinated by stories and language, and because I love thinking about what makes people tick. Writing a story... 'The Giver' or any other... is simply an exploration of the nature of behavior: why people do what they do, how it affects others, how we change and grow, and what decisions we make along the way.

One of the things that happens in novels it's almost like a continual debate with yourself. That's why you're writing the book. It's why you create characters: so you can argue with yourself.

Sometimes I'll ask the book writer to write a monologue, not to be performed, just as if they were notes for the character.

To write a book is for all the world like humming a song—be but in tune with yourself, madam, 'tis no matter how high or how low you take it.

Your characters should be as smart as you are, if not smarter.

The characters created cannot just be a mouthpiece for the writer. When you look at a piece of writing, and it's genuine and it doesn't feel like every character is just a mouthpiece for the writer, but that they've been created in such a way that they're expressing an idea that a writer wants to get across, that's when a story succeeds.

When you're writing a story or an actor playing a role, you should never think of your characters as heroes or villains. You have to think of them as people first.

I've never been able to write a book without one very strong character in my rucksack.

Chris Claremont once said of Alan Moore, "if he could plot, we'd all have to get together and kill him." Which utterly misses the most compelling part of Alan's writing, the way he develops and expresses ideas and character. Plot does not define story. Plot is the framework within which ideas are explored and personalities and relationships are unfolded.

In terms of style, I think the memoirist should have a novelist's skill and all the elements of a novelist's toolbox. When I read a memoir, I want to really, deeply experience what the author experienced. I want to see the characters and hear the way they speak and understand how they think. And so in that way, writing a memoir feels similar to writing a novel.

When you start writing the magic comes when the characters seem to take on a life of their own and write the words for themselves.