Fantasy Authors

"Seven things has Lady Lackless Keeps them underneath her black dress One a ring that’s not for wearing One a sharp word, not for swearing Right beside her husband’s candle There’s a door without a handle In a box, no lids or locks Lackless keeps her husband’s rocks There’s a secret she’s been keeping She’s been dreaming and not sleeping On a road, that’s not for traveling Lackless likes her riddle raveling."

"He picked the rock back up. “Do you believe that it floated?” “No!” I sulked, rubbing my temples. “Good. It didn’t. Never fool yourself into perceiving things that don’t exist.”"

"Call a jack a jack. Call a spade a spade. But always call a whore a lady. Their lives are hard enough, and it never hurts to be polite."

"I have been called Kvothe the Bloodless, Kvothe the Arcane, and Kvothe Kingkiller. I have earned those names. Bought and paid for them. But I was brought up as Kvothe. My father once told me it meant “to know.” I have, of course, been called many other things. Most of them uncouth, although very few were unearned. I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep. You may have heard of me."

"My name is Kvothe, pronounced nearly the same as “Quothe.” Names are important as they tell you a great deal about a person. I’ve had more names than anyone has a right to. The Adem call me Maedre. Which, depending on how it’s spoken, can mean “The Flame,” “The Thunder,” or “The Broken Tree.”"

"So you went looking for a myth and found a man."

"So this is the difference between telling a story and being in one, he thought numbly, the fear."

"“I’ll admit, I was disappointed to learn that dragons didn’t exist. That’s a hard lesson for a boy to learn.” Chronicler smiled. “Honestly, I was a little disappointed myself. I went looking for a legend and found a lizard. A fascinating lizard, but a lizard just the same.”"

"It was one of those perfect autumn days so common in stories and so rare in the real world."

"A tinker’s debt is always paid: Once for any simple trade. Twice for freely given aid. Thrice for any insult made."

"It’s like this: if you have one piece of cake, and you eat it, that’s fine. If you have two pieces of cake, you should probably share some with a friend. But maybe not. Occasionally we could all use two pieces of cake. But if you have a whole cake, and you eat *all* of it, that’s not very cool. It’s not just selfish, it’s kinda sick and unhealthy."

"I mean seriously. If the book had a solid pub date, don't you think I'd mention it? Do you think I'd sit here at home, rubbing my hands together and chortling: "Yes! If I withhold this information another week, I'm sure to get another 100 e-mails asking me about the book!" Yup. That's exactly what I'd do. Because obviously I am some sort of alien life form that lives on snarky fanmail and bitchy blog comments. Since I became stranded on your strange world years ago, they have been my only means of sustenance."

"I really don't go in for talking about current events on the blog. The main reason for this is the fact that I am profoundly out of touch with the outside world. I don't have cable and I don't watch the news. On the rare occasion I miss the news and feel the need to absorb some fearmongering bullshit, I just drop a tab of acid and read a Lovecraft story. There's less pretense that way."

"There is only one Whedon, and I am his prophet."

"I saw Mr. Martin at Worldcon last year. And I almost went up to him and asked, “How have you gone this long without killing someone?” Because however much flak I happen to get from fans, he has to get a thousand times more. In my opinion, he's a saint. If I had to deal with that level of fan dickishness, I would have already lost my shit in some spectacular way. There would be a video of me on youtube, gone all berserk with nerd rage, holding someone up by the neck, shouting "I've got your sequel right here, bitch!""

"My book is different. In case you hadn't noticed, the story I'm telling is a little different. It's a little shy on the Aristotelian unities. It doesn't follow the classic Hollywood three-act structure. It's not like a five-act Shakespearean play. It's not like a Harlequin romance. So what *is* the structure then? Fuck if I know. That's part of what's taking me so long to figure out. As far as I can tell, my story is part autobiography, part hero's journey, part epic fantasy, part travelogue, part faerie tale, part coming of age story, part romance, part mystery, part metafictional-nested-story-frame-tale-something-or-other. I am, quite frankly, making this up as I go. If I get it right, I get something like The Name of the Wind. Something that makes all of us happy. But if I fuck it up, I'll end up with a confusing tangled mess of a story. Now I'm not trying to claim that I'm unique in this. That I'm some lone pioneer mapping the uncharted storylands. Other authors do it too. My point is that doing something like this takes more time that writing another shitty, predictable Lord of the Rings knockoff. Sometimes I think it would be nice to write a that sort of book. It would be nice to be able to use those well-established structures like a sort of recipe. A map. A paint-by-numbers kit. It would be so much easier, and quicker. But it wouldn't be a better book. And it's not really the sort of book I want to write."

"I’m just very careful with my words when I write. Obsessively careful. I’m the sort of person who worries about the difference between “slim” and “slender.”"

"Anyway, I was listening to Beagle answer a question on the panel, he said something along the lines of, "I'd never want to write The Last Unicorn again. It was excruciatingly hard, because I was writing a faerie tale while at the same time writing a spoof of a faerie tale." I just sat there thunderstruck. I realized that's exactly what I had been doing for over a decade with my story. I was writing heroic fantasy, while at the same time I was satirizing heroic fantasy. While telling his story, Kvothe makes it clear that he's not the storybook hero legends make him out to be. But at the same time, the reader sees that he's a hero nonetheless. He's just a hero of a different sort."

"I was heavily influenced by my first attempt at a novel. I started a fantasy novel back in high school, and.... well... it really sucked. It was a plotless, clichéd mess. When I sat down to write this book, I wanted to make something much, much better. I wanted to write something that was pretty much the opposite of that first novel. Also, I read Cyrano De Bergerac, right before I started writing the book. Cyrano's character reminded me of some important things, namely, what it really means to be a tragic hero. You don't need a lot of the cliché fantasy trappings to have that cool character. I also read Giacomo Casanova's memoirs soon after starting this project. That opened my eyes to how interesting an autobiography could be, provided the person telling it has a way with words and has lived a sufficiently adventurous life...."

"I remember sitting down once, [at] three in the morning and probably the only person awake in Stevens Point [...] *imitates typing with his fingers* And I stop, and I think: "This is crap! I've spent years of my life writing crap. This will never be published - it isn't good... I've wasted years of my life!" *shrugs and types on* You do it because you like the process. I mean... you write because you like to write."

"Fantasy is my favorite genre for reading and writing. We have more options than anyone else, and the best props and special effects. That means if you want to write a fantasy story with Norse gods, sentient robots, and telepathic dinosaurs, you can do just that. Want to throw in a vampire and a lesbian unicorn while you're at it? Go ahead. Nothing's off limits. But the endless possibility of the genre is a trap. It's easy to get distracted by the glittering props available to you and forget what you're supposed to be doing: telling a good story. 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."

"Mauthen ain’t much for listenen. Nothin’ plugs a man’s ears like money."

"Nothing makes a man feel older than a young woman."

"Wilem tapped Simmon’s shoulder. “He’s telling the truth.” Simmon glanced over at him. “Why do you say that?” “He sounds more sincere than that when he lies.”"

"Like all boys my age, I was an idiot when it came to women."

"She looked at me. Looked away. “You think too much of me.” I smiled. “Perhaps you think too little of yourself.”"

"“Trouble,” he chuckled. “What does a boy like you know about trouble? I was in trouble afore you were born. I been in trouble you don’t even got words for.”"

"“Music is a fine thing, but metal lasts.” He struck the table with two huge fingers to emphasize his point.... As I left, I thought about what Kilvin had said. It was the first thing he had said to me that I did not agree with wholeheartedly. Metal rusts, I thought, music lasts forever. Time will eventually prove one of us right."

"“Piss on etiquette,” Threpe said petulantly. “Etiquette is a set of rules people use so they can be rude to each other in public.”"

"As my father used to say: “There are two sure ways to lose a friend, one is to borrow, the other to lend.”"

"Clean, quick, and easy as lying. We know how it ends practically before it starts. That’s why stories appeal to us. They give us the clarity and simplicity our real lives lack."

"Everyone thinks chemistry and alchemy are so similar, but they’re really not. They’re not even related. They just happen to live in the same house."

"Upon him I will visit famine and a fire. Till all around him desolation rings And all the demons in the outer dark Look on amazed and recognize That vengeance is the business of a man."

"There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man."

"Any student of mine must be able to defend his ideas against an attack. No matter how you spend your life, your wit will defend you more often than a sword. Keep it sharp!"

"Plainly said, he was giving me enough rope to hang myself with. Apparently he didn’t realize that once a noose is tied, it will fit one neck as easily as another."

"The truth was, I needed to impress them. I knew from my previous discussions with Ben that you needed money or brains to get into the University. The more of one you had, the less of the other you needed."

"Fear tends to come from ignorance. Once I knew what the problem was, it was just a problem, nothing to fear."

"Nobles’ sons are one of nature’s great destructive forces, like floods or tornadoes. When you’re struck with one of these catastrophes, the only thing an average man can do is grit his teeth and try to minimize the damage."

"“All stories are true,” Skarpi said. “But this one really happened, if that’s what you mean.” He took another slow drink, then smiled again, his bright eyes dancing. “More or less. You have to be a bit of a liar to tell a story the right way. Too much truth confuses the facts. Too much honesty makes you sound insincere.”"

"But for most practical purposes Tarbean had two pieces: Waterside and Hillside. Waterside is where people are poor. That makes them beggars, thieves, and whores. Hillside is where people are rich. That makes them solicitors, politicians, and courtesans."

"The gods love salt. The sweat of human endeavour adds savour to every sacrifice."

"“Did we do wrong in believing, Marina?” Mom asked suddenly. “Never in believing, Mom,” I said. “Just in what we believed.”"

"But I scolded myself, That’s magical thinking, Marina. Consider instead what’s real."

"I took a deep breath. God…I prayed. And then I realize that I had nothing more to say to him. Nothing at all."

"The thing about signs from God is that you can never be sure. In the morning, going to the Porta Potti, I saw a deer. There was also a dead pigeon being a smorgas-bird for crows near the perimeter when I went with a message for an Angel. And the shed skin of some small snake that Grahame had collected. If those were signs, what did they mean? God loved me? God hated me? God didn’t care?… I saw more signs than I can remember. The moon was still shining like a pale penny at noon. There was an eagle wheeling overhead at four. A pair of bluejays squabbled in a fir tree when I came out of the Place of Eating after dinner. God was saying yes? God was saying no? God wasn’t speaking at all?"

"We had more church after supper, with a long sermon from Reverend Beelson. He talked about wars and earthquakes and floods as signs that the End was coming. Which made me wonder if he had somehow managed to not notice that wars, earthquakes, and floods have been going on since the beginning of history. But I didn’t say anything. It wasn’t worth the effort."

"But you know how it is: As soon as you decide to forget something, your brain comes to the conclusion that it’s the most fascinating thing in the world."

"I actually said a little prayer of my own then, my first since we had arrived: Please, God—get me out of this nuthouse!"

"But when I asked Mom, she shrugged and looked up at the sky. She had given up looking at me when we talked. “Reverend Beelson told us God would provide,” she said, as if reading that in the clouds. “And he does not lie.” It wasn’t clear if she meant Reverend Beelson or God."