George r. r. martin quotes

If he must be alone, he would make solitude his armor.

Bran thought about it. 'Can a man still be brave if he's afraid?' 'That is the only time a man can be brave,' his father told him.

What is dead may never die, but rises again, stronger and harder.

Fire consumes, but cold preserves.

Drifting snowflakes brushed her face as light as lover’s kisses, and melted on her cheeks. At the center of the garden, beside the statue of the weeping woman that lay broken and half-buried on the ground, she turned her face up to the sky and closed her eyes. She could feel the snow on her lashes, taste it on her lips. It was the taste of Winterfell. The taste of innocence. The taste of dreams.

The ones who look the most suspicious are likely innocent. It's the ones who look innocent I need to beware.

Most men would rather deny a hard truth than face it.

You wear your honor like a suit of armor... You think it keeps you safe, but all it does is weigh you down and make it hard for you to move.

Sooner would be better than later, and now would be better than sooner." - Tyrion

She could not bear to look at him just now. If she did, she might well slap him again. Or cry. Or kiss him. And never know which was right and which was wrong and which was madness.

All fiction, if it's successful, is going to appeal to the emotions. Emotion is really what fiction is all about. That's not to say fiction can't be thoughtful, or present some interesting or provocative ideas to make us think. But if you want to present an intellectual argument, nonfiction is a better tool. You can drive a nail with a shoe but a hammer is a better tool for that. But fiction is about emotional resonance, about making us feel things on a primal and visceral level.

Why is it always the innocents who suffer most, when you high lords play your game of thrones?

You would consider me an atheist or agnostic. I find religion and spirituality fascinating. I would like to believe this isn’t the end and there’s something more, but I can’t convince the rational part of me that that makes any sense whatsoever.

The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would take a man's life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die.

But what a man can do and what a man will do are two different things, he knew.

Some men want whores on the eve of battle, and some want gods. Jon wondered who felt better afterward.

No man should live longer than his teeth.

Sometimes the best way to baffle them is to make moves that have no purpose, or even seem to work against you

Some battles are won with swords and spears, others with quills and ravens.

Every man should lose a battle in his youth, so he does not lose a war when he is old.

You'll find truth in your looking glass, not on the tongues of men.

Give me priests who are fat and corrupt and cynical,(...) the sort who like to sit on soft satin cushions, nibble sweetmeats, and diddle little boys. It's the ones who believe in gods who make the trouble. (Tyrion)

Words are like arrows, Arianne. Once loosed, you cannot call them back. - Areo Hotah

In the world as I have seen it, no man grows rich by kindness.

Anger was better than tears, better than grief, better than guilt.

People often claim to hunger for truth, but seldom like the taste when it's served up.

It's a fool boy who mocks a giant, and a mad world when a cripple has to defend him.

We all dream of things we cannot have.

The gods don’t care about men, no more than kings care about peasants.

Wine makes all things possible.

Some old wounds never truly heal, and bleed again at the slightest word.

And when you have it, what then? Some secrets are safer kept hidden. Some secrets are too dangerous to share, even with those you love and trust.

If ice can burn, then love and hate can mate.

We read fantasy to find the colors again, I think. To taste strong spices and hear the songs the sirens sang.

We know truth for the cruel instrument it is. Beauty is infinitely preferable to truth.

We all need to be mocked from time to time, lest we take ourselves too seriously.

A man who won't listen can't hear.

a man who hates music can’t be trusted, I always say.

He had found over the years that silence sometimes yielded more than questions. And so it was this time.

Some gave me soft words and some blunt, some made excuses, some promises, some only lied. In the end words are just wind.

Not everyone who spoke you friendly was really your friend." - Arya

When we speak of the morrow nothing is ever certain.

A lion doesn't concern itself with the opinion of sheep.

Politicians were mostly people who'd had too little morals and ethics to stay lawyers.

Some doors are best left closed.

A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies.

Yes - 90% of fantasy is crap. And so is 90% of science fiction and 90% of mystery fiction and 90% of literary fiction.

The only time a man can be brave is when he is afraid.

Summer is the time for squabbles. In winter, we must protect one another, keep each other warm, share our strengths.

Perhaps that is the secret. It is not what we do, so much as why we do it.

A bruise is a lesson... and each lesson makes us better.

I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off.

Men have scars, women mysteries.

No one will be alive by the last book. In fact, they all die in the fifth. The sixth book will be just a thousand-page description of snow blowing across the graves.

Know the men who follow you and let them know you. Don't ask your men to die for a stranger.

We will fight a battle, and then we will rest. Alive or dead, we'll rest." - Jon Snow

A man who fights for coin is loyal only to his purse.

Some allies are more dangerous than enemies.

What do we say to the Lord of Death?" "Not today.

Explain to me why it is more noble to kill ten thousand men in battle than a dozen at dinner.

Only a fool humbles himself when the world is so full of men eager to do that job for him. (Theon Greyjoy)

In the songs all knights are gallant, all maids are beautiful, and the sun is always shining.

Women do not forget. Women do not forgive.

The world is full of cravens who pretended to be heroes.

What the King dreams, the Hand builds.

Men live their lives trapped in an eternal present, between the mists of memory and the sea of shadow that is all we know of the days to come.

Give me honorable enemies rather than ambitious ones, and I'll sleep more easily by night.

The Lord of Light in his wisdom made us male and female, two parts of a greater whole. In our joining there is power. Power to make life. Power to make light. Power to cast shadows.

Why do the Gods make kings and queens if not to protect the ones who can't protect themselves?

All men are fools, if truth be told, but the ones in motley are more amusing than ones with crowns.

Of all the bright cruel lies they tell you, the cruelest is the one called love.

I'm honest. It's the world that's awful.

No one who wears a crown is ever safe.

Sins may be forgiven. Crimes require punishment.

I have been despised by better men than you.

Wind and words. We are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our great glory, and our great tragedy.

No fight is hopeless till it has been fought.

You've got a bold tongue, little man. One day, someone is like to cut it out and make you eat it.

Not all men were meant to dance with dragons.

Some truths did not bear saying, and some lies were necessary.

We were king’s men, knights, and heroes . . . but some knights are dark and full of terror, my lady. War makes monsters of us all.” “Are you saying you are monsters?” “I am saying we are human. You are not the only one with wounds, Lady Brienne

The things we love destroy us every time, lad. Remember that.

The greatest fools are ofttimes more clever than the men who laugh at them.

More details, more devils.

A lord may love the men that he commands, but he cannot be a friend to them. One day he may need to sit in judgement on them, or send them forth to die.

There is no creature on earth half so terrifying as a truly just man.

There are no heroes...in life, the monsters win.

Sometimes I think everyone is just pretending to be brave, and none of us really are. Maybe pretending is how you get brave, I don't know.

A crown should not sit easy on the head.

I'm sorry that I never trusted you. I don't know how to do that anymore.

Tomorrow's trials concerned her more than yesterday's triumphs.

I prefer my history dead. Dead history is writ in ink, the living sort in blood.

History is a wheel, for the nature of man is fundamentally unchanging. What has happened before will perforce happen again.

That was the way of this cold world, where men fished the sea and dug in the ground and died, whilst women brought forth short-lived children from beds of blood and pain.

A lord must learn that sometimes words can accomplish what swords cannot.

Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armour yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.

When you know what a man wants you know who he is, and how to move him.

Writing is like sausage making in my view; you'll all be happier in the end if you just eat the final product without knowing what's gone into it.

Swift as a deer. Quiet as a shadow. Fear cuts deeper than swords. Quick as a snake. Calm as still water.

You can't hammer tin into iron, no matter how hard you beat it, but that doesn't mean it's useless.

In real life, the hardest aspect of the battle between good and evil is determining which is which.

Every flight begins with a fall.

The brightest flame casts the darkest shadow.

Knowledge is a Weapon, Jon. Arm yourself well before you ride forth to Battle.

I rose too high, loved too hard, dared too much. I tried to grasp a star, overreached, and fell.

We look up at the same stars and see such different things." - Jon Snow

Even in dreams, you could not fall forever.

As we sin, so do we suffer

A mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.

Chaos isn’t a pit. Chaos is a ladder. Many who try to climb it fail and never get to try again. The fall breaks them. And some are given a chance to climb, but they refuse. They cling to the realm, or the gods, or love. Illusions. Only the ladder is real. The climb is all there is.

On the gallows tree, all men are brothers.

Different roads sometimes lead to the same castle.

Nothing someone says before the word 'but' really counts.

He who hurries through life hurries to his grave.

If? The word is when.

When you tear out a man's tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you're only telling the world that you fear what he might say.

How much can a crown be worth, when a crow can dine upon a king?

Once you’ve accepted your flaws, no one can use them against you.

A man does not need to be a wizard to know truth from falsehood, not if he has eyes. You need only learn to read a face. Look at the eyes. The mouth. The muscles here, at the corners of the jaw, and here, where the neck joins the shoulders.

It is one thing to be clever and another to be wise.

...grief can derange even the strongest and most disciplined of minds.

When a pirate grows rich enough, they make him a prince.

Men are men, vows are words, and words are wind.

The truth is all around you, plain to behold. The night is dark and full of terrors, the day bright and beautiful and full of hope. One is black, the other white. There is ice and there is fire. Hate and love. Bitter and sweet. Male and female. Pain and pleasure. Winter and summer. Evil and good. Death and life. Everywhere, opposites.

Great wrongs have been done you, but the past is dust. The future may yet be won.