Quotes by George R.R. Martin

My lord father used to say a man should never draw his sword unless he means to use it.

May the Father judge him justly.

Jaime gave her [Brienne] a hard smile. See, wench? We know each other too well.

Arya did not dare [take a bath], even though she smelled as bad as Yoren by now, all sour and stinky. Some of the creatures living in her clothes had come all the way from Flea Bottom with her; it didn’t seem right to drown them.

What sort of gods make rats and plagues and dwarfs?

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

Not that Im complaining. It was better than my old dream, where Harma Dogshead was feeding me to her pigs.Harmas dead. Jon said.But not the pigs. They look at me the way Slayer used to look at ham. Not to say that the wildlings mean us harm. Aye, we hacked their gods apart and made them burn the pieces, but we gave them onion soup. Whats a god compared to a nice bowl of onion soup? I could do with mine myself.

There is sitting and there is sitting. (...) Each one waits for the other to move, but the lion is poised, his tail twitching, while the fawn is frozen by fear, bowels turned to belly. No matter which way he bounds, the lion will have him, and he knows it.

One man on the wall is worth ten beneath it.

I am alive, and drunk on sunlight.

...his voice was like the cracking of ice on a winter lake, and the words were mocking

She liked the sharp salty smell of the air, and the vastness of horizons bounded only by a vault of azure sky above.

It is hard to look a hero when mounted on a pig.

What man wants does not matter.

Petyr Littlefinger Baelish: The realm. Do you know what the realm is? Its the thousand blades of Aegons enemies, a story we agree to tell each other over and over, until we forget that its a lie.Lord Varys: But what do we have left, once we abandon the lie? Chaos? A gaping pit waiting to swallow us all.Petyr Littlefinger Baelish: Chaos isnt 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. They refuse, they cling to the realm or the gods or love. Illusions. Only the ladder is real. The climb is all there is.

A small spoon of victory is just the thing to settle the stomach before battle, Ser Imry had declared happily.

Under the sea the old fish eat the young fish.

She loved the sea. She liked the sharp salty smell of the air, and the vastness of the horizons bounded only by a vault of azure sky above. It made her feel small, but free as well.

Sometimes the storm winds blow so strong a man has no choice but to furl his sails.

Winter is coming.