George R R Martin Quotes

She just laughed in his face and told him she'd sooner crawl in a bed with his father's leeches before she'd crawl in one with him. She stopped laughing when he put his knife in her.

A thousand deaths would still be less than he deserves.

Arya slid her dagger out and drew it across his throat, as smooth as summer silk. His blood covered her hands in a hot gush and he tried to shout but there was blood in his mouth as well. "Valar morghulis," she whispered as he died.

Never wound a foe when you can kill him. Dead men don't claim vengeance.

Words are wind - Tyrion Lannister.

I wish it was all a dream. Then I could wake up.

Curiosity is my great vice. I fear you have seen through to the heart of me, and now seek to exploit my weakness

I know who's going to be on the throne [in the Gameof Thrones], at the end, so I better not say. But, there will be a few people sitting on it, before the end.

The worst isn't done. The worst is just beginning, and there are no happy endings. (Samuel Tarly)

No godless man may sit the Seastone Chair!

Khal Drogo has a thousand horses, tonight he looks for a different sort of mount.

Would you lesson me in warfare? I was fighting battles when you were sucking mother's milk.
And losing battles too.

Gold," said Jaime. "You do like gold?" Urswyck studied him through reddened eyes. "It has its uses, I do confess.

If you're going to write histories, Tarly, you have to do the research, Archmaester Ebrose, Game of Thrones S7

Kill me, and be cursed. You are no king of mine.

In my dreams, I kill him every night,' Robert admitted. 'A thousand deaths will still be less than he deserves'.

Another black dragon, he thought. Another Blackfyre Rebellion. And soon another Redgrass field. The grass was not red when the sun came up.

While tearing apart a bird with fat fingers,

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

This is a night for song and sin and drink, for come the morrow, the virtuous and the vile burn together.

There's a funny fool. I have a riddle for you, Shagwell. Why do you care if she screams? Oh, wait, I know." He shouted "SAPPHIRES," as loudly as he could.
Cursing, Rorge kicked at his stump again. Jaime howled. I never knew there was such agony in the world, was the last thing he remembered thinking. It was hard to say how long he was gone, but when the pain spit him out, Urswyck was there, and Vargo Hoat himself. "Thee'th not to be touched," the goat screamed, spraying spittle all over Zollo. "Thee hath to be a maid, you foolth! Thee'th worth a bag of thapphireth!" And from then on, every night Hoat put guards on them, to protect them from his own.
Two nights passed in silence before the wench finally found the courage to whisper, "Jaime? Why did you shout out?"
"Why did I shout out 'sapphires,' you mean? Use your wits, wench. Would this lot have cared if I shouted 'rape'?"
"You did not need to shout at all."
"You're hard enough to look at with a nose. Besides, I wanted to make the goat say, 'thapphireth.

Men have scars, women mysteries.

Who are you?" he would ask her every day. "No one," she would answer, she who had been Arya of House Stark, Arya Underfoot, Arya Horseface. She had been Arry and Weasel too, and Squab and Salty, Nan the cupbearer, a grey mouse, a sheep, the ghost of Harrenhal ... but not for true, not in her heart of hearts. In there she was Arya of Winterfell, the daughter of Lord Eddard Stark and Lady Catelyn, who had once had brothers named Robb and Bran and Rickon, a sister named Sansa, a direwolf called Nymeria, a half brother named Jon Snow. In there she was someone ... but that was not the answer he wanted.

She has the blood of a wolf," said Joffrey. "And you have the wits of a goose," said Tyrion.

It was hard work to rule a kingdom, much less seven of them.

She went to the window seat and sat there, sniffling, hating them all, and herself most of all. It was all her fault, everything bad that had happened.

Go down into the crypts. When I woke, I told him to take me down, to see if Father was truly there. At first he didn't know what I was saying, but I got him to the steps by telling him to go here and go there, only then he wouldn't go down. He just stood on the top step and said 'Hodor,' like he was scared of the dark, but I had a torch. It made me so mad I almost gave him a swat in the head, like Old Nan is always doing." He saw the way the maester was frowning and hurriedly added, "I didn't, though.

And Jon had ordered benches and tables brought in. Men with comfortable seats were more inclined to listen, Maester Aemon had once told him; standing men were more inclined to shout.

He was beastly tired, but it was hard to stop. One more book, he had told himself, then I'll stop. One more folio, just one more. One more page, then I'll go up and rest and get a bite to eat. But there was always another page after that one, and another after that, and another book waiting underneath the pile. I'll just take a quick peek to see what this one is about, he'd think, and before he knew he would be halfway through it.

I have been despised by better men than you.

The sound of their voices mingled with the whicker of horses, the clank of steel, and the groaning hinges of the great bronze gates to make a strange and fearful music. In the sept they sing for the Mother's mercy but on the walls it's the Warrior they pray to, and all in silence.

All Daenerys wanted back was the big house with the red door, the lemon tree outside her window, the childhood she had never known.

A hedge knight must hold tight to his pride. Without it, he was no more than a sellsword

[Stares at dead knight, killed by the Direwolves]
Ersen: If he had sounded his horn ...
Theon: Try and imagine it was you up there, Ersen. Its dark and cold. You have been walking century for hours looking forward to the end of your watch. Then you hear a noise and you move forward to the gate, and suddenly, you see eyes glowing green and gold in the torchlight.
Two shadows come rushing toward you faster than you can believe. You catch a glimpse of teeth, start to level your spear, and they slam into you and open your belly, tearing through leather as if it was cheese cloth.
[Shoves Ersen hard]
Theon: And now you're down on you back, your guts are spilling out and one of them has his teeth around your neck.
[Grabs Ersen around the neck and sqeezes]
Theon: Tell me, at what moment during all of this do you stop to blow your Fucking horn?
[Shoves Ersen roughly]

Stone, I must be stone, I must be Casterly Rock, hard and unmovable.

Oh, my sweet summer child," Old Nan said quietly, "what do you know of fear?
Fear is for the winter, my little lord, when the snows fall a hundred feet
deep and the ice wind comes howling out of the north. Fear is for the long
night, when the sun hides its face for years at a time, and little children
are born and live and die all in darkness while the direwolves grow gaunt and
hungry, and the white walkers move through the woods

The mountain is your mother," Stonesnake had told him during an easier climb a few days past. "Cling to her, press yourself against her teats, and she won't drop you.

The stone is strong. Bran told himself, the roots of the trees go deep, and under the ground the Kings of Winter sit their thrones. So long as those remained, Winterfell remained. It was not dead, just broken. Like me, he thought. I'm not dead either.

The king is my son!" Cersei rose to her feet. "Aye," her uncle said, "and from what I saw of Joffrey, you are as unfit a mother as you are a ruler.

Even a man who had survived a hundred battle can break in his hundred-and-first.

One blast?" On his shoulder, his raven sat fluffed and silent, looking miserable. "One, my lord," Jon agreed. "Brothers returning." Mormont

I have always been a dark writer.

First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end.

Why, that is why the gods made whores for imps like me.

No, thought the dwarf, he plays the game of thrones, and you and Griff and Duck are only pieces, to be moved where he will and sacrificed at need, just as he sacrificed Viserys.

The old High Septon told my father that king's laws are one thing and the laws of the gods another, the boy said stubbornly. Trueborn children are made in a marriage bed and blessed by the Father and the Mother, but bastards are born of lust and weakness, he said.

Your lips were made for kissing.
They are lips. All lips are the same.
And all lips are made for kissing.

He was no dragon, Dany thought, curiously calm. Fire cannot kill a dragon

Don't try to cross the whole Reach on your own. See you don't forget, or my ghost will come and clout you in the ear.

Unfortunately in television, for whatever reason, fantasy became thought of as a kids' genre.

And the people ... there is no end of them. I sit on that damnable iron chair and listen to them complain until my mind is numb and my ass is raw. They all want something, money or land or justice. The lies they tell ...

I was never so alive as when I was winning this throne, or so dead as now that I've won it. And

Do you have a name?" "Ygritte." Her

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 sword needs a sheath, heh, and a wedding needs a bedding.

All men must sleep, Bran. Even princes."
"When I sleep I turn into a wolf." Bran turned his face away and looked back out into the night. "Do wolves dream?"
"All creatures dream, I think, yet not as men do."
"Do dead men dream?" Bran asked, thinking of his father. In the dark crypts below Winterfell, a stonemason was chiseling out his father's likeness in granite.
"Some say yes, some no," the maester answered. "The dead themselves are silent on the matter."
"Do trees dream?"
"Trees? No ... "
"They do," Bran said with sudden certainty. "They dream tree dreams. I dream of a tree sometimes. A weirwood, like the one in the godswood. It calls to me. The wolf dreams are better. I smell things, and sometimes I can taste the blood."
Maester Luwin tugged at his chain where it chafed his neck. "If you would only spend more time with the other children - "
"I hate the other children," Bran said, meaning the Walders. "I commanded you to send them away.

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

Treason is a noxious weed," Pycelle declared solemnly. "It must be torn up, root and stem and seed, lest new traitors sprout from every roadside.

What do I have? A life to live? Work to do? Children to raise, lands to rule, a woman to love? "You have nothing," finished Magister Illyrio, "but we can change that.

Maester Luwin taught you well, Jon Snow. Your mind is as deft as your blade, it would seem.

Weese," she would whisper, first of all. "Dunsen, Chiswyck, Polliver, Raff the Sweetling. The Tickler and the Hound. Ser Gregor, Ser Armory, Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, King Joffrey, Queen Cersei." - Arya Stark, A Clash of Kings

Arya never seemed to find the places she set out to reach.

He needed sleep, but whenever he closed his eyes he dreamed of blowing snow

If I could pray with my cock, I'd be much more religious

Life would be much simpler if men could fuck themselves, don't you agree?

He's not afraid of anyone, m'lord."
"He should be. Fear is what keeps a man alive in this world of treachery and deceit.

Dothraki hooves had torn the earth and trampled the rye and lentils into the ground, while arakhs and arrows had sown a terrible new crop and watered it with blood. Dying horses lifted their heads and screamed at her as she rode past. Wounded men moaned and prayed. Jaqqa rhan moved among them, the mercy men with their heavy axes, taking a harvest of heads from the dead and dying alike. After them would scurry a flock of small girls, pulling arrows from the corpses to fill their baskets. Last of all the dogs would come sniffing, lean and hungry, the feral pack that was never far behind the khalasar.

Words are wind. If you love me, do not leave me.

One of your northmen hit me with a morningstar during the battle on the Green Fork. I escaped him by falling off my horse. (Tyrion)

If you're going to write about war, which my books are about, wars are nasty things. I think it's sort of a cheap, easy way out to write a war story in which no one ultimately dies.

The grave casts long shadows, Iron Lord," Mirri said. "Long and dark, and in the end no light can hold them back.

They are children, Sansa thought. They are silly little girls, even Elinor. They've never seen a battle, they've never seen a man die, they know nothing. Their dreams were full of songs and stories, the way hers had been before Joffrey cut her fathers head off. Sansa pitied them. Sansa envied them.

It seemed cruel for a day to dawn so fair and end so foul as this one promised to.

I thank you for calling them off, young ser. I promise you, they would have found me indigestible.

He who kneels may rise again, blade in hand. He who will not kneel stays dead, stiff legs and all.

Folly and desperation are ofttimes hard to tell apart.

We were talking about the prince,' Sansa said, her voice soft as a kiss.
Arya knew which prince she meant: Joffrey, of course. The tall, handsome one. Sansa got to sit with him at the feast. Arya had to sit with the little fat one. Naturally.

They know nothing, Ygritte. And worse, they will not learn.

I always give my students exercises where they really have to open a vein and bleed all over the paper and that's the way you get the important characters. Sooner or later every writer worth reading writes a story his mother wouldn't read and having to get that stuff out is part of one's growth as a writer.

Lannisters are killing Lannisters, how sweet.

You're asking a lame man to teach a cripple how to dance, Tyrion said.

I was not born this morning, Lannister."
"No, but you're like to die this afternoon.

It's like putting on new clothes, Sam had told him. The fit feels strange at first, but once you've worn them for a while you get to feeling comfortable.

You do not steal from the dragon, oh, no. The dragon remembers.

Small men curse what they cannot understand.

I heard a Lannister always pays his debts."
"Oh, every penny ... but never a groat more. You'll get the meal you bargained for, but it won't be sauced with gratitude, and in the end it will not nourish you.

Some would fight for any cause, some for none at all.

Sour Billy had left his horse tied up outside a grog shop. He mounted it, and told the girl to walk along beside him. They

The city?" Tyrion was lost. "What city would that be?"
"King's Landing. I am sending you to court."
It was the last thing Tyrion Lannister would ever have anticipated. He reached for his wine, considered for a moment as he sipped. "And what am I to do there?"
"Rule," his father said curtly.

On the gallows tree, all men are brothers.

I am not without mercy, thundered he who was notoriously without mercy.

In a world so full of treachery, that was worth a few kisses.

At the last, Viserys looked at her. "Sister, please ... Dany, tell them ... make them ... sweet sister ... "
When the gold was half-melted and starting to run, Drogo reached into the flames, snatched out the pot. "Crown!" he roared. "Here. A crown for Cart King!" And upended the pot over the head of the man who had been her brother.
The sound Viserys Targaryen made when that hideous iron helmet covered his face was like nothing human. His feet hammered a frantic beat against the dirt floor, slowed, stopped. Thick globs of molten gold dripped down onto his chest, setting the scarlet silk to smoldering ... yet no drop of blood was spilled.
He was no dragon, Dany thought, curious calm. Fire cannot kill a dragon.

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.

I swear it by earth and water,"said the boy in green.
"I swear it by bronze and iron," his sister said.
"We swear it by ice and fire," they finished it together.
Bran groped for words. Was he supposed to swear something back to them.
"May your winters be short and your summers bountiful,"he said.

My name is Marillion," the singer said, plucking a string on his woodharp. "Doubtless you've heard me play somewhere?

I will gladly trade his freedom for a father. Have you one to give me?

Had been asleep for four or five hours. His head ached, and the back

I will say, I think it odd that I am loved by one for a kindness I never did, and reviled by so many for my finest act.

Is this Dornish wine?" Tyrion asked him once, as he pulled a stopper from a skin. "It reminds me of a certain snake I knew. A droll fellow, till a mountain fell on him.