George R.R. Martin

“You little fool. Tears are not a woman's only weapon. You've got another one between your legs, and you'd best learn to use it. You'll find men use their swords freely enough. Both kinds of swords.”

“Knowledge is what man is all about. People like you have tried to hold back progress since the beginning of time. But they failed, and you failed. Man needs to know.""Maybe," Sanders said. "But is that the only thing man needs? I don't think so. I think he also needs mystery, and poetry, and romance. I think he needs a few unanswered questions, to make him brood and wonder.”

“Man’s curiosity drives him to seek the answer to every question. But it’s the unanswered questions that are the most exciting.”

“His lips look like two worms fucking.”

“Now we will begin the dance. Remember, child, this is not the iron dance of Westeros we are learning, the knight's dance, hacking and hammering, no. This is the bravo's dance, the water dance, swift and sudden. All men are made of water, do you know this? When you pierce them, the water leaks out and they die.”

“Give a thing a name and it will somehow come to be.”

“Can they love without a word for it?”

“It was that white cloak that soiled me, not the other way around.”

“« … why is the world so full of pain and injustice ? »« Because of men like you. »« There are no ‘men like me’. There’s only me. »”

“The truth is, I wanted to watch you for a time before pledging you my sword. To make certain that you were not...""...my father's daughter?" If she was not her father's daughter, who was she?"...mad," he finished. "But I see no taint in you.""Taint?" Dany bristled."I am no maester to quote history at you, Your Grace. Swords have been my life, not books. But every child knows that the Targaryens have always danced too close to madness. Your father was not the first. King Jaehaerys once told me that madness and greatness are two sides of the same coin. Every time a new Targaryen is born, he said, the gods toss a coin in the air and the world holds its to see how it will land.”

“My old grandmother always used to say, Summer friends will melt away like summer snows, but winter friends are friends forever.”

“Needle was Robb and Bran and Rickon, her mother and her father, even Sansa. Needle was Winterfell's grey walls, and the laughter of its people. Needle was the summer snows, Old Nan's stories, the heart tree with its red leaves and scary face, the warm earthy smell of the glass gardens, the sound of the north wind rattling the shutters of her room. Needle was Jon Snow's smile. He used to mess my hair and call me "little sister," she remembered, and suddenly there were tears in her eyes.”

“You must put these dreams aside, they will only break your heart.”

“You are an honest and honorable man...Ofttimes I forget that. I have met so few of them in my life.”

“A man who won't listen can't hear.”

“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.”

“Lords are gold and knights steel, but two links can't make a chain. You also need silver and iron and lead, tin and copper and bronze and all the rest, and those are farmers and smiths and merchants and the like. A chain needs all sorts of metals, and a land needs all sorts of people.”

“When you find yourself in bed with an ugly woman, the best thing to do is close your eyes and get on with it”

“...spend my time warring and whoring, that's what I was made for.”

“Only a man who's been burned knows what hell is truly like.”

“Something about the howling of a wolf took a man right out of his here and now and left him in a dark forest of the mind, running naked before the pack.”

“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.”

“Children are a battle of a different sort. ... A battle without banners or warhorns but no less fierce.”

“Power is a trick. It lies where we believe it lies.”

“I am Cersei of House Lannister, a lion of the Rock, the rightful queen of these Seven Kingdoms, trueborn daughter of Tywin Lannister. And hair grows back.”

“Barristan Semly was not a bookish man, but he had often glanced through the pages of the White Book, where the deeds of his predecessors had been recorded. Some had been heroes, some weaklings, knaves, or cravens. Most were only men - quicker and stronger than most, more skilled with sword and shield, but still prey to pride, ambition, lust, love, anger, jealousy, greed for gold, hunger for power, and all the other failing that afflicted lesser mortals. The best of them overcame their flaws, did their duty, and died with their swords in their hands. The worst ...The worst were those who played the game of thrones.”

“There were times—not many, but a few—when Jon Snow was glad he was a bastard.”

“Power resides where men believe it resides. A very small man can cast a very large shadow.”

“Better to mock the game than to play and lose.”

“We all live our lives, but a reader lives a hundred other lives.”

“Bear Island knows no king but the King in the North, whose name is STARK.”

“These Kingsguard knights are as useless as nipples on a breastplate.”

“Might have punctured a lung, if he had a lung. Most trees don't, as a rule.”

“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.”

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

“Serving men cleared away the swan, hardly touched. Cersei beckoned for the sweets. "I hope you like blackberry tarts." "I love all sorts of tarts." "Oh, I've know that for a long while. Do you know why Varys is so dangerous?" "Are we playing riddles now? No." "He doesn't have a cock." "Neither do you." And don't you just hate that, Cersei? ""Perhaps, I'm dangerous too. You, on the other hand, are as big a fool as every other man. That worm between your legs does half your thinking.”

“red hair was rare among the free folk, and those who had it were said to be kissed by fire, which was supposed to be lucky.”

“I must show no fear, no weakness, no doubt.”

“The wildlings seemed to think Ygritte a great beauty because of her hair; red hair was rare among the free folk, and those who had it were said to be kissed by fire, which was supposed to be lucky.”

“I am surrounded by flatterers and fools. It can drive a man to madness,.. . Half of them don’t dare tell me the truth, and the other half can’t find it.”

“A long summer always meant a long winter to come.”

“So be it. I'll wear my iron and hold my tongue. A man who won't listen can't hear.”

“She had put despair and fear aside, as if they were garments she did not choose to wear.”

“Wisdom oft comes from the mouth of babes.”

“A good act does not wash out the bad, nor a bad act the good. Each should have its own reward.”

“Sure, I knew the differences between a space opera and a hard-boiled detective story and a historical novel...but I never cared about such differences. It seemed to me, then as now, that there are good stories and bad stories, and that was the only distinction that truly mattered.”

“All halls lead somewhere. Where there is a way in, there is a way out. Fear cuts deeper than swords.”

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

“I don't want to have a dozen sons," she had told him, appalled. "I want to have adventures" ~Asha Greyjoy”

“So young," said Wyman Manderly, "Though mayhaps this was a blessing. Had he lived he would've grown up to be a Frey.”