George R.R. Martin
George Raymond Richard "R.R." Martin was born September 20, 1948, in Bayonne, New Jersey. His father was Raymond Collins Martin, a longshoreman, and his mother was Margaret Brady Martin. He has two sisters, Darleen Martin Lapinski and Janet Martin Patten.
Martin attended Mary Jane Donohoe School and Marist High School. He began writing very young, selling monster stories to other neighborhood children for pennies, dramatic readings included. Later he became a comic book fan and collector in high school, and began to write fiction for comic fanzines (amateur fan magazines). Martin's first professional sale was made in 1970 at age 21: The Hero, sold to Galaxy, published in February, 1971 issue. Other sales followed.
In 1970 Martin received a B.S. in Journalism from Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, graduating summa cum laude. He went on to complete a M.S. in Journalism in 1971, also from Northwestern.
As a conscientious objector, Martin did alternative service 1972-1974 with VISTA, attached to Cook County Legal Assistance Foundation. He also directed chess tournaments for the Continental Chess Association from 1973-1976, and was a Journalism instructor at Clarke College, Dubuque, Iowa, from 1976-1978. He wrote part-time throughout the 1970s while working as a VISTA Volunteer, chess director, and teacher.
In 1975 he married Gale Burnick. They divorced in 1979, with no children. Martin became a full-time writer in 1979. He was writer-in-residence at Clarke College from 1978-79.
Moving on to Hollywood, Martin signed on as a story editor for Twilight Zone at CBS Television in 1986. In 1987 Martin became an Executive Story Consultant for Beauty and the Beast at CBS. In 1988 he became a Producer for Beauty and the Beast, then in 1989 moved up to Co-Supervising Producer. He was Executive Producer for Doorways, a pilot which he wrote for Columbia Pictures Television, which was filmed during 1992-93.
Martin's present home is Santa Fe, New Mexico. He is a member of Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (he was South-Central Regional Director 1977-1979, and Vice President 1996-1998), and of Writers' Guild of America, West.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/george...
“Death is not the worst thing. It is His gift to us, and end to want and pain. On the day that we are born the Many-Faced God sends each of us a dark angel to walk through life beside us. When our sins and our sufferings grow to great to be borne, the angel takes us.”
“You lie. Worse, you lie poorly.”
“I was so careful. How could he know?Someone told. Someone always tells.”
“One day the singers will make all of us immortal.”
“I'm sorry that I never trusted you. I don't know how to do that anymore.”
“This fool he promised me is like to be my own reflection in a pond.”
“The very air seemed grey and green and still.”
“It was too wet to see the sun go down, too grey to see the moon come up.”
“Trust is earned. Like gold.”
“Even a priest may doubt. Even a prophet may know terror. Aeron Damphair reached within himself for his god and discovered only silence.”
“he counts to ten as quick as any man, I have seen him do it... though when he needs to go to twenty he does take off his boots.”
“Would you lesson me in warfare? I was fighting battles when you were sucking mother's milk.And losing battles too.”
“Words are wind, and the only good wind is that which fills our sails.”
“Most have been forgotten. Most deserve to be forgotten. The heroes will always be remembered. The best. The best and the worst. And a few who were a bit of both.”
“There are no happy endings.”
“No mother loves all her children the same, not even the Mother Above.”
“The rain feels good against my face, Sam. It feels like tears. Let me stay a while longer, I pray you. It has been a long time since last I wept.”
“I know a song about him. But I thought he lived a hundred years ago.We all did. Once I was as young as you.”
“Winter storms are worse, but autumn's are more frequent.”
“What was it Catelyn Stark had called them, that night at Bitterbridge? The knights of summer. And now it was autumn and they were falling like leaves...”
“We've changed kins since then, some of us twice. No one cares, no one remembers.”
“Dogs and wolves and lions, may the Others take them all.”
“There have always been men who found it easier to speak vows than to keep them.”
“Nothing. My father is very good at doing nothing. He calls it thinking.”
“I would sooner be flesh and blood than silks and jewels.”
“No one who wears a crown is ever safe.”
“Only a fool would ever claim she was more beautiful than I. The world was full of fools, however.”
“For herself, she wanted sleet and ice, howling winds, thunder to shake the very stones of the Red Keep. She wanted a storm to match her rage.”
“I have touched more men that I can count. Some with my lips, more with my axe.”
“Half of them loved her like a daughter, and other half wanted to spread her legs, but either sort would die for her.”
“Archmaester Rigney once wrote that history is a wheel, for the nature of man is fundamentally unchanging. What has happened before will perforce happen again, he said.”
“Lord Rodrik Harlaw was neither fat nor slim; neither tall nor short; neither ugly nor handsome. His hair was brown, as were his eyes, though the short, neat beard he favored had gone grey. All in all, he was an ordinary man, distinguished only by his love of written words.”
“Men of honor will do things for their children that they would never consider doing for themselves.”
“A lie is not so bad if it is kindly meant. If only she believed them...”
“The world is full of horrors, Tommen. You can fight them, or laugh at them, or look without seeing...”
“Yet, if he would not lie, what could he write but truth?”
“I must not sleep. If he slept, he might dream.”
“He never wanted love, though. You cannot eat love, nor buy a horse with it, nor warm your halls on a cold night.”
“Arya did not know any Many-Faced God, but if he answered prayers, he might be the god she sought.”
“Too many dragons are as dangerous as too few.”
“Pleasing one king is difficult enough. Pleasing two is hardly possible.”
“I never wanted to see half the things I've seen, and I've never seen half the things I wanted to. I don't think wanting comes into it. You'd best go all the same.”
“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.”
“Then the trees closed in around her, black as pitch and full of ghosts and memories.”
“She had to have gone elsewhere... but elsewhere is a big place.”
“- Some men think because they are afraid to do.- There is a difference between fear and caution.”
“A thief was a thief, whether he stole a little or a lot.”
“Am I still a thief if I put it all back and no one ever knows?”
“Old powers waken. Shadows stir. An age of wonder and terror will soon be upon us, and age for gods and heroes.”
“Bastard children were born from lust and lies, men said; their nature was wanton and treacherous." — Jon Snow”