“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.”

“A man of the Night's Watch lives his life for the realm. Not for a king, nor a lord, nor the honor of this house or that house, neither for gold nor glory nor a woman's love, but for the realm, and all the people in it. A man of the Night's Watch takes no wife and fathers no sons. Our wife is duty. Our mistress is honor. And you are the only sons we shall ever know.”

“A grey man,” she said. “Neither white nor black, but partaking of both. Is that what you are, Ser Davos?”“What if I am? It seems to me that most men are grey.”“If half of an onion is black with rot, it is a rotten onion. A man is good, or he is evil.”

“No mortal man could frighten him, no more than the darkness could, nor the bones of his soul, the grey and grisly bones of his soul.”

“He never wanted love, though. You cannot eat love, nor buy a horse with it, nor warm your halls on a cold night.”

“All the color had been leached from Winterfell until only grey and white remained. The Stark colors. Theon did not know whether he ought to find that ominous or reassuring. Even the sky was grey. The eyes of the bride were brown. Big and brown and full of fear. ”

“Jon wanted nothing more. No, he had to tell himself, those days are gone. The realization twisted in his belly like a knife. They had chosen him to rule. The Wall was his, and their lives were his as well. A lord may love the men that he commands, he could hear his lord father saying, 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.”