“And as no man knows the ubicity of his tumulus nor to what processes we shall thereby be ushered nor whether to Tophet or to Edenville in the like way is all hidden when we would backward see from what region of remoteness the whatness of our whoness hath fetched his whenceness.”

“The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was.”

“Still men be clever and in an hundred centuries or more, perchance will have found a way to journey thither; when that they have discovered and understood all things on the earth. What will a man be like in the xxvii century, or even the xx? Very like unto us, I do expect; I do not think that man’s nature shall change; nor do I anticipate that he will be the wiser than we, for all his learning, for ‘tis a part of that nature which is ours that we do not heed the lessons of history: neither our own, nor the world’s.”

“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.”

“The weight of this sad time we must obey,Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.The oldest hath borne most: we that are youngShall never see so much, nor live so long.”

“What distinguishes man from his innocent brothers, the animals,...is not language, nor reason, nor even civilization...it is man's enormous appetite for suffering.”