George R. R. Martin Quotes

“And I vow that you shall always have a place by my hearth and meat and mead at my table, and pledge to ask no service of you that might bring you into dishonor. I swear it by the old gods and the new. Arise.” As she clasped [Brienne’s] hands between her own, Catelyn could not help but smile.”

“The world is one great web, and a man dare not touch a single strand lest all the others tremble.”

“Outside, they made their farewells. Rickon sobbed and clung to Hodor’s leg until Osha gave him a smack with the butt end of the spear. Then he followed her quick enough. Shaggydog stalked after them. The last Bran saw of them was the direwolf’s tail as it vanished behind the broken tower.”

“Do all maesters lie so poorly? I told Varys that I was giving Prince Doran my nephew Tommen to foster. I told Littlefinger that I planned to wed Myrcella to Lord Robert of the Eyrie. I told no one that I had offered Myrcella to the Dornish … that truth was only in the letter I entrusted to you.”

“That shamed them well enough. A knight mounted, helmetless, and rode to join the others. A pair of sellswords followed. Then more. The King’s Gate shuddered again. In a few moments the size of Tyrion’s command had doubled. He had them trapped. If I fight, they must do the same, or they are less than dwarfs.”

“The battle fever. [Tyrion] had never thought to experience it himself, though Jamie had told him of it often enough. […]. “You don’t feel your wounds then, or the ache in your back from the weight of the armor, or the sweat running down in to your eyes. You stop feeling, you stop thinking, you stop being you, there is only the fight, the foe, this man and then the next and the next and the next, [...].”

“Half my life I have waited to come home, and for what? Mocking and disregard? This was not the Pyke he remembered. Or did he remember? He had been so young when they took him away to hold hostage.”

“When the drawbridge was lowered, a chill wind sighed across the moat. The touch of it made him shiver. It is the cold, nothing more, Theon told himself, a shiver, not a tremble. Even brave men shiver. ”

“Their birth protects them,” Cersei admitted, “though not as much as you’d think. Each one’s worth a good ransom, but after the madness of battle, soldiers often seem to want flesh more than coin.”

“I cannot blame them, Catelyn thought. They do not know. And if they did, why should they care? They never knew my sons. Never watched Bran climb with their hearts in their throats, pride and terror so mingled they seemed as one, never heard him laugh, never smiled to see Rickon trying so fiercely to be like his older brothers.”

“When it comes to swords, a queen is only a woman after all.”

“Sleep is good,” he said. “And books are better.”

“Swift as a deer. Quiet as a shadow. Fear cuts deeper than swords. Quick as a snake. Calm as still water.”

“Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post. I am the sword in the darkness.”

“This was a place of deep silence and brooding shadows, and the gods who lived here had no names.”

“Black and white and grey, all the shades of truth.”

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

“Men live their lives trapped in an eternal present, between the mists of memory and the sea of shadow that is all we know of the days to come.”

“Winter will never come for the likes of us. Should we die in battle, they will surely sing of us, and it’s always summer in the songs.”

“When he opened the door, the light from within threw his shadow clear across the yard, and for just a moment Tyrion Lannister stood tall as a king.”

“In the songs all knights are gallant, all maids are beautiful, and the sun is always shining.”

“There is no creature on earth half so terrifying as a truly just man.”

“Every man should lose a battle in his youth, so he does not lose a war when he is old.”

“I prefer my history dead. Dead history is writ in ink, the living sort in blood.”

“A man must know how to look before he can hope to see.”

“Darkness will be your cloak, your shield, your mother’s milk. Darkness will make you strong.”

“It is night in your Seven Kingdoms now,” the red woman went on, “but soon the sun will rise again. The war continues, Davos Seaworth, and some will soon learn that even an ember in the ashes can still ignite a great blaze.”

“He made plans to keep himself sane, built castles of hope in the dark.”

“It all goes back and back. To our mothers and fathers and theirs before them. We are puppets dancing on the strings of those who came before us, and one day our own children will take up our strings and dance on in our steads.”

“War makes monsters of us all.”

“Just as if I was one of those true knights you love so well, yes. What do you think a knight is for, girl? You think it’s all taking favors from ladies and looking fine in gold plate? Knights are for killing.”

“I rely too much on Varys, [Tyrion] reflected. I need my own informers. Not that I’d trust them either. Trust would get you killed.”

“They are still unblooded, Catelyn thought as she watched Lord Bryce goad Ser Robar into juggling a brace of daggers. It is all a game to them still, a tourney writ large, and all they see is the chance for glory and honor and spoils. They are boys drunk on song and story, and like all boys, they think themselves immortal. ”

“Captain Vylarr,” called, “I want those taken down on the morrow. Give them to the silent sisters for cleaning.” It would be hell to match them with the bodies, he supposed, yet it must be done. Even in the midst of war, certain decencies needed to be observed.”

“Do they miss their brothers and sisters, too? Bran wondered. Are they calling to Grey Wind and Ghost, to Nymeria and Lady’s Shade? Do they want them to come home and be a pack together?”

“In a room sit three great men, a king, a priest, and a rich man with his gold. Between them stands a sellsword, a little man of common birth and no great mind. Each of the great ones bids him slay the other two. ‘Do it,’ says the king, ‘for I am your lawful ruler.’ ‘Do it,’ says the priest, ‘for I command you in the names of the gods.’ ‘Do it,’ says the rich man, ‘and all this gold shall be yours.’ So tell me—who lives and who dies?”

“Would you ask a mother to sell one of her children?” “Whyever not? They can always make more. Mothers sell their children every day.” “Not the Mother of Dragons.” “Not even for twenty ships?” “Not for a hundred.”

“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. ”

“Don’t bother, sweetling, Tyrion thought, swirling the wine in the cup. He cares not a whit about carvings. The eyes he boasts of are his own. What he means is that he was watching, that he knew we were here the moment we passed through the gates.”

“I like my tale better,” said Littlefinger, “and so will the smallfolk. Most of them believe that if a woman eats rabbit while pregnant, her child will be born with long floppy ears.”

Let them see that their words can cut you and you’ll never be free of the mockery.

A mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.

Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armour yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.

Can a man still be brave if he’s afraid?

Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armour yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.

A mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.

Fear cuts deeper than swords.

Some old wounds never truly heal, and bleed again at the slightest word.

Winter is coming.

When you play a game of thrones you win or you die.

If you would take a man’s life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die.

The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword.

When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives.

Most men would rather deny a hard truth than face it.

The things we love destroy us every time, lad. Remember that.

Death is so terribly final, while life is full of possibilities.

What is honor compared to a woman’s love? What is duty against the feel of a newborn son in your arms . . . or the memory of a brother’s smile?

We are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our great glory, and our great tragedy.

Why is it that when one man builds a wall, the next man immediately needs to know what’s on the other side?

If I look back I am lost.

Nothing burns like the cold.

Laughter is poison to fear.

Every flight begins with a fall.

Different roads sometimes lead to the same castle.

“Life is not a song, sweetling. Someday you may learn that, to your sorrow.”

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

Summer will end soon enough, and childhood as well.

The man who fears losing has already lost.