Explore Quotes by George R. R. Martin

Ten years from now, no one is going to care how quickly the books came out. The only thing that will matter, the only thing anyone will remember, is how good they were. That's my main concern, and always will be.

I've been very lucky. There were times when I was afraid I would never sell another book, but I never doubted I'd write another book.

Art is not a democracy. People don't get to vote on how it ends.

Why do the Gods make kings and queens if not to protect the ones who can't protect themselves?

It's different for every writer. It's not a career for anyone who needs security. It's a career for gamblers. It's a career of ups and downs.

Ofttimes a very small man can cast a very large shadow.

Summer is the time for squabbles. In winter, we must protect one another, keep each other warm, share our strengths.

Nothing bores me more than books where you read two pages and you know exactly how it's going to come out. I want twists and turns that surprise me, characters that have a difficult time and that I don't know if they're going to live or die.

We read fantasy to find the colors again, I think. To taste strong spices and hear the songs the sirens sang.

You should grieve if a fictional character is killed. You should care.

...Ned always said that the man who passes the sentence should swing the blade, though he never took any joy in the duty. But I would, oh, yes.

A hedge knight must hold tight to his pride. Without it, he was no more than a sellsword

I would also suggest that any aspiring writer begin with short stories. These days, I meet far too many young writers who try to start off with a novel right off, or a trilogy, or even a nine-book series. That's like starting in at rock climbing by tackling Mt. Everest. Short stories help you learn your craft.

Life is very full of sex, or should be. As much as I admire Tolkien - and I do, he was a giant of fantasy and a giant of literature, and I think he wrote a great book that will be read for many years - you do have to wonder where all those Hobbits came from, since you can't imagine Hobbits having sex, can you? Well, sex is an important part of who we are. It drives us, it motivates us, it makes us do sometimes very noble things and it makes us do sometimes incredibly stupid things. Leave it out, and you've got an incomplete world.

He wished he could relieve himself of his doubts and guilts half as easily.

Much as I admire Tolkien, I once again always felt like Gandalf should have stayed dead. That was such an incredible sequence in Fellowship of the Ring when he faces the Balrog on the Khazad-dûm and he falls into the gulf, and his last words are, "Fly, you fools." What power that had, how that grabbed me. And then he comes back as Gandalf the White, and if anything he's sort of improved. I never liked Gandalf the White as much as Gandalf the Grey, and I never liked him coming back. I think it would have been an even stronger story if Tolkien had left him dead.

In real life, the hardest aspect of the battle between good and evil is determining which is which.

Fantasy is silver and scarlet, indigo and azure, obsidian veined with gold and lapis lazuli.

I want you to be afraid to turn the page (and to do that) you need to show right from the beginning that you're playing for keeps.

I've always taken that as my guiding principle and the rest is just set dressing. You can have dragons in it, or aliens and starships, or a western about a gunslinger, or even literary fiction, and ultimately you're still writing about the human heart in conflict with itself.

I'm honest. It's the world that's awful.