George R. R. Martin

I prefer to work with grey characters rather than black and white.

I have an instinctual distrust of conventional happy endings.

A lot of writing takes place in the subconscious, and it's bound to have an effect.

The odd thing about being a writer is you do tend to lose yourself in your books. Sometimes it seems like real life is flickering by and you're hardly a part of it. You remember the events in your books better than you remember the events that actually took place when you were writing them.

Once you’ve accepted your flaws, no one can use them against you.

The snow drifted down and down, all in ghostly silence, and lay thick and unbroken on the ground. It was a place of whites and blacks and greys. White towers and white snow and white statues, black shadows and black trees, the dark grey sky above. A pure world, Sansa thought. I do not belong here. Yet she stepped out all the same.

Perhaps that is the secret. It is not what we do, so much as why we do it.

Chaos isn’t a pit. Chaos is a ladder. Many who try to climb it fail and never get to try again. The fall breaks them. And some are given a chance to climb, but they refuse. They cling to the realm, or the gods, or love. Illusions. Only the ladder is real. The climb is all there is.

Dragons old and young, true and false, bright and dark. And you. A small man with a big shadow, snarling in the midst of all.

You'll find truth in your looking glass, not on the tongues of men.

I don’t know what message to send to Bran. Help him Tyrion.” “What help could I give him? I am no maester, to ease his pain. I have no spell to give him back his legs.” “You gave me help when I needed it” Jon Snow said. “I gave you nothing,” Tyrion said. “Words.” “Then give your words to Bran too.

They will not love me, you say? When have they ever loved me? How can I lose something I have never owned? - Stannis

He was no dragon, Dany thought, curiously calm. Fire cannot kill a dragon

I heard a Lannister always pays his debts." "Oh, every penny....but never a groat more. You'll get the meal you bargained for, but it won't be sauced with gratitude, and in the end it will not nourish you.

I dreamed... in the black of night a man asks all the questions he dare not ask by daylight. For me, the past years, only one question has remained. Why would the gods take my eyes and my strength, yet condemn me to linger on so long, frozen and forgotten? What use could they have for an old done man like me? ... I remember, Sam. I still remember. Remember what? Dragons, Aemon whispered.

Nothing. My father is very good at doing nothing. He calls it thinking.

Prince Rhaegar loved his Lady Lyanna, and thousands died for it.

She never forgets a slight, real or imagined. She takes caution for cowardice and dissent for defiance. And she is greedy. Greedy for power, for honour, for love.

The choice is yours, brother. Live a thrall or die a king. Do you dare to fly? Unless you take the leap, you’ll never know." - Euron Greyjoy

In the game of thrones, even the humblest pieces can have wills of their own. Sometimes they refuse to make the moves you've planned for them.

Nothing burns like the cold. But only for a while. Then it gets inside you and starts to fill you up, and after a while you don't have the strength to fight it.