I have always been a dark writer.

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.

Mother said," mocked the king. "Don't be childish." "We're children," Myrcella declared haughtily. "We're supposed to be childish." The Hound laughed. "She has you there.

Sometimes the best way to baffle them is to make moves that have no purpose, or even seem to work against you

I have touched more men that I can count. Some with my lips, more with my axe.

From where I sit, battles are hard. I’ve written my share. Sometimes I employ the private’s viewpoint, very up close and personal, dropping the reader right into the middle of the carnage. That’s vivid and visceral, but of necessity chaotic, and it is easy to lose all sense of the battle as a whole. Sometimes I go with the general’s point of view instead, looking down from on high, seeing lines and flanks and reserves. That gives a great sense of the tactics, of how the battle is won or lost, but can easily slide into abstraction.

Every flight begins with a fall.