A bear! A bear! All black and brown and covered in hair!

Littlefinger looked like a boy who had just taken a furtive bite from a honeycomb. He was TRYING to watch for bees, but the honey was so sweet.

Robert was the true steel. Stannis is pure iron, black and hard and strong, yes, but brittle, the way iron gets. He'll break before he bends. And Renly, that one, he's copper, bright and shiny, pretty to look at but not worth all that much at the end of the day.

Free folk don't follow names, or little cloth animals sewn on a tunic," the King-Beyond-the-Wall had told him. "They won't dance for coins, they don't care how your style yourself or what that chain of office means or who your grandsire was. They follow strength. They follow the man.

I have done a lot of work in Hollywood myself. I worked in television for roughly 10 years, from the mid-'80s to mid-'90s. And I was on staff at a couple of shows. I did some feature films, including originals and adaptations.

Every once in a very long while, Lord Tywin Lannister would actually threaten to smile; he never did, but the threat alone was terrible to behold.

The most important thing for any aspiring writer, is to read! And not just the sort of thing you're trying to write, be that fantasy, SF, comic books, whatever. You need to read everything.