Perhaps I cannot make my people good, she told herself, but I should at least try to make them a little less bad.

I have always regarded historical fiction and fantasy as sisters under the skin, two genres separated at birth.

Time is different for a tree than for a man. Sun and soil and water, these are the things a weirwood understands, not days and years and centuries. For men, time is a river. We are trapped in its flow, hurtling from past to present, always in the same direction. The lives of trees are different. They root and grow and die in one place, and that river does not move them. The oak is the acorn, the acorn is the oak.

The best writing advice I had was [in] ‘Heinlein’s Rules for Writers’ by (American science fiction author) Robert A. Heinlein. His first rule is that you must write, and I was already doing that, but his second rule is, ‘You must finish what you write,’ and that had a big impact on me.

Always keep your foes confused. If they are never certain who you are or what you want, they cannot know what you are like to do next.

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

The maester smiled...Hush now, child, I'm much older than you. I can....die as I please.