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.

Ofttimes a very small man can cast a very large shadow. Tyrion smiled. Lord Varys, I am growing strangely fond of you. I may kill you yet, but I think I'd feel sad about it. I will take that as high praise.

The white horse and the black one wheeled like lovers at a harvest dance, the riders throwing steel in place of kisses.

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.

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

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.

Words are wind, Brienne told herself. They cannot hurt you. Let them wash over you.