Explain to me why it is more noble to kill ten thousand men in battle than a dozen at dinner.

Different roads sometimes lead to the same castle.

One of the big breakthroughs, I think for me, was reading Robert A. Heinlein's four rules of writing, one of which was, 'You must finish what you write.' I never had any problem with the first one, 'You must write' - I was writing since I was a kid. But I never finished what writing.

We look at mountains and call them eternal, and they seem... but in the course of time, mountains rise and fall, rivers change their courses, starts fall from the sky, and great cities sink beneath the sea. Even gods die, we think. Everything changes.

If half an onion is black with rot, it is a rotten onion. A man is good or he is evil. (Melisandre of Asshai)

Of course it’s not enough to be a good man to be an effective ruler and it never has been.

My old grandmother always used to say, Summer friends will melt away like summer snows, but winter friends are friends forever.