Old stories are like old friends, she used to say. You have to visit them from time to time.

Turtles have always been my sigil, I suppose. When I was a kid, growing up in Bayonne, NJ, I lived in a federal housing project, and we were not allowed to have a dog or cats. The only pets I could have were turtles. So, I had an entire toy castle filled with dime-store turtles. I gave them all names, and since they were living in a toy castle, I decided they were all knights and kingsand I made up stories about how they killed each other and betrayed each other and fought for the kingdom. So, Game of Thrones, actually began with turtles. I decided later to recast it with actual human beings.

You'll find truth in your looking glass, not on the tongues of men.

There are worse ways to die than warm and drunk.

Give me honorable enemies rather than ambitious ones, and I'll sleep more easily by night.

There is magic in my universe, but it's pretty low magic compared to other fantasies.

I can see a scene in my head, and when I try to get it down in words on paper, the words are clunky; the scene is not coming across right. So frustrating. And there are days where it keeps flowing. Open the floodgates, and there it is. Pages and pages coming. Where the hell does this all come from? I don't know.