I watch NFL football on Sundays. I enjoy gaming with friends, meaning role-playing games; I still enjoy going to conventions and traveling.

And if I'm guilty of having gratuitous sex, then I'm also guilty of having gratuitous violence, and gratuitous feasting, and gratuitous description of clothes, and gratuitous heraldry, because very little of this is necessary to advance the plot. But my philosophy is that plot advancement is not what the experience of reading fiction is about. If all we care about is advancing the plot, why read novels? We can just read Cliffs Notes.

The north remembers, Lord Davos. The north remembers, and the mummer’s farce is almost done. My son is home.

Nobody likes cravens,” he said uncomfortably. “I wish we hadn’t helped him. What if they think we’re craven too?” "You're too stupid to be craven,” Pyp told him. “I am not,” Grenn said. “Yes you are. If a bear attacked you in the woods, you’d be too stupid to run away.” “I would not,” Grenn insisted. “I’d run away faster than you.” He stopped suddenly, scowling when he saw Pyp’s grin and realized what he’d just said.

Robert was never the same after he put on that crown. Some men are like swords, made for fighting. Hang them up and they go to rust.

Kind? How boring that would be. I aspire to be wicked.

No mortal man could frighten him, no more than the darkness could, nor the bones of his soul, the grey and grisly bones of his soul.