No one who wears a crown is ever safe.

I've always preferred writing about grey characters and human characters. Whether they are giants or elves or dwarves, or whatever they are, they're still human, and the human heart is still in conflict with the self.

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

It is being common-born that is dangerous, when the great lords play their game of thrones.

If? The word is when.

Make no mistake, dwarf. I fought for you, but I do not love you'' ''It was your blade I needed'' Tyrion said, ''not your love.

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.