Contempt, thought Tyrion, the universal tongue.

You are the blood of the dragon. You can make a hat.

Tolkien can say that Aragorn became king and reigned for a hundred years, and he was wise and good. But Tolkien doesn’t ask the question: What was Aragorn’s tax policy? Did he maintain a standing army? What did he do in times of flood and famine? And what about all these orcs? By the end of the war, Sauron is gone but all of the orcs aren’t gone – they’re in the mountains. Did Aragorn pursue a policy of systematic genocide and kill them? Even the little baby orcs, in their little orc cradles?

Of all the bright cruel lies they tell you, the cruelest is the one called love.

Some doors are best left closed.

That night the wind was howling almost like a wolf and there were some real wolves off to the west giving it lessons.

Black moleskin gloves covered his hands; the right because it was burned, the left because a man felt half a fool wearing only one glove.