I will teach them what it means to put a lion in a cage, Cersei thought.

There are two kinds of writers. There are architects and gardeners. The architects do blueprints before they drive the first nail. The gardeners just dig a hole and plant the seed and see what comes up.

We know truth for the cruel instrument it is. Beauty is infinitely preferable to truth.

One night, in his cups, he drank a jar of wildfire, after telling his friends it would transform him into a dragon, but the gods were kind and it transformed him into a corpse.

Some gave me soft words and some blunt, some made excuses, some promises, some only lied. In the end words are just wind.

As much as I love historical fiction, my problem with historical fiction is that you always know what's going to happen.

A hound will die for you, but never lie to you. And he'll look you straight in the face.