You make us look bad', complained Toad. 'You looked bad before I ever met you', Jon told him.

There is no creature on earth half so terrifying as a truly just man.

When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives.

All fiction, if it's successful, is going to appeal to the emotions. Emotion is really what fiction is all about. That's not to say fiction can't be thoughtful, or present some interesting or provocative ideas to make us think. But if you want to present an intellectual argument, nonfiction is a better tool. You can drive a nail with a shoe but a hammer is a better tool for that. But fiction is about emotional resonance, about making us feel things on a primal and visceral level.

It was a cruel fate, Yet not so cruel as Mago's will be. I promise you that, by the old gods and the new, by the lamb god and the horse god and every god that lives. I swear by the Mother of Mountains and the Womb of the World. Before I am done with them, Mago and Ko Jhaqo will plead for the mercy they showed Eroeh.

And what lesson can we draw from Volantene history? If you want to conquer the world, you best have dragons.

Robb: Uncle Benjen said to send you to the stables if I saw you. Jon: I have one more farewell to make. Robb: Then I haven't seen you.