When the red star bleeds and the darkness gathers, Azor Ahai shall be born again amidst smoke and salt to wake dragons out of stone.

I could have written a story about a well-adjusted family. Ned Stark comes down to King’s Landing and takes over and solves all their problems. Would that have been as exciting?

The man is as useless as nipples on a breastplate.

Old stories are like old friends, she used to say. You have to visit them from time to time.

Jon lied ... loudly, as if that could make it true.

He had found over the years that silence sometimes yielded more than questions. And so it was this time.

Sleep is good, he said, And books are better.