A bruise is a lesson... and each lesson makes us better.

I was a journalism major, and I would take creative writing classes as part of that, but I would also look for opportunities to write stories for some of my other classes. So for my course in Scandinavian history, I asked if I could write historical fiction instead of term papers. Sometimes they’d say yes.

If ice can burn, then love and hate can mate.

Swords have been my life, not books. But every child knows that the Targaryens have always danced too close to madness. Your father was not the first. King Jaehaerys once told me that madness and greatness are two sides of the same coin. Every time a new Targaryen is born, he said, the gods toss the coin in the air and the world holds its breath to see how it will land.

It was a story called ‘The Hero’ which I sold to Galaxy magazine in 1970, for $94.

They can keep their heaven. When I die, I’d sooner go to Middle Earth.

I thought my song was beginning that day, but it was almost done.