I try to make the readers feel they've lived the events of the book. Just as you grieve if a friend is killed, you should grieve if a fictional character is killed. You should care. If somebody dies and you just go get more popcorn, it's a superficial experience isn't it?

Woman? Is that meant to insult me? I would return the slap, if I took you for a man. - Daenerys Targaryen

The prejudice is still there, but it's breaking down. You have writers like Michael Chabon and The Yiddish Policemen's Union. He's a writer who's determined to break down genre barriers. He's done amazing things.

I had an encyclopedia with a list of flags in the back, so I would look at all these flags of China and Liberia and England and Denmark and whatever, and I learned all the different flags and I tried to imagine what it would be like to be voyaging on some of these ships.

I heard of a man who had a razor made of Valyrian steel. He cut his head off trying to shave.

If there are gods, why is the world so full of pain and injustice?' 'Because of men like you.

But what a man can do and what a man will do are two different things, he knew.