Everyone who isn't us is an enemy." - Cersei

Truly, sister, you were born to be a widow. (Tyrion to Cersei)

Start with short stories. After all, if you were taking up rock climbing, you wouldn't start with Mount Everest. So if you're starting fantasy, don't start with a nine-book series.

Great wrongs have been done you, but the past is dust. The future may yet be won.

but the real enemy is the cold. It steals up on you quieter than Will, and at first you shiver and your teeth chatter and you stamp your feet and dream of mulled wine and nice hot fires. It burns, it does. Nothing burns like the cold. But only for a while. Then it gets inside you and starts to fill you up, and after a while you don't have the strength to fight it. It's easier just to sit down ot go to sleep. They say you don't feel any pain toward the end. First you go weak and drowsy, and everything starts to fade, and then it's like sinking into a sea of warm milk. Peaceful, like.

I have climbed these steps so often I know each one by name.

Perhaps that is the secret. It is not what we do, so much as why we do it.