You always try to do your own thing. One of the things I wanted to do was to write a book that combines some of the best traits of contemporary fantasy with some of the traits of the historical novel.

Will you make a song for him?' the woman asked. 'He has a song,' the man replied. 'He is the prince that was promised, and his is the song of ice and fire.

There are no happy endings.

Go Ahead, call me all the names you want," Sansa said airily. "You won't dare when I'm married to Joffrey. You'll have to bow and call me Your Grace." She shrieked as Arya flung the orange across the table. It caught her in the middle of the forehead with a wet squish and plopped down into her lap. "You have juice on your face, Your Grace ," Arya said.

My old grandmother always used to say, Summer friends will melt away like summer snows, but winter friends are friends forever.

Of course you know him. Everyone knows a pear-shaped man.

The best writing advice I had was [in] ‘Heinlein’s Rules for Writers’ by (American science fiction author) Robert A. Heinlein. His first rule is that you must write, and I was already doing that, but his second rule is, ‘You must finish what you write,’ and that had a big impact on me.