Have a care how you speak to me, Imp. Doubtless he meant to sound threatening, but that absurd wisp of a mustache ruined the effect.

The singers make much of kings who die valiantly in battle, but your life is worth more than a song.

Gods be good, why would any man ever want to be king? When everyone was shouting King in the North, King in the North, I told myself ... swore to myself ... that I would be a good king, as honorable as Father, strong, just, loyal to my friends and brave when I faced my enemies ... now I can't even tell one from the other.

When your enemies defy you, you must serve them steel and fire. When they go to their knees, however, you must help them back to their feet. Elsewise no man will ever bend the knee to you

My dreams are the usual incoherent nonsense. Like most writers, at some point in my career I thought, well, I have these great dreams but I always forget them in the morning so I’ll leave a pad on my bedside table so I can write it down, and then you have some incredible dream and you write it down and the next morning you wake up and you’ve written ‘purple socks’.

There is a savage beast in every man, and when you hand that man a sword or spear and send him forth to war, the beast stirs.

No one who wears a crown is ever safe.