I like grey characters; fantasy for too long has been focused on very stereotypical heroes and villains.

Free folk don't follow names, or little cloth animals sewn on a tunic," the King-Beyond-the-Wall had told him. "They won't dance for coins, they don't care how your style yourself or what that chain of office means or who your grandsire was. They follow strength. They follow the man.

Start trying to work out who deserves what, and before long you'll spend the rest of your days weeping for each and every person in the world.

I wanted to write a big novel, something epic in scale.

The girl had hoped for fog, but the gods ignored her prayers as gods so often did.

A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.

He wants you to smile and smell sweet and be his lady love. He wants to hear you recite all your pretty little words the way the septa taught you. He wants you to love him... and fear him.