I always give my students exercises where they really have to open a vein and bleed all over the paper and that's the way you get the important characters. Sooner or later every writer worth reading writes a story his mother wouldn't read and having to get that stuff out is part of one's growth as a writer.

Every once in a very long while, Lord Tywin Lannister would actually threaten to smile; he never did, but the threat alone was terrible to behold.

I suppose I'm a lapsed Catholic. You would consider me an atheist or agnostic.

Politicians were mostly people who'd had too little morals and ethics to stay lawyers.

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.

Wizards die the same as other men, once you cut their heads off.

Catelyn had never liked this godswood. She had been born a Tully, at Riverrun far to the south, on the Red Fork of the Trident. The godswood there was a garden, bright and airy, where tall redwoods spread dappled shadows across tinkling streams, birds sang from hidden nests, and the air was spicy with the scent of flowers.