The letter . . . What did your lords make of it, I wonder?” Stannis snorted. “Celtigar pronounced it admirable. If I showed him the contents of my privy, he would declare that admirable as well.

Schemes are like fruit, they require a certain ripening.

Cersei Lannister: I shall wear this as a badge of honor. Robert Barathon: Wear it in silence or I'll honor you again.

We're all the heroes of our own stories. So, when I am inside the head of a character who would otherwise be considered a villain, I have a great deal of affection for that character and I'm trying to see the world and the events through their eyes.

An awful lot of fantasy, and even some great fantasy, falls into the mistake of assuming that a good man will be a good king, that all that is necessary is to be a decent human being and when you're king everything will go swimmingly.

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

No one who wears a crown is ever safe.