Why is it always the innocents who suffer most, when you high lords play your game of thrones?

...grief can derange even the strongest and most disciplined of minds.

She should be on a hill somewhere, under a fruit tree, with the sun and clouds above her and the rain to wash her clean.

The truth is all around you, plain to behold. The night is dark and full of terrors, the day bright and beautiful and full of hope. One is black, the other white. There is ice and there is fire. Hate and love. Bitter and sweet. Male and female. Pain and pleasure. Winter and summer. Evil and good. Death and life. Everywhere, opposites.

There are things to be learned even from the dead.

I had an encyclopedia with a list of flags in the back, so I would look at all these flags of China and Liberia and England and Denmark and whatever, and I learned all the different flags and I tried to imagine what it would be like to be voyaging on some of these ships.

A harp can be a dangerous as a sword, in the right hands.