In the world as I have seen it, no man grows rich by kindness.

Much as I admire Tolkien, I once again always felt like Gandalf should have stayed dead. That was such an incredible sequence in Fellowship of the Ring when he faces the Balrog on the Khazad-dûm and he falls into the gulf, and his last words are, "Fly, you fools." What power that had, how that grabbed me. And then he comes back as Gandalf the White, and if anything he's sort of improved. I never liked Gandalf the White as much as Gandalf the Grey, and I never liked him coming back. I think it would have been an even stronger story if Tolkien had left him dead.

The white horse and the black one wheeled like lovers at a harvest dance, the riders throwing steel in place of kisses.

No mortal man could frighten him, no more than the darkness could, nor the bones of his soul, the grey and grisly bones of his soul.

Why should death make a man truthful, or even clever? The dead are likely dull fellows, full of tedious complaints - the ground's too cold, my gravestone should be larger, why does he get more worms than I do.

For herself, she wanted sleet and ice, howling winds, thunder to shake the very stones of the Red Keep. She wanted a storm to match her rage.

Drowning was bad enough. But drowning sad and sober, that's too cruel.