There are a number of things that I'm trying to get into the books. There's a meta-fictional aspect, if I may use that pretentious word, to writing anything. You're writing in the shadow of all the people that have gone before and, in a way, you're having a dialogue with them. As someone who's read J.R. Tolkien and Robert E. Howard and all the great fantasists before, this is almost my answer to them.
George R. R. MartinHe had found over the years that silence sometimes yielded more than questions. And so it was this time.
George R. R. MartinWhen you tear out a man's tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you're only telling the world that you fear what he might say.
George R. R. Martin