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.

That was the way of this cold world, where men fished the sea and dug in the ground and died, whilst women brought forth short-lived children from beds of blood and pain.

What's dead may never die.

Wind and words. We are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our great glory, and our great tragedy.

Most have been forgotten. Most deserve to be forgotten. The heroes will always be remembered. The best. The best and the worst. And a few who were a bit of both.

Is there any creature on earth as unfortunate as an ugly woman? (wonders Lady Catelyn Stark)

I have always regarded historical fiction and fantasy as sisters under the skin, two genres separated at birth.