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.

If half an onion is black with rot, it is a rotten onion. A man is good or he is evil. (Melisandre of Asshai)

Why do our dreams become so much smaller when they finally come true?

I am loyal to my beloved Joffrey. (Sansa) No doubt. As loyal as a deer surrounded by wolves. (Tyrion) Lions, she whispered without thinking.

An admiral without ships, a hand without fingers, in service of a king without a throne. Is this a knight who comes before us, or the answer to a child's riddle?

You lie. Worse, you lie poorly.

The man is as useless as nipples on a breastplate.