There are a lot of people out there who will write books, in which everything turns out nicely and the bad guys lose, the good guys win, the boy gets the girl and they live happily ever after. There's a million books like that and if that's the comfort you're looking for, you should read those books and not my books because that's not the kind of book that I am interested in.

Sometimes the best way to baffle them is to make moves that have no purpose, or even seem to work against you

Jon Snow: I'm not afraid to die. Mormont: Nor life, I hope.

Children are a battle of a different sort. ... A battle without banners or warhorns but no less fierce.

The things we love destroy us every time, lad. Remember that.

Lords are gold and knights steel, but two links can't make a chain. You also need silver and iron and lead, tin and copper and bronze and all the rest, and those are farmers and smiths and merchants and the like. A chain needs all sorts of metals, and a land needs all sorts of people.

The girl had hoped for fog, but the gods ignored her prayers as gods so often did.