A sweet face oft hides a sinner's heart.

Give a thing a name and it will somehow come to be.

Men see what they expect to see.

I work for two years on a book and it comes out and two days later I've got my first e-mail: When is the next one coming out?

When a man was hurt you took him to the maester, but what could you do when your maester was hurt?

All the world knew that a maester forged his silver link when he learned the art of healing—but the world preferred to forget that men who knew how to heal also knew how to kill.

I could have written a story about a well-adjusted family. Ned Stark comes down to King’s Landing and takes over and solves all their problems. Would that have been as exciting?