Jon lied ... loudly, as if that could make it true.

From where I sit, battles are hard. I’ve written my share. Sometimes I employ the private’s viewpoint, very up close and personal, dropping the reader right into the middle of the carnage. That’s vivid and visceral, but of necessity chaotic, and it is easy to lose all sense of the battle as a whole. Sometimes I go with the general’s point of view instead, looking down from on high, seeing lines and flanks and reserves. That gives a great sense of the tactics, of how the battle is won or lost, but can easily slide into abstraction.

There is magic in my universe, but it's pretty low magic compared to other fantasies.

Kill me, and be cursed. You are no king of mine.

None of us is ever ready,' he (Ned) said. 'For knighthood?' 'For death.

Generally speaking, I'm much more in favour of penises entering vaginas than axes entering skulls. But the world seems to accept the violence a lot easier than the sex.

The storms come and go, the waves crash overhead, the big fish eat the little fish, and I keep on paddling. (Varys)