He drew the dagger and laid it on the table between them; a length of dragonbone and Valyrian steel, as sharp as the difference between right and wrong, between true and false, between life and death.

The common people pray for rain, healthy children and a summer that never ends. It is no matter to them if the high lords play their game of thrones, so long as they are left in peace.

Tomorrow's trials concerned her more than yesterday's triumphs.

They say night's beauties fade at dawn, and the children of wine are oft disowned in the morning light.

Fiction is lies; we're writing about people who never existed and events that never happened when we write fiction, whether its science fiction or fantasy or western mystery stories or so-called literary stories. All those things are essentially untrue. But it has to have a truth at the core of it.

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

When the sun has set, no candle can replace it.