His eyes were open wounds beneath his heavy brows, a blue as dark as the sea by night.

Schemes are like fruit, they require a certain ripening.

A man who fights for coin is loyal only to his purse.

But a voice inside her whispered, There are no heroes, and she remembered what Lord Petyr had said to her, here in this very hall. 'Life is not a song, sweetling,' he'd told her, 'You may learn that one day to your sorrow.' In life, the monsters win, she told herself.

Time is different for a tree than for a man. Sun and soil and water, these are the things a weirwood understands, not days and years and centuries. For men, time is a river. We are trapped in its flow, hurtling from past to present, always in the same direction. The lives of trees are different. They root and grow and die in one place, and that river does not move them. The oak is the acorn, the acorn is the oak.

I watch NFL football on Sundays. I enjoy gaming with friends, meaning role-playing games; I still enjoy going to conventions and traveling.

My biggest dream was to ruin the lives of my readers and crush their souls... And I really think that worked out pretty well for me.