George R. R. Martin Quotes

Fear cuts deeper than swords.

I feel satisfaction at the end of the day when I've written a scene that I really like or when I write a good line of dialogue that I read out to my wife or something like that. But there's also days where it's just bloody agony and I go, 'ugh, this is such crap! Why did I think I had any talent?

Be careful you don't cut yourself. The edges are sharp enough to shave with.' 'Girls don't shave', Arya said. 'Maybe they should. Have you ever seen the septa's legs?

Better to mock the game than to play and lose.

That night the wind was howling almost like a wolf and there were some real wolves off to the west giving it lessons.

Much as I admire Tolkien, I once again always felt like Gandalf should have stayed dead. That was such an incredible sequence in Fellowship of the Ring when he faces the Balrog on the Khazad-dûm and he falls into the gulf, and his last words are, "Fly, you fools." What power that had, how that grabbed me. And then he comes back as Gandalf the White, and if anything he's sort of improved. I never liked Gandalf the White as much as Gandalf the Grey, and I never liked him coming back. I think it would have been an even stronger story if Tolkien had left him dead.

Soon comes the cold, and the night that never ends.

Turtles have always been my sigil, I suppose. When I was a kid, growing up in Bayonne, NJ, I lived in a federal housing project, and we were not allowed to have a dog or cats. The only pets I could have were turtles. So, I had an entire toy castle filled with dime-store turtles. I gave them all names, and since they were living in a toy castle, I decided they were all knights and kingsand I made up stories about how they killed each other and betrayed each other and fought for the kingdom. So, Game of Thrones, actually began with turtles. I decided later to recast it with actual human beings.

I hate outlines. I have a broad sense of where the story is going; I know the end, I know the end of the principal characters, and I know the major turning points and events from the books, the climaxes for each book, but I don't necessarily know each twist and turn along the way. That's something I discover in the course of writing and that's what makes writing enjoyable. I think if I outlined comprehensively and stuck to the outline the actual writing would be boring.

I know who's going to be on the throne [in the Gameof Thrones], at the end, so I better not say. But, there will be a few people sitting on it, before the end.

'Dreamsongs' allows me to show the scope of my writing - with personal commentary that puts the works in context and includes some autobiographical details intended to reveal how each piece came to be, what it represents, and how it has formed, or been informed by, my philosophy of writing.

Unfortunately in television, for whatever reason, fantasy became thought of as a kids' genre.

She was Daenerys Stormborn, the Unburnt, Khaleesi and queen, Mother of Dragons, slayer of warlocks, breaker of chains, and there was no one in the world that she could trust.

I was just a kid selling monster stories to the kids in the projects, complete with a dramatic reading, making the werewolf sounds. My career was aborted early on because one of my main customers started to have nightmares and his mother came to my mother and my mother shut down my whole business.

We'll need to make a litter to carry him," said Osha. "No use," said Luwin. "I'm dying, woman." "You can't," said Rickon angrily. "No you can't." Beside him, Shaggydog bared his teeth and growled. The maester smiled. "Hush now, child, I'm much older than you. I can . . . die as I please.

Once she had loved Prince Joffrey with all her heart, and admired and trusted her his mother, the queen. They had repaid that love and trust with her father's head. Sansa would never make that mistake again.

You mistake patience for forbearance.

If? The word is when.

It is being common-born that is dangerous, when the great lords play their game of thrones.

We know truth for the cruel instrument it is. Beauty is infinitely preferable to truth.

I need to sleep, but fear to dream.

It was a cruel fate, Yet not so cruel as Mago's will be. I promise you that, by the old gods and the new, by the lamb god and the horse god and every god that lives. I swear by the Mother of Mountains and the Womb of the World. Before I am done with them, Mago and Ko Jhaqo will plead for the mercy they showed Eroeh.

When you find yourself in bed with an ugly woman, the best thing to do is close your eyes and get on with it

I'm a huge fan of Tolkien. I read those books when I was in junior high school and high school, and they had a profound effect on me. I'd read other fantasy before, but none of them that I loved like Tolkien.

Nothing burns like the cold. But only for a while. Then it gets inside you and starts to fill you up, and after a while you don't have the strength to fight it.

We're all the heroes of our own stories. So, when I am inside the head of a character who would otherwise be considered a villain, I have a great deal of affection for that character and I'm trying to see the world and the events through their eyes.

I don't like the strictly objective viewpoint [in which all of the characters' actions are described in the third person, but we never hear what any of them are thinking.] Which is much more of a cinematic technique. Something written in third person objective is what the camera sees. Because unless you're doing a voiceover, which is tremendously clumsy, you can't hear the ideas of characters. For that, we depend on subtle clues that the directors put in and that the actors supply. I can actually write, "'Yes you can trust me,' he lied." [But it's better to get inside the characters' heads.]

Sometimes there is no happy choice, Sam, only one less grievous than the others. - Jon Snow

[as for evolution]....cutting out the sections [on the subject] is preferrable if the portions are not thick enough to cause damage to the spine of the book as it is opened and closed in normal use. When the sections needing correction are too thick, paste the pages together being careful not to smear portions of the book not intended for correction.

He understood the way that you could sometimes fall right into them, as if each page was a hole into another world.

And the mystery knight should defeat all challengers and name the wolf maid the queen of love and beauty.

A mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.

They'll kill for that knighthood, but don't ever think they'll die for it.

How much can a crown be worth, when a crow can dine upon a king?

His cloak was his crowning glory; sable, thick and black and soft as sin.

They will not love me, you say? When have they ever loved me? How can I lose something I have never owned? - Stannis

I don't ever want t' leave this cave, Jon Snow. Not ever

Yes - 90% of fantasy is crap. And so is 90% of science fiction and 90% of mystery fiction and 90% of literary fiction.

The High Septon once told me that as we sin, so do we suffer.

If half an onion is black with rot, it is a rotten onion. A man is good or he is evil. (Melisandre of Asshai)

Some old wounds never truly heal, and bleed again at the slightest word.

And I tell you truly, Danaerys, there is no man in all the world who will ever be half so true to you as me.

- Some men think because they are afraid to do. - There is a difference between fear and caution.

The choice is yours, brother. Live a thrall or die a king. Do you dare to fly? Unless you take the leap, you’ll never know." - Euron Greyjoy

When I am writing best, I really am lost in my world. I lose track of the outside world. I have a difficult time balancing between my real world and the artificial world.

You can't just pick people for their hair color or the shape of their face. You have to go with the best actors.

Jon Snow had dreamed of leading men to glory just as King Daeron had, of growing up to be a conqueror. Now he was a man grown and the Wall was his, yet all he had were doubts. He could not even seem to conquer those.

Mother said," mocked the king. "Don't be childish." "We're children," Myrcella declared haughtily. "We're supposed to be childish." The Hound laughed. "She has you there.