A Song of Ice and Fire

"“Sleep is good,” he said. “And books are better.”"

"It is real, all of it, he thought, the wars, the intrigues, the great bloody game, and me in the center of it ... me, the dwarf, the monster, the one they scorned and laughed at, but now I hold it all, the city, the girl. This was what I was made for, and gods forgive me, but I love it."

"As for those she served with, she did not even want to even know their names. That only made it hurt worse when they died."

"Gods do not forget ..."

"“Kings have no friends,” Stannis said bluntly, “only subjects and enemies.”"

"If you step in a nest of snakes, does it matter which one bites you first?"

"Look across the fields, brother? Do you see all those banners?" "Do you think a few bolts of cloth will make you king?"

""I am not without mercy", thundered he who was notoriously without mercy."

"What sort of knight beats helpless maids?" "The one who serves his king ..."

"Sorcery is the sauce fools spoon over failure to hide the flavor of their own incompetence."

"“Maester Luwin says there’s nothing in dreams that a man need fear.” “There is,” said Jojen. “What?” “The past. The future. The truth.”"

"... for a moment the forest seemed a deep green sea, storm-tossed and heaving, eternal and unknowable."

"You'd best get a bird ready. Mormont will want to send back word." "I wish I could send them all. They hate being caged." "You would too, if you could fly."

"You think I'm wrong to keep the rangers close?" "It's not for me to say, my lord." "It is if you're asked."

"Why would the gods send a warning if we can't heed it and change what's to come?"

"Have you ever considered that too many answers are the same as no answer at all? ... When a king dies, fancies sprout like mushrooms in the dark."

"The living should smile, for the dead cannot."

"Some men are born to be killed."

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

"The gods don't care about men, no more than kings care about peasants."

"One skull looks much like another ..."

"I have become the most splendid beggar in the world, but a beggar all the same."

"He distrusts everyone, she reflected, and perhaps for good reason."

"Well, let her enjoy her plots. She was much sweeter when she thought she was outwitting him."

"Bronn had a score of sellswords scattered throughout the crowd with orders to stop any trouble before it started. Perhaps Cersei had similarly disposed her Kettleblacks. Somehow Tyrion did not think it would help much. If the fire was too hot, you could hardly keep the pudding from scorching by tossing a handful of raisins in the pot."

"He thought he could smell smoke, though perhaps it was just the scent of his nerves fraying."

"The list of the slain was topped by the High Septon, ripped apart as he squealed to his gods for mercy. Starving men take a hard view of priests too fat to walk, Tyrion reflected."

"My most trusted advisors are a eunuch and a sellsword, and my lady's a whore. What does that say about me?"

"When I was smuggling, I learned that some men believe everything, and some nothing."

"Whether they believe the story or not, they delight to tell it."

"One day I may make you a lord, smuggler. If only to irk Celtigar and Florent. You will not thank me, though. It will mean you must suffer through these councils, and feign interest in the braying of mules." "Why do you have them, if they serve no purpose?" "The mules love the sound of their own braying, why else?"

"If she saw two futures, well ... both cannot be true." King Stannis pointed a finger. "There you err, Onion Knight. Some lights cast more than one shadow."

"There are no shadows in the dark. Shadows are the servants of light, the children of fire. The brightest flame casts the darkest shadows."

"Send two hundred wolves against ten thousand sheep, ser, and see what happens."

"The unseen enemy is always the most fearsome."

"Why else do we don these black cloaks, but to die in defense of the realm?"

"My nephew is tenderhearted." "Are you certain he's a Lannister?" "I'm certain of nothing but winter and battle."

"Every man who's tasted my cooking has told me what a good whore I am."

"I believe in steel swords, gold coins and men's wits."

"How can I do my duty if I do not know where it lies?"

"Children are a battle of a different sort ... A battle without banners or warhorns, but no less fierce ... As hard as birth can be, what comes after is even harder."

"Darkness was a chancy ally at best."

"For men the answer was always the same, and never farther away than the nearest sword. For a woman, a mother, the answer was stonier and harder."

"Cruel lands breed cruel peoples."

"Do you always smell so bad, or did you just finish fucking a pig?"

"Listen with your ears, not your mouth."

"But now there were only a hundred men left to guard a thousand doors, and no one seemed to know who should be where, nor care much."

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

"One man on a wall was worth ten beneath it."

"The rite seemed to require that everyone stand, so Tyrion saw nothing but a row of courtly arses."