A Song of Ice and Fire

"Lord Bolton, he used to say a naked man has few secrets, but a flayed man's got none."

"It is better to be seen as cruel than foolish."

"Mercy, thought Theon as Luwin dropped back. There's a bloody trap. Too much and they call you weak, too little and you're monstrous ... His father thought only in terms of conquest, but what good was it to take a kingdom if you could not hold it? Force and fear could only carry you so far."

"The mountain is your mother ... Cling to her, press her face up against your teats, and she won't drop you."

"I hear all sorts of things as a fool that I never heard when I was a knight."

"A dog doesn't need courage to chase off rats ... What do you think a knight is for, girl? You think it's all taking favors from ladies and looking fine in gold plate? Knights are for killing."

"“What will you do when he crosses?” “Fight. Kill. Die, maybe.” “Aren’t you afraid? The gods might send you down to some terrible hell for all the evil you've done.” “What evil?” He laughed. “What gods?” “The gods who made us all.” “All?” he mocked. “Tell me, little bird, what kind of god makes a monster like the Imp, or a halfwit like Lady Tanda’s daughter? If there are gods, they made sheep so wolves could eat mutton, and they made the weak for the strong to play with.” “True knights protect the weak.” He snorted. “There are no true knights, no more than there are gods. If you can’t protect yourself, die and get out of the way of those who can. Sharp steel and strong arms rule this world, don’t ever believe any different.” Sansa backed away from him. “You're awful.” “I'm honest. It’s the world that’s awful.”"

"... By the time they carried her off her thighs were bloody again. It was as if her own body had betrayed her to Joffrey, unfurling a banner of Lannister crimson for all the world to see."

"A woman's life is nine parts mess to one part magic ... and the parts that look like magic often turn out to be the messiest of all."

"Sansa, permit me to share a bit of womanly wisdom with you on this very special day. Love is poison. A sweet poison, yes, but it will kill you all the same."

"Shadows are friends to men in black."

"He loved the wild more than he loved the Wall."

"I told you what needed to be done, and left it to you to decide what it would be ... To lead men you must know them, Jon Snow. I know more of you now than I did this morning."

"Dead men walk and the trees have eyes again. Why should we balk at wargs and giants?"

"In formal battle, discipline is more important than courage."

"Men fight more fiercely for a king who shares their peril than one who hides behind his mother's skirts."

"I hope you like blackberry tarts." "I love all sorts of tarts." "I've known that for a very long time."

"“Your sons, they...they’re with the gods now.” “Are they?” Catelyn said sharply. “What god would let this happen?”"

"There are no men like me. There’s only me."

"Tyrion says that people often claim to hunger for truth, but seldom like the taste when it’s served up."

"So many vows . . . they make you swear and swear. Defend the king. Obey the king. Keep his secrets. Do his bidding. Your life for his. But obey your father. Love your sister. Protect the innocent. Defend the weak. Respect the gods. Obey the laws. It's too much. No matter what you do, you’re forsaking one vow or the other."

"I will say, I think it passing odd that I am loved by one for a kindness I never did, and reviled by so many for my finest act."

"Your prize will be the doom of you."

"Two hundred men were not an army, but you didn't need thousands to hold a castle as strong as Winterfell. So long as they knew which end of a spear did the killing, they might make all the difference."

"In the sept they pray for the Mother's mercy but on the walls it's the Warrior they pray to, and all in silence. She remembered how Septa Mordane used to tell them that the Warrior and the Mother were only two faces of the same great god. But if there is only one, whose prayers will be heard?"

"Won't your guards protect us?" "And who will protect us from my guards? Loyal sellswords are rare as virgin whores ... Do you have any notion what happens when a city is sacked, Sansa? No, you wouldn't, would you? All you know of life you learned from singers, and there's such a dearth of good sacking songs."

"Smugglers do not sound warhorns and raise banners. When they smell danger, they raise sail and run before the wind."

"A small spoon of victory is just the thing to settle the stomach before battle. It makes the men hungry for a larger helping."

"At sea, heavy steel was as like to cost a man his life as to save it."

"Some of the living swam, some of the dead floated; the ones in heavy mail and plate sank to the bottom, the quick and the dead alike."

"There were hundreds in the water, drowning or burning or doing a little of both."

"Joff had the Antler Men trussed up naked in the square below, antlers nailed to their heads. When they'd been brought before the Iron Throne for justice, he had promised to send them to Stannis. A man was not as heavy as a boulder or a cask of burning pitch, and could be thrown a deal farther."

"The guests laughed, but it was a joyless laughter, the sort that can turn into sobbing in half a heartbeat."

"Tears," she said scornfully as the woman was led from the hall. "The woman's weapon, my lady mother used to call them. The man's weapon is a sword. And that tells us all you need to know, doesn't it?"

"After the madness of battle, soldiers often seem to want flesh more than coin."

"Tears are not a woman's only weapon. You've got another one between your legs, and you'd best learn to use it. You'll find men use their swords freely enough. Both kinds of swords."

"The only way to keep people loyal is to make sure they fear you more than the enemy."

"The gods must have been mad to waste manhood on the likes of him ..."

"When it comes to swords, a queen is only a woman after all."

"Drink ... Perhaps it will give you the courage to deal with truth for a change."

"The battle fever. He had never thought to experience it himself, though Jaime had told him of it often enough. How time seemed to blur and slow and even stop, how the past and the future vanished until there was nothing but the instant, how fear fled, and thought fled, and even your body. "You don't feel your wounds then, or the ache in your back from the weight of the armor, or the sweat running down into your eyes. You stop feeling, you stop thinking, you stop being you, there is only the fight, the foe, this man and then the next and the next and the next, and you know they are afraid and tired but you're not, you're alive, and death is all around you but their swords move so slowly, you can dance through them laughing." Battle fever. I am half a man and drunk with slaughter, let them kill me if they can!"

"Those are brave men" he told Ser Balon in admiration. "Let's go kill them.""

"Men came at him. Some he killed, some he wounded, and some went away, but always there were more."

"Surrounded by a circle of Velaryon spearmen, they fought back to back, they made battle as graceful as a dance."

"The southern sky was aswirl with glowing, shifting colors, the reflection of the great fires that burned below. Baleful green tides moved against the bellies of the clouds, and pools of orange light spread across the heavens. The reds and yellows of common flame warred against the emeralds and jades of wildfire, each color flaring and then fading, birthing armies of short-lived shadows to die again an instant later. Green dawns gave way to orange dusks in half a heartbeat. The air itself smelt burnt, the way a soup kettle sometimes smelled if it were left on the fire too long and all the soup boiled away. Embers drifted through the night air like swarms of fireflies."

"Her whole life had been one long flight, it seemed. She had begun running in her mother's womb."

"Strange times are bad for trade."

"I am trying to set a price on one of the three living dragons in the world ... It seems to me that one-third of all the ships in the world would be fair."

"Dany found her thoughts returning to the Palace of Dust, one more, as the tongue returns to a space left by a missing tooth."

"I went to the warlocks hoping for answers, but instead they've left me with a hundred new questions."