A Song of Ice and Fire

"On the morning after the battle, the crows had feasted on victors and vanquished alike, as once they had feasted on Rhaegar Targaryen after the Trident. How much can a crown be worth, when a crow can dine upon a king?"

"Almost a prayer...but was it the god he was invoking, the Father Above whose towering gilded likeness glimmered in the candlelight across the sept? Or was he praying to the corpse that lay before him? Does it matter? They never listened, either one."

"Men of honor will do things for their children that they would never consider doing for themselves."

"I am tempted to say this is no game we play, daughter, but of course it is. The game of thrones."

"Archmaester Rigney once wrote that history is a wheel, for the nature of man is fundamentally unchanging. What has happened before will perforce happen again."

"No fight is hopeless till it has been fought."

"Abed, unclad, we are our truest selves, a man and a woman, lovers, one flesh, as close as two can be. Our clothes make us different people. I would sooner be flesh and blood than silks and jewels."

"There have always been men who found it easier to speak vows than to keep them."

"Every man should lose a battle in his youth, so he does not lose a war when he is old."

"Only the sound of the waves pounding remained, a roar no man could still."

"A man does not need to be a wizard to know truth from falsehood, not if he has eyes."

"A smile should be a servant, and come only when you call it."

"Salt a slug and shame a hero, and they shrink right up."

"Even a man who has survived a hundred fights can break in his hundred and first."

"He blamed Jon Snow and wondered when Jon's heart had turned to stone. Once he asked Maester Aemon that very question, when Gilly was down at the canal fetching water for them. “When you raised him up to be the lord commander,” the old man answered."

"A swift sword stroke is a better defense than any shield"

"Once a man had turned his tail and run from battle he ceased to be a man."

"Wizards may be well and good, but blood and steel win wars."

"Only a craven would steal a fruit when he could take the orchard."

"The waves may break upon the mountain, yet still they come, wave upon wave, and in the end only pebbles remain where once the mountain stood. And soon even the pebbles are swept away, to be ground beneath the sea for all eternity."

"For a mute to take a vow of silence would be akin to a legless man giving up the dance."

"The path of faith was a crooked one."

"All you Westerosi make a shame of loving. There is no shame in loving. If your septons say there is, your seven gods must be demons. In the isles we know better. Our gods gave us legs to run with, noses to smell with, hands to touch and feel. What mad cruel god would give a man eyes and tell him he must forever keep them shut, and never look at allt he beauty in the world? Only a monster god, a demon of the darkness."

""Fuck" had been the first word of the Common Tongue that Xhondo had learned, and he was very fond of it."

"You will return to Lord Gyles and inform him that he does not have my leave to die."

"On the gallows tree, all men are brothers."

"Justice. I remember justice. It had a pleasant taste. Justice was what we were about when Beric led us, or so we told ourselves. We were king’s men, knights, and heroes... but some knights are dark and full of terrors, my lady. War makes monsters of us all."

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

"You must be blind as well as maimed, Ser. Lift your eyes, and you will see the direwolf still flies above our walls."

"The best lies have some truth in 'em ... to give 'em flavor, as it were."

"Alayne had told the lie so many times that she remembered it that way more oft than not."

"Men come and go. They die, lie, or they leave you."

"There are those who say it does not matter how a man begins, but only how he ends."

"The hardest part of any battle is just before, waiting for the carnage to begin."

"The most perilous part of the voyage was the last."

"Gorghon of Old Ghis once wrote that a prophecy is like a treacherous woman. She takes your member in her mouth, and you moan with the pleasure of it and think, how sweet, how fine, how good this is...and then her teeth snap shut and your moans turn to screams. That is the nature of prophecy, said Gorghan. Prophecy will bite your prick off every time."

"It did not seem fair to drown the cabin boy and the captain and all the rest for something he had done, but when had the gods ever been fair?"

"Better a mushroom than a sword through your neck, is it not so? Why die with the taste of blood in your mouth when it could be butter and garlic?"

"Never trust a cook, my lord. They'll prune you when you least expect it."

"Burning dead children had ceased to trouble Jon Snow; live ones were another matter."

"Gold has its uses, but wars are won with iron."

"The more you give a king, the more he wants."

"The fisherman drowned, but his daughter got Stark to the Sisters before the boat went down. They say he left her with a bag of silver and a bastard in her belly. Jon Snow, she named him, after Arryn."

"Not to say that the wildlings mean us harm. Aye, we hacked their gods apart and made them burn the pieces, but we gave them onion soup. What’s a god compared to a nice bowl of onion soup?"

"Making mock of another man's prayer is fool's work."

"No. Hear me, Daenerys Targaryen. The glass candles are burning. Soon comes the pale mare, and after her the others. Kraken and dark flame, lion and griffin, the sun's son and the mummer's dragon. Trust none of them. Remember the Undying. Beware the perfumed seneschal."

"Gods and wonders always appear, to attend the birth of kings."

"Tart fruit and tart women give life its savor."

"Ask yourself, if all men must grub in the dirt for food, how shall any man lift his eyes to contemplate the stars? If each of us must break his back to build a hovel, who shall raise the temples to glorify the gods? For some men to be great, others must be enslaved."

"You are fighting shadows when you should be fighting the men who cast them."