A Song of Ice and Fire

"Power resides where men believe it resides. No more and no less." "So power is a mummer's trick?" "A shadow on the wall," Varys murmured, "yet shadows can kill. And ofttimes a very small man can cast a very large shadow."

"“Tell me, Bronn. If I told you to kill a babe . . . an infant girl, say, still at her mother’s breast . . . would you do it? Without question?” “Without question? No.” The sellsword rubbed thumb and forefinger together. “I'd ask how much.”"

"The morning air was dark with the smoke of burning gods."

"When a pirate grows rich enough, they make him a prince."

"This world is twisted beyond hope, when lowborn smugglers must vouch for the honor of kings"

"So many kings, my tongue grows weary of the word."

"What good is this, I ask you? He who hurries through life hurries to his grave."

"“I do not know this Lord of Light,” Davos admitted, “but I knew the gods we burned this morning. The Smith has kept my ships safe, while the Mother has given me seven strong sons.” “Your wife has given you seven strong sons. Do you pray to her? It was wood we burned this morning.”"

"I stopped believing in gods the day I saw the Windproud break up across the bay. Any gods so monstrous as to drown my mother and father would never have my worship, I vowed. In King’s Landing, the High Septon would prattle at me of how all justice and goodness flowed from the Seven, but all I ever saw of either was made by men."

"A frightened man is a beaten man"

"When you have seen your kings shit over the rail and turn green in a storm, it was hard to bend the knee and pretend they were gods."

"A crown was worth a little mud and horseshit on his breeches, he supposed."

"The Iron Islands lived in the past; the present was too hard and bitter to be borne."

"A man agrees with god as a raindrop with the storm."

"Boys believe nothing can hurt them, his doubt whispered. Grown men know better."

"Bad enough when the dead come walking. Now the Old Bear wants them talking as well! ... The dead are likely dull fellows, full of tedious complaints—the ground’s too cold, my gravestone should be larger, why does he get more worms than I do..."

"If it's softer than ground and has a roof over it, I call it a bed."

"She got dirt in her mouth but she didn't care, the taste was fine, the taste was mud and water and worms and life."

"When you tear out a man's tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you're only telling the world that you fear what he might say."

"The smallfolk are always eager to believe the worst of their lords."

"The smiths are in your audience chamber, waiting your pleasure", he said as they crossed the ward. "Waiting my pleasure. I like the ring of that, Bronn. You almost sound like a proper courtier. Next you'll be kneeling." "Fuck you, dwarf." "That's Shae's task."

"Let us not get into the habit of names. Names are dangerous."

"If I could pray with my cock I'd be a lot more religious."

"It is one thing to deceive a king, and quite another to hide from the cricket in the rushes and the little bird in the chimney."

"If there is food I eat it, in case there is none on the morrow."

"A man like Petyr Baelish, who had a gift for rubbing two golden dragons together to make a third, was invaluable to his Hand."

"The longer he lived, the more Tyrion realized that nothing was simple and little was true."

"Is a secret still a secret if everyone knows it?"

"The talk at the walls had all been of troubles in the city of late. People were crowding in, running from the war, and many had no way to live save robbing and killing each other."

"There was something wild about a godswood; even here, in the heart of the castle in the heart of the city, you could feel the old gods watching with a thousand eyes."

"Why do you let people call you a dog? You won't let anyone call you a knight." "I like dogs better than knights ... A hound will die for you, but never lie to you."

"Paint stripes on a toad, he does not become a tiger."

"If it could burn the Lannisters had burned it; if it could die, they'd killed it."

"Part of her wanted to be a swan. The other part wanted to eat one. She had broken her fast on some acorn paste and a handful of bugs. Bugs weren't so bad when you got used to them. Worms were worse, but not so bad as the pain in your belly from days without food."

"Knights and lordlings, they take each other captive and pay ransoms, but they don't care if the likes of you yield or not."

"That was the way of war. The smallfolk were slaughtered, while the highborn were held for ransom."

"He watched them as from a distance, as if he still sat in the window of his bedchamber looking down on the yard below, seeing everything yet a part of nothing."

"Dawn came cruel, a dagger of light."

"One day she would allow herself to be less than strong. But it could not be today."

"When there are no battles to fight, men start to think of hearth and harvest."

"Pity filled Catelyn's heart. Is there any creature on earth as unfortunate as an ugly woman?"

"King is only a word, but fealty, loyalty, service ... those I must have."

"Have you noticed that the rain stopped the instant I had a roof above me? It will start again now that I'm back out. Gods and dogs alike delight to piss on me."

"That's my cursed luck. I kill the poor."

"... [W]hen you've known me longer, you'll learn that I mean everything I say." "Even the lies?" "Especially the lies."

"She thought she had known what it meant to be afraid, but she learned better in the storehouse beside the Gods Eye."

"Arya watched them die and said nothing. What good did it do you to be brave? ... There were no brave people on that march, only scared and hungry ones."

"Every night Arya would say their names. "Ser Gregor," she'd whisper to her stone pillow. "Dunsen, Polliver, Chiswyck, Raff the Sweetling, The Tickler and The Hound. Ser Amory, Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, King Joffrey, Queen Cersei." Back in Winterfell, Arya had prayed with her mother in the setp and with her father in the godswood, but there were no gods on the road to Harrenhal, and the names were the only prayer she cared to remember."

"The middle wall, forty feet high, was grey granite alive with scenes of war: the clash of sword and shield and spear, arrows in flight, heroes at battle and babes being butchered, pyres of the dead. The innermost wall was fifty feet of black marble, with carvings that made Dany blush until she told herself that she was being a fool. She was no maid; if she could look on the grey wall’s scenes of slaughter, why should she avert her eyes from the sight of men and women giving pleasure to one another?"

"I was a boy, and what boy does not wish to find secret powers hidden in himself?"