George R. R. Martin quotes:

+1
Share
Pin
Like
Send
Share
  • I watch NFL football on Sundays. I enjoy gaming with friends, meaning role-playing games; I still enjoy going to conventions and traveling.

  • Whether you're a history buff or a fantasy fan, Druon's epic will keep you turning pages. This was the original game of thrones. If you like 'A Song of Ice and Fire', you will love 'The Accursed Kings'.

  • 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.

  • If you're going to write about war, which my books are about, wars are nasty things. I think it's sort of a cheap, easy way out to write a war story in which no one ultimately dies.

  • My characters who come back from death are worse for wear. In some ways, they're not even the same characters anymore. The body may be moving, but some aspect of the spirit is changed or transformed, and they've lost something.

  • The odd thing about being a writer is you do tend to lose yourself in your books. Sometimes it seems like real life is flickering by and you're hardly a part of it. You remember the events in your books better than you remember the events that actually took place when you were writing them.

  • I believe that a writer learns from every story he writes, and when you try different things, you learn different lessons. Working with other writers, as in Hollywood or in a shared world series, will also strengthen your skills, by exposing you to new ways of seeing the work, and different approaches to certain creative challenges.

  • Believe it or not, I worked four summers in college as a sports writer covering baseball for a parks and rec department in Bayonne, N.J.

  • 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.

  • I have files, I have computer files and, you know, files on paper. But most of it is really in my head. So God help me if anything ever happens to my head!

  • I find religion and spirituality fascinating. I would like to believe this isn't the end and there's something more, but I can't convince the rational part of me that that makes any sense whatsoever.

  • I don't know if I have any particular views about women in positions of power, though I do think it's more difficult for women, particularly in a Medieval setting. They have the additional problem that they're a woman and people don't want them in a position of power in an essentially patriarchal society.

  • I think in television and film, it's not usually the child's point of view. It's the story of an adult. If there's a child in a drama or an action-adventure movie, they're someone who needs to be saved, someone who needs to be protected, or if they're killed, someone who needs to be avenged. Their character doesn't matter much.

  • As Faulkner says, all of us have the capacity in us for great good and for great evil, for love but also for hate. I wanted to write those kinds of complex character in a fantasy, and not just have all the good people get together to fight the bad guy.

  • I worked out of Hollywood for 10 years and I had my heart broken half a dozen times, so I know all the things that can go wrong.

  • I have done a lot of work in Hollywood myself. I worked in television for roughly 10 years, from the mid-'80s to mid-'90s. And I was on staff at a couple of shows. I did some feature films, including originals and adaptations.

  • You always try to do your own thing. One of the things I wanted to do was to write a book that combines some of the best traits of contemporary fantasy with some of the traits of the historical novel.

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

  • Fiction is lies; we're writing about people who never existed and events that never happened when we write fiction, whether its science fiction or fantasy or western mystery stories or so-called literary stories. All those things are essentially untrue. But it has to have a truth at the core of it.

  • I have always regarded historical fiction and fantasy as sisters under the skin, two genres separated at birth.

  • I do get invitations all of the time to play actual fantasy football, by the way, but I get the feeling that I'd like it too much. I have enough demands on my time. My fans would kill me.

  • 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.

  • I prefer to work with grey characters rather than black and white.

  • There are writers, and I know some of them, who are very disciplined. Who write, like, four pages a day, every day. And it doesn't matter if their dog got run over by a car that day, or they won the Irish sweepstakes. I'm not one of those writers.

  • I have some other novels I want to write. I have a lot of short stories - I love the short story.

  • You want people to be eager for your book; the downside is when the people forget the series even exists.

  • If I was a soldier going to war, I'd be pretty scared the night before a battle. It's a scary thing. And I want my readers to feel that fear as they turn the page.

  • I've written some standalone novels, but a book series allows fans in. There's much more intense involvement.

  • I have a huge emotional attachment to characters I've created, especially the viewpoint characters.

  • There are some examples of medieval kings who were terrible human beings but were nevertheless good kings.

  • I work for two years on a book and it comes out and two days later I've got my first e-mail: When is the next one coming out?

  • I've never been good with deadlines. My early novels, I wrote by myself. No one knew I was writing a novel; I didn't have a contract.

  • Start with short stories. After all, if you were taking up rock climbing, you wouldn't start with Mount Everest. So if you're starting fantasy, don't start with a nine-book series.

  • 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.

  • An awful lot of fantasy, and even some great fantasy, falls into the mistake of assuming that a good man will be a good king, that all that is necessary is to be a decent human being and when you're king everything will go swimmingly.

  • I have many books that I want to write; I'd like to think that I'll be around for another 20 years or so and write another dozen novels, probably some sort of imaginative literature... Never again another seven-volume saga.

  • There is magic in my universe, but it's pretty low magic compared to other fantasies.

  • Nobody is a villain in their own story. We're all the heroes of our own stories.

  • I write from this tight third-person viewpoint, where each chapter is seen through the eyes of one individual character. When I'm writing that character, I become that character and identify with that character.

  • I love fantasy. I grew up reading fantasy.

  • When I'm writing from a character's viewpoint, in essence I become that character; I share their thoughts, I see the world through their eyes and try to feel everything they feel.

  • I can see a scene in my head, and when I try to get it down in words on paper, the words are clunky; the scene is not coming across right. So frustrating. And there are days where it keeps flowing. Open the floodgates, and there it is. Pages and pages coming. Where the hell does this all come from? I don't know.

  • All fiction has to have a certain amount of truth in it to be powerful.

  • I have an instinctual distrust of conventional happy endings.

  • There is a savage beast in every man, and when you hand that man a sword or spear and send him forth to war, the beast stirs.

  • The storms come and go, the waves crash overhead, the big fish eat the little fish, and I keep on paddling. (Varys)

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

  • Was there ever a war where only one side bled?

  • Even a man who had survived a hundred battle can break in his hundred-and-first.

  • Terrible times breed terrible things, my lord.

  • One war ends, another begins.

  • The day is won [] And yet you do not smile, boy. The living should smile, for the dead cannot.

  • There is entirely too much tut-tutting in this realm, if you ask me. All these kings would do a deal better if they put down their swords and listened to their mothers.

  • I have become a sour woman. I take no joy in meat nor mead, and song and laughter have become suspicious strangers to me. I am a creature of grief and dust and bitter longings. There is an empty place within me where my heart was once.

  • Different roads sometimes lead to the same castle.

  • It's not a career for anyone who needs or values security. It's a career for gamblers. Every time you write a book you roll the dice again.

  • A bruise is a lessonand each lesson makes us better.

  • The heart is all that matters.

  • Despite the tender mother's stomach that had afflicted her these past two moons, Dany had dined on bowls of half-clotted blood to accustom herself to the taste, and Irri made her chew strips of dried horseflesh until her jaws were aching. She had starved herself for a day and a night before the ceremony in the hopes that hunger would help her keep down the raw meat.

  • Ser Jaime?" Even in soiled pink satin and torn lace, Brienne looked more like a man in a gown than a proper woman."I am grateful, but...you were well away. Why come back?"A dozen quips came to mind, each crueler than the one before, but Jaime only shrugged"I dreamed of you," he said.

  • En la vida real, los monstruos vencen.

  • Fantasy is silver and scarlet, indigo and azure, obsidian veined with gold and lapis lazuli. Reality is plywood and plastic, done up in mud brown and olive drab. Fantasy tastes of habaneros and honey, cinnamon and cloves, rare red meat and wines as sweet as summer. Reality is beans and tofu, and ashes at the end.

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

  • The rat squealed as he bit into it, squirming wildly in his hands, frantic to escape."

  • Once there were two moons in the sky, but one wandered too close to the sun and cracked from the heat. A thousand thousand dragons poured forth, and drank the fire of the sun. That is why dragons breathe flame. One day the other moon will kiss the sun too, and then it will crack and the dragons will return."

  • The shy girl she had known at Riverrun had grown into a woman who was by turns proud, fearful, cruel, dreamy, reckless, timid, stubborn, vain, and, above all, inconstant."

  • I knew a brother drowned himself in wine once. It was a poor vintage, though, and his corpse did not improve it.""You drank the wine?""It's an awful thing to find a brother dead. You'd have need of a drink as well, Lord Snow."

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

  • Fat and awkward and frightened he might be, but Samwell Tarly was no fool. One night he visited Jon in his cellI don't know what you did," he said, "but I know you did it." He looked away shylyI've never had a friend before." "We're not friends," Jon said. He put a hand on Sam's broad shoulderWe're brothers."

  • I don't know what message to send to Bran. Help him Tyrion.""What help could I give him? I am no maester, to ease his pain. I have no spell to give him back his legs.""You gave me help when I needed it" Jon Snow said."I gave you nothing," Tyrion saidWords.""Then give your words to Bran too."

  • [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.

  • Madness and greatness are two sides of the same coin. Every time a new Targaryen is born, the gods toss the coin in the air and the world holds its breath to see how it will land.

  • Anyone can be killed." - Arya Stark

  • Weese," she would whisper, first of all. "Dunsen, Chiswyck, Polliver, Raff the Sweetling. The Tickler and the Hound. Ser Gregor, Ser Armory, Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, King Joffrey, Queen Cersei." - Arya Stark, A Clash of Kings

  • Swift as a deer. Quiet as a shadow. Fear cuts deeper than swords. Quick as a snake. Calm as still water.

  • He is a man of the Night's Watch, She thought, as he sang about some stupid lady throwing herself off some stupid tower because her stupid prince was dead. The lady should go kill the ones who killed her prince. Arya Stark (page 514)

  • Go Ahead, call me all the names you want," Sansa said airily. "You won't dare when I'm married to Joffrey. You'll have to bow and call me Your Grace." She shrieked as Arya flung the orange across the table. It caught her in the middle of the forehead with a wet squish and plopped down into her lap. "You have juice on your face, Your Grace ," Arya said.

  • The only time a man can be brave is when he is afraid.

  • They say night's beauties fade at dawn, and the children of wine are oft disowned in the morning light.

  • Sam loved to listen to music and make his own songs, to wear soft velvets, to play in the castle kitchen beside the cooks, drinking in the rich smells as he snitched lemon cakes and blueberry tarts. His passions were books and kittens and dancing, clumsy as he was.

  • People are going to die who don't die in the books, so even the book readers will be unhappy. So everybody better be on their toes. David and D.B. (David Benioff and D.B. Weiss co-creators of 'Game Of Thrones) are even bloodier than I am.

  • A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.

  • Ser Jaime?" Even in soiled pink satin and torn lace, Brienne looked more like a man in a gown than a proper woman."I am grateful, but...you were well away. Why come back?" A dozen quips came to mind, each crueler than the one before, but Jaime only shrugged. "I dreamed of you," he said.

  • What could he have done, one man against so many?" He could have tried, Brienne thought.

  • Words are wind, Brienne told herself. They cannot hurt you. Let them wash over you.

  • And I have a tender spot in my heart for cripples and bastards and broken things.

  • A bruise is a lesson... and each lesson makes us better.

  • Jay wondered how they'd feel the morning they all woke up and realized that somehow Camelot had turned into Mordor.

  • Laughter is poison to fear.

  • The singers make much of kings who die valiantly in battle, but your life is worth more than a song.

  • I take no joy in mead nor meat, and song and laughter have become suspicious strangers to me. I am a creature of grief and dust and bitter longings. There is an empty place within me where my heart was once.

  • For they are the knights of summer, and winter is coming.

  • Is there any creature on earth as unfortunate as an ugly woman? (wonders Lady Catelyn Stark)

  • Show me the path I must walk and do not let me stumble in the dark places that lie ahead.

  • If there are gods, why is the world so full of pain and injustice?' 'Because of men like you.

  • What was it Catelyn Stark had called them, that night at Bitterbridge? The knights of summer. And now it was autumn and they were falling like leaves...

  • Catelyn wanted to run to him, to kiss his sweet brow, to wrap him in her arms so tightly that he would never come to harm....

  • Tears aren't a woman's only weapon.

  • She never forgets a slight, real or imagined. She takes caution for cowardice and dissent for defiance. And she is greedy. Greedy for power, for honour, for love.

  • I am Cersei of House Lannister, a lion of the Rock, the rightful queen of these Seven Kingdoms, trueborn daughter of Tywin Lannister. And hair grows back.

  • Come at once. Help me. Save me. I need you as I have never needed you before. I love you, I love you, I love you. Come at once"-Cersei Lannister

  • He pushed away from her and raised his arm, forcing his stump into her face. "A Hand without a hand? A bad jape, sister. Don't ask me to rule.

  • Cersei Lannister: I shall wear this as a badge of honor. Robert Barathon: Wear it in silence or I'll honor you again.

  • Who do you think our champion will be today? Have you seen Mace Tyrell's boy? The Knight of Flowers, they call him. Now there's a son any man would be proud to own to. Last tourney, he dumped the Kingslayer on his golden rump, you ought to have seen the look on Cersei's face. I laughed till my sides hurt.

  • There are no men like me. There's only me

  • In the songs all knights are gallant, all maids are beautiful, and the sun is always shining.

  • 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.

  • And all was black and still, and black and cold, and black and dead, and black.

  • The Lord of Winterfell would always be a Stark

  • The wide world is full of people wanting help, Jon. Would that some could find the courage to help themselves. - Lord Commander Mormont

  • The ones who look the most suspicious are likely innocent. It's the ones who look innocent I need to beware.

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

  • 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.

  • Woman? Is that meant to insult me? I would return the slap, if I took you for a man. - Daenerys Targaryen

  • 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.

  • When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east," she said sadly. "When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves. When my womb quickens again, and I bear a living child. Then you will return, my sun-and-stars, and not before." -Daenerys Targaryen

  • I want to make my kingdom beautiful, to fill it with fat men and pretty maids and laughing children. I want my people to smile when they see me ride by, the way Viserys said they smiled for my father. (Daenerys)

  • Viserys sold my mother's crown, and men called him a beggar. I shall keep this one, so men will call me a queen. (Daenerys)

  • Is it so far from madness to wisdom?" - Daenerys Targaryen

  • As Daenerys Targaryen rose to her feet, her black hissed, pale smoke venting from its mouth and nostrils. The other two pulled away from her breasts and added their voices to the call, translucent wings unfolding and stirring the air, and for the first time in hundreds of years, the night came alive with the music of dragons.

+1
Share
Pin
Like
Send
Share