Never trust a cook, my lord. They’ll prune you when you least expect it.
The Tickler and the Hound. Ser Gregor, Ser Amory, Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, King Joffrey, Queen Cersei.
Davos enjoyed a good story as well as any man, but Stannis had not named him Hand for his enjoyment, he felt. His first duty was to help his king rule, and for that he must needs understand the words the ravens brought. The best way to learn a thing was to do it, he had found; sails or scrolls, it made no matter.
Victory was secondary to the men of these winter armies; they marched for glory, adventure, plunder, and most of all, a worthy end.
Shy maids are my favorite sort. Aside from wanton ones.
I sailed up to the cold stars but they were cold no longer, and I grew bigger and bigger until I was the stars and they were me, and I was Union, and for a single solitary glittering instant I was the universe.
I’ll spend my first year on the Wall emptying chamber pots if I keep Uncle Ben waiting any longer.
Men with comfortable seats were more inclined to listen, Maester Aemon had once told him; standing men were more inclined to shout.
King Jaehaerys once told me that madness and greatness are two sides of the same coin.
Cities were like women, he insisted; each one had its own unique scent.
Beauty can be treacherous.
Each of the conquered kingdoms had its own laws and traditions. King Aegon did little to interfere with those. He allowed his lords to continue to rule much as they always had, with all the same powers and prerogatives. The laws of inheritance and succession remained unchanged, the existing feudal structures were confirmed, lords both great and small retained the power of pit and gallows on their own land, and the privilege of the first night wherever that custom had formerly prevailed.
There is a difference between fear and caution.
Laws should be made of iron, not of pudding.
The smells were a song around him, a song that filled the good green world.
The old High Septon told my father that king’s laws are one thing and the laws of the gods another, the boy said stubbornly. Trueborn children are made in a marriage bed and blessed by the Father and the Mother, but bastards are born of lust and weakness, he said.
Dany nibbled at an onion and reflected ruefully on the faithlessness of men.
Death comes out of the dragon’s mouth,” Septon Barth had written in his Unnatural History, “but death does not go in that way.
Still, I take your point. I have a deal to learn about being a dwarf. Perhaps you will be good enough to teach me, in between the jousting and the pig-riding.
I like simple things well-done and have no time to philosophize.