Pleasing one king is difficult enough. Pleasing two is hardly possible.
No one looked at him. No one spoke to him. No one paid him any mind. He was surrounded by men sworn to House Lannister, a vast host twenty thousand strong, and yet he was alone.
Weddings have become more perilous than battles, it would seem.
Such are the vicissitudes of life,” Tuf said, “that each of us must sometimes accept that which he does not like.
But what does it matter, for all men must die.
If he did not betray her, he would master her. She did not know which of those she feared the most.
The crow commands, the captive must obey.
When all the trees have been cut down and all the animals have been hunted to extinction, when all the waters are polluted and the air is unsafe to breathe, only then will you discover you cannot eat money.
Once a turncloak, ever a turncloak,” Lord Cregan said. “You rose up in rebellion against your lawful queen and helped drive her from this city to her death, raised up your own squire in her place, then abandoned him to save your worthless hide. The realm will be a better place without you.” When Ser Perkin protested that he had been pardoned for those crimes, Lord Stark replied, “Not by me.
Faced with a choice between “a dead father, cold in the ground, and a living woman, warm and willing in his arms, the boy showed surprising sense for one so highborn, and chose love over honor,” says Mushroom.
Wylla.” Lord Wyman smiled. “Did you see how brave she was? Even when I threatened to have her tongue out, she reminded me of the debt White Harbor owes to the Starks of Winterfell, a debt that can never be repaid. Wylla spoke from the heart, as did Lady Leona. Forgive her if you can, my lord. She is a foolish, frightened woman, and Wylis is her life. Not every man has it in him to be Prince Aemon the Dragonknight or Symeon Star-Eyes, and not every woman can be as brave as my Wylla.
Queen Visenya put a sword into her son’s hand when he was three. Supposedly the first thing he did with the blade was butcher one of the castle cats.
The Iron Throne was forged with fire and steel and terror, it is said, but once the throne had cooled, it became the seat of justice for all Westeros.
A thing without a name has no substance. If it existed, it would have a name. And, likewise, if you give a thing a name, somewhere, on some level, the thing named will exist, will come to be.
Money buys a man’s silence for a time. A bolt in the heart buys it forever.
Stannis Baratheon turned away from the window, and the ghosts who moved upon the southern sea.
Be brave, she told herself. Be brave, like a lady in a song.
Oh, my sweet summer child,” Old Nan said quietly, “what do you know of fear? Fear is for the winter, my little lord, when the snows fall a hundred feet deep and the ice wind comes howling out of the north. Fear is for the long night, when the sun hides its face for years at a time, and little children are born and live and die all in darkness while the direwolves grow gaunt and hungry, and the white walkers move through the woods.
The man who fears losing has already lost. Fear cuts deeper than swords. Never do what they expect.
All the grief has been burned out of me.
Darkness, Dany thought. The terrible darkness sweeping up behind to devour her. If she looked back she was lost.