George R.R. Martin

“The light that brings the dawn.”

“Summer is the time for squabbles. In winter, we must protect one another, keep each other warm, share our strengths.”

“He cries behind his wall, I think, and no one knows, not even he. And no one will ever know, and in the end he’ll always be alone in smiling pain.”

“Hard hands and no sense of humor makes for a bad marriage.”

“The strongest trees are rooted in the dark places of the earth. Darkness will be your cloak, your shield, your mother's milk. Darkness will make you strong.”

“Oh yes, it hurts at times to be alone among the stars. But it hurts a lot more to be alone at a party. A lot more.”

“Some woman, no doubt. Most of them are." He favored Jon with a rueful grin. "Remember this, boy. All dwarfs are bastards, yet not all bastards need be dwarfs." And with that he turned and sauntered back into the feast, whistling a tune. When he opened the door, the light from within threw his shadow clear across the yard, and for just a moment Tyrion Lannister stood tall as a king.”

“He wished he could relieve himself of his doubts and guilts half as easily.”

“Can I dwell on what I scarce remember? I held a castle on the Marches once, and there was a woman I was pledged to marry, but I could not find that castle today, nor tell you the color of that woman's hair. Who knighted me, old friend? What were my favorite foods? It all fades. Sometimes I think I was born on the bloody grass in that grove of ash, with the taste of fire in my mouth and a hole in my chest. Are you my mother, Thoros?”

“You ought to be blowing me kisses, wench.”

“You may be as different as the sun and the moon, but the same blood flows through both your hearts. You need her, as she needs you...”

“One King means peace.”

“Power resides where men believe it resides. A very small man can cast a very large shadow.”

“Perhaps I cannot make my people good, she told herself, but I should at least try to make them a little less bad.”

“It all goes back and back," Tyrion thought, "to our mothers and fathers and theirs before them. We are puppets dancing on the strings of those who came before us, and one day our own children will take up our strings and dance in our steads.”

“You are an honest and honorable man, Lord Eddard. Ofttimes I forget that. I have met so few of them in my life.” He glanced around the cell. “When I see what honesty and honor have won you, I understand why.”

“I have some devotional books you can look over. Learn to quote from them. Nothing discourages unwanted questions as much as a flow of pious bleating.(Petyr Baelish to Sansa Stark)”

“No,” said Bran. “I haven’t. And if I have it doesn’t matter. Sometimes Old Nan would tell the same story she’d told before, but we never minded, if it was a good story. Old stories are like old friends, she used to say. You have to visit them from time to time.”

“There's no shame in fear, my father told me, what matters is how we face it.”

“A book can be as dangerous as a sword in the right hands, said Haldon.”