Top 822 Quotes & Sayings by George R. R. Martin - Page 2

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.

When the writing is going really well, whole days and weeks go by, and I suddenly realise I have all these unpaid bills and, my God, I haven't unpacked, and the suitcase has been sitting there for three weeks.

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 grew up with four T.V. channels. If you missed a show, you missed it. You gotta wait a week for the next one. I'd mail-order books: take a quarter, get an envelope, send off for it and wait until it arrived. I grew up waiting for things.

I've been many kinds of writers in my career: novelist; tele-playwright; short story writer. As a high-school student, I wrote amateur pieces for fanzines, and I've written for Hollywood.

I had an encyclopedia with a list of flags in the back, so I would look at all these flags of China and Liberia and England and Denmark and whatever, and I learned all the different flags, and I tried to imagine what it would be like to be voyaging on some of these ships.

Over the years, more than one reviewer has described my fantasy series, 'A Song of Ice and Fire', as historical fiction about history that never happened, flavoured with a dash of sorcery and spiced with dragons. I take that as a compliment.

If you go all the way back, I've always written science-fiction, I've always written fantasy, I've always written horror stories and monster stories, right from the beginning of my career. I've always moved back and forth between the genres. I don't really recognise that there's a significant difference between them in some senses.

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.

The vast majority of writers out there, they finish their books, and no one cares whether their book is late or ever comes out at all. And then it comes out, and two reviews are published, and it sells 12 copies.

I watch NFL football on Sundays. I enjoy gaming with friends, meaning role-playing games; I still enjoy going to conventions and traveling.

There was part of me that wanted to see the world and travel to distant places, but I could only do it in my imagination, so I read ferociously and imagined things.

I've never been a fast writer.

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

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

Whenever I switch from one character to another, there's always a few days where I really struggle because I'm changing voices and I'm changing ways of looking at the world. I'm not just flicking a switch; it's harder process than that.

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

'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.

The prejudice is still there, but it's breaking down. You have writers like Michael Chabon and The Yiddish Policemen's Union. He's a writer who's determined to break down genre barriers. He's done amazing things.

I think that, in all of my time, I got just one fan letter, from an NFL fullback named Darian Barnes. NFL players might not have enough time for my books.

A lot of writing takes place in the subconscious, and it's bound to have an effect.

I had this desire to see the world. I couldn't see any of it, but I saw it in my imagination, and that's why I always read books, and I could go to Mars or Middle Earth or the Hyborian age.

The cable makers are the ones who are willing to take risks and do something original and push the envelope some.

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.

Many writers will get a contract by selling chapters and outlines or something like that. I wrote the entire novel, and when it was all finished, I would give it to my agent and say, 'Well, here's a novel; sell it if you can.' And they would do that, and it was good because I never had anyone looking over my shoulder.

Unfortunately in television, for whatever reason, fantasy became thought of as a kids' genre.

I wanted to write a big novel, something epic in scale.

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

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.

One of the great things about books is you can afford to do anything.

I spent a whole summer working on what proved to be 'A Game of Thrones'.

I love fantasy. I grew up reading fantasy.

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

It's really irritating when you open a book, and 10 pages into it you know that the hero you met on page one or two is gonna come through unscathed, because he's the hero. This is completely unreal, and I don't like it.

The greatest fools are ofttimes more clever than the men who laugh at them.

We all need to be mocked from time to time, lest we take ourselves too seriously.

In a room sit three great men, a king, a priest, and a rich man with his gold. Between them stands a sellsword, a little man of common birth and no great mind. Each of the great ones bids him slay the other two. ‘Do it,’ says the king, ‘for I am your lawful ruler.’ ‘Do it,’ says the priest, ‘for I command you in the names of the gods.’ ‘Do it,’ says the rich man, ‘and all this gold shall be yours.’ So tell me—who lives and who dies?

A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies.

Laughter is poison to fear.

A lion doesn't concern itself with the opinion of sheep.

The unseen enemy is always the most fearsome.

But what a man can do and what a man will do are two different things, he knew.

Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armour yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.

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

A mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.

People often claim to hunger for truth, but seldom like the taste when it's served up.

Control your generosity when dealing with a chronic borrower.

O medo corta mais profundamente do que as espadas.

Fear cuts deeper than swords.

The man who fears losing has already lost.

I don't want to be a queen. I want to be the queen.

Once you’ve accepted your flaws, no one can use them against you.

The world is full of cravens who pretended to be heroes.

In real life, the hardest aspect of the battle between good and evil is determining which is which.

The true horrors of human history derive not from orcs and Dark Lords, but from ourselves.

Some old wounds never truly heal, and bleed again at the slightest word.

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 brightest flame casts the darkest shadow.

My own heroes are the dreamers, those men and women who tried to make the world a better place than when they found it, whether in small ways or great ones. Some succeeded, some failed, most had mixed results... but it is the effort that's heroic, as I see it. Win or lose, I admire those who fight the good fight.