Top 822 Quotes & Sayings by George R. R. Martin - Page 5

Some battles are won with swords and spears, others with quills and ravens.

You promised him vengeance as well.' 'I promised him justice.' 'Call it what you will. It still comes down to blood." - Tywin & Tyrion

Some allies are more dangerous than enemies.

Give me priests who are fat and corrupt and cynical,(...) the sort who like to sit on soft satin cushions, nibble sweetmeats, and diddle little boys. It's the ones who believe in gods who make the trouble. (Tyrion)

We know truth for the cruel instrument it is. Beauty is infinitely preferable to truth.

And when you have it, what then? Some secrets are safer kept hidden. Some secrets are too dangerous to share, even with those you love and trust.

Historical fiction is not history. You're blending real events and actual historical personages with characters of your own creation.

There are two kinds of writers. There are architects and gardeners. The architects do blueprints before they drive the first nail. The gardeners just dig a hole and plant the seed and see what comes up.

A crown should not sit easy on the head.

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

In the game of thrones, even the humblest pieces can have wills of their own. Sometimes they refuse to make the moves you've planned for them.

On the gallows tree, all men are brothers.

The Lord of Light in his wisdom made us male and female, two parts of a greater whole. In our joining there is power. Power to make life. Power to make light. Power to cast shadows.

Sometimes the best way to baffle them is to make moves that have no purpose, or even seem to work against you

Half-truths are worth more than outright lies.

I need to sleep, but fear to dream.

Trust is earned. Like gold.

When a pirate grows rich enough, they make him a prince.

No one will be alive by the last book. In fact, they all die in the fifth. The sixth book will be just a thousand-page description of snow blowing across the graves.

A hedge knight must hold tight to his pride. Without it, he was no more than a sellsword

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

I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off.

Know the men who follow you and let them know you. Don't ask your men to die for a stranger.

Not all men were meant to dance with dragons.

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

The girl had hoped for fog, but the gods ignored her prayers as gods so often did.

The sea is never weary. I must be as tireless.

We were king’s men, knights, and heroes . . . but some knights are dark and full of terror, my lady. War makes monsters of us all.” “Are you saying you are monsters?” “I am saying we are human. You are not the only one with wounds, Lady Brienne

Fire consumes, but cold preserves.

Politicians were mostly people who'd had too little morals and ethics to stay lawyers.

In the world as I have seen it, no man grows rich by kindness.

Sins may be forgiven. Crimes require punishment.

She could not bear to look at him just now. If she did, she might well slap him again. Or cry. Or kiss him. And never know which was right and which was wrong and which was madness.

He had found over the years that silence sometimes yielded more than questions. And so it was this time.

That was the way of this cold world, where men fished the sea and dug in the ground and died, whilst women brought forth short-lived children from beds of blood and pain.

Old stories are like old friends, she used to say. You have to visit them from time to time.

When your enemies defy you, you must serve them steel and fire. When they go to their knees, however, you must help them back to their feet. Elsewise no man will ever bend the knee to you

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 said. “Words.” “Then give your words to Bran too.

A fair bargain leaves both sides unhappy.

- Some men think because they are afraid to do. - There is a difference between fear and caution.

In King’s Landing, there are two sorts of people. The players and the pieces… Every man’s a piece to start with, and every maid as well. Even some who think they are players." Petyr Baelish

What the King dreams, the Hand builds.

History is a wheel, for the nature of man is fundamentally unchanging. What has happened before will perforce happen again.

Why do the Gods make kings and queens if not to protect the ones who can't protect themselves?

What is dead may never die, but rises again, stronger and harder.

Art is not a democracy. People don't get to vote on how it ends.

More details, more devils.

Littlefinger: A trade envoy from Lys once observed to me that Lord Stannis must love his daughter very well, since he'd erected hundreds of statues of her all along the walls of Dragonstone. Tyrion: My lord, those are gargoyles.

He who hurries through life hurries to his grave.

Fantasy is silver and scarlet, indigo and azure, obsidian veined with gold and lapis lazuli.

Everything's better with some wine in the belly.

Sorcery is the sauce fools spoon over failure to hide the flavor of their own incompetence.

All these kings would do a deal better if they would put down their swords and listen to their mothers.

Contempt, thought Tyrion, the universal tongue.

Tears aren't a woman's only weapon.

No man should live longer than his teeth.

All men lie when they are afraid. Some tell many lies, some but a few. Some have only one great lie they tell so often that they almost come to believe it... though some small part of them will always know that it is still a lie, and that will show upon their faces. (a servant in the House of Black and White)

If? The word is when.

I rose too high, loved too hard, dared too much. I tried to grasp a star, overreached, and fell.

Reading. That was the sport I was good at.