A Dance with Dragons (A Song of Ice and Fire, #5)

by George R.R. Martin

“Give me priests who are fat and corrupt and cynical,” he told Haldon, “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.”

It was never wise for a ruler to eschew the trappings of power, for power itself flows in no small measure from such trappings.

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies,” said Jojen. “The man who never reads lives only one.

Men live their lives trapped in an eternal present, between the mists of memory and the sea of shadow that is all we know of the days to come.

You could make a poultice out of mud to cool a fever. You could plant seeds in mud and grow a crop to feed your children. Mud would nourish you, where fire would only consume you, but fools and children and young girls would choose fire every time.