A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, #2)

by George R.R. Martin

Imagine old gnarled oaks and tall pines, flowering thorn bushes, grey stones bearded with moss, little creeks running icy down steep hillsides.

“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 longer he lived, the more Tyrion realized that nothing was simple and little was true.

A hound will die for you, but never lie to you.

There were great joints of aurochs roasted with leeks, venison pies chunky with carrots, bacon, and mushrooms, mutton chops sauced in honey and cloves, savory duck, peppered boar, goose, skewers of pigeon and capon, beef-and-barley stew, cold fruit soup. Lord Wyman had brought twenty casks of fish from White Harbor packed in salt and seaweed; whitefish and winkles, crabs and mussels, clams, herring, cod, salmon, lobster and lampreys. There was black bread and honeycakes and oaten biscuits, there were turnips and peas and beets, beans and squash and huge red onions, there were baked apples and berry tarts and pears poached in strongwine. Wheels of white cheese were set at every table, above and below the salt, and flagons of hot spice wine and chilled autumn ale were passed up and down the tables.

When there are no battles to fight, men start to think of hearth and harvest, father told me that. Even my northmen grow restless.”

they began with pears poached in wine, and went on to tiny savory fish rolled in salt and cooked crisp, and capons stuffed with onions and mushrooms. There were great loaves of brown bread, mounds of turnips and sweetcorn and peas, immense hams and roast geese and trenchers dripping full of venison stewed with beer and barley. For the sweet, Lord Caswell’s servants brought down trays of pastries from his castle kitchens, cream swans and spun-sugar unicorns, lemon cakes in the shape of roses, spiced honey biscuits and blackberry tarts, apple crisps and wheels of buttery cheese.

They are boys drunk on song and story, and like all boys, they think themselves immortal.

The pale pink light of dawn sparkled on branch and leaf and stone. Every blade of grass was carved from emerald, every drip of water turned to diamond. Flowers and mushrooms alike wore coats of glass. Even the mud puddles had a bright brown sheen. Through the shimmering greenery, the black tents of his brothers were encased in a fine glaze of ice.

You each name yourself king, yet the kingdom bleeds, and no one lifts a sword to defend it but my son.”

“I am not without mercy,” thundered he who was notoriously without mercy.

have it in me to be a great king, strong yet generous, clever, just, diligent, loyal to my friends and terrible to my enemies, yet capable of forgiveness, patient—” “—humble?” Catelyn supplied.

She told herself that there had been no time, but the truth was that food had lost its savor in a world without Ned. When they took his head off, they killed me too.

The stew was thick with barley, carrot, and onion, with here and there a ragged shred of salt beef, softened in the cooking.

“As the gods will it. Bring on your storm, my lord—and recall, if you do, the name of this castle.”

The flames do not lie, Davos.” Yet they require me to make them true, he thought.

The unseen enemy is always the most fearsome.

She liked the sharp smell of the pines and sentinels, the feel of grass and dirt between her toes, and the sound the wind made in the leaves. A slow little stream meandered through the wood, and there was one spot where it had eaten the ground away beneath a deadfall.

In a throne above them sat a dead man with the head of a wolf. He wore an iron crown and held a leg of lamb in one hand as a king might hold a sceptre, and his eyes followed Dany with mute appeal.

three fires must you light … one for life and one for death and one to love

He remembered their godswood; the tall sentinels armored in their grey-green needles, the great oaks, the hawthorn and ash and soldier pines, and at the center the heart tree standing like some pale giant frozen in time. He could almost smell the place, earthy and brooding, the smell of centuries, and he remembered how dark the wood had been even by day.

There was porridge, honey, milk, boiled eggs, and crisp fried fish.

“When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives,”

There was hot bread and fresh-churned butter, a thick beef soup, capon and carrots, and peaches in honey.

the platter of oatcakes, honey, and blood sausage

The stone is strong, Bran told himself, the roots of the trees go deep, and under the ground the Kings of Winter sit their thrones. So long as those remained, Winterfell remained. It was not dead, just broken.