A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1)

by George R.R. Martin

“Can a man still be brave if he’s afraid?” “That is the only time a man can be brave,” his father told him.

“I swear to you, sitting a throne is a thousand times harder than winning one.

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

Give me honorable enemies rather than ambitious ones, and I’ll sleep more easily by night.”

Death is so terribly final, while life is full of possibilities.”

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

why is it that when one man builds a wall, the next man immediately needs to know what’s on the other side?”

Let them see that their words can cut you, and you’ll never be free of the mockery. If they want to give you a name, take it, make it your own. Then they can’t hurt you with it anymore.”

he smelled as foul and sweet as flowers on a grave.

What an expression !

Her father used to say that a lord needed to eat with his men, if he hoped to keep them. “Know the men who follow you,” she heard him tell Robb once, “and let them know you. Don’t ask your men to die for a stranger.”

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

a commander needs a good battlefield voice,

Black and white and grey, all the shades of truth.