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

by George R.R. Martin

“Let me give you some counsel, bastard,” Lannister said. “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.”

“Speaking for the grotesques,” he said, “I beg to differ. Death is so terribly final, while life is full of possibilities.”

“Different roads sometimes lead to the same castle. Who knows?”

I have a realistic grasp of my own strengths and weaknesses. My mind is my weapon. My brother has his sword, King Robert has his warhammer, and I have my mind … and a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.”

The Wall was like that. Sometimes he could almost forget that it was there, the way you forgot about the sky or the earth underfoot, but there were other times when it seemed as if there was nothing else in the world.

When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives. Summer is the time for squabbles. In winter, we must protect one another, keep each other warm, share our strengths. So if you must hate, Arya, hate those who would truly do us harm.

North or south, they sing no songs for spiders.”

Let them mock, Bran thought. No one mocked him in his bedchamber, but he would not live his life in bed.

Lord Tywin did not believe in half measures.

“So they will not love,” the old man answered, “for love is the bane of honor, the death of duty.”