A Feast For Crows (A Song of Ice and Fire, #4)

by George R.R. Martin

The blessing was an empty ritual, she knew, but rituals and ceremonies had power in the eyes of the ignorant.

“Faith is like porridge. Better with milk and honey.”

“You know the best thing about heroes, Jaime? They all die young and leave more women for the rest of us.”

She must be fair indeed, to have been worth a kingdom.

“No one ever looked for a girl,” he said. “It was a prince that was promised, not a princess. Rhaegar, I thought … the smoke was from the fire that devoured Summerhall on the day of his birth, the salt from the tears shed for those who died. He shared my belief when he was young, but later he became persuaded that it was his own son who fulfilled the prophecy, for a comet had been seen above King’s Landing on the night Aegon was conceived, and Rhaegar was certain the bleeding star had to be a comet. What fools we were, who thought ourselves so wise! The error crept in from the translation. Dragons are neither male nor female, Barth saw the truth of that, but now one and now the other, as changeable as flame. The language misled us all for a thousand years. Daenerys is the one, born amidst salt and smoke. The dragons prove it.” Just talking of her seemed to make him stronger. “I must go to her. I must. Would that I was even ten years younger.”

He said the sphinx was the riddle, not the riddler, whatever that meant.

Harry potter?

“Dalla brought him forth during battle, as the swords sang all around her. That should be his name. Aemon Battleborn. Aemon Steelsong.”

I have always been a craven, but I was never an oathbreaker till now.

“Gold shall be their crowns and gold their shrouds,” she said. “And when your tears have drowned you, the valonqar shall wrap his hands about your pale white throat and choke the life from you.”

Only bones and rags remained below his knees … along with one well-chewed shoe, half-covered by mud and mold.

“I’m the queen o’ whores.” No, Jaime thought, my sweet sister holds that title too.

together, learned to ride together, learned to dance

“If you would wed, wed,” the Red Viper had told his own daughters. “If not, take your pleasure where you find it. There’s little enough of it in this world. Choose well, though. If you saddle yourself with a fool or a brute, don’t look to me to rid you of him. I gave you the tools to do that for yourself.”

Valor is a poor substitute for numbers.

She narrowed her eyes. “What is our heart’s desire?” “Vengeance.” His voice was soft, as if he were afraid that someone might be listening. “Justice.” Prince Doran pressed the onyx dragon into her palm with his swollen, gouty fingers, and whispered, “Fire and blood.”

there was no shame in being afraid, only in showing your fear.

it is a good thing that I thrive on chaos. What little peace and order the five kings left us will not long survive the three queens, I fear.”

So those are your gifts from me, my sweet Sansa … Harry, the Eyrie, and Winterfell. That’s worth another kiss now, don’t you think?”

some knights are dark and full of terror, my lady.

“Some other time,” said Jaime. “Do you have a name?” “Tom of Sevenstreams, if it please my lord.” The singer doffed his hat. “Most call me Tom o’ Sevens, though.” “Sing sweetly, Tom o’ Sevens.”

“An acolyte. Alleras, by some called Sphinx.” The name gave Sam a jolt. “The sphinx is the riddle, not the riddler,”

with one of these glass candles. They could enter a man’s dreams and give him visions, and speak to one another half a world apart, seated before their candles.

Gorghan of Old Ghis once wrote that a prophecy is like a treacherous woman. She takes your member in her mouth, and you moan with the pleasure of it and think, how sweet, how fine, how good this is … and then her teeth snap shut and your moans turn to screams.