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

by George R.R. Martin

“Now spit out your business and waddle away, Imp.”

but a Lannister should have a Lannister escort,”

Oh, deftly done.”

Though I do not relish being played for a fool.

“A Stone Crow’s axe is always sharp, and Shagga’s axes are sharpest of all. Once I cut off a man’s head, but he did not know it until he tried to brush his hair. Then it fell off.”

there are things I might tell you of that eunuch that would chill your blood …” “My lady prefers my blood hot.”

“Make no mistake, for every secret the eunuch whispers in your ear, he holds seven back.

Shagga, cut off his manhood and feed it to the goats.”

Where does it begin, Pycelle?” He knew where it ended.

“A falsehood!”

“Dolf fathered warriors, not barbers.”

Fear cuts deeper than swords, Arya would tell herself, but that did not make the fear go away. It was as much a part of her days as stale bread and the blisters on her toes after a long day of walking the hard, rutted road.

her names were the only prayer she cared to remember.

Come join the ghosts, or be one.”

“My nose never lies,” he boasted. “I can smell defiance, I can smell pride, I can smell disobedience. I catch a whiff of any such stinks, you’ll answer for it. When I sniff you, all I want to smell is fear.”

“It is the center of the world, the gate between north and south, the bridge between east and west, ancient beyond memory of man and so magnificent that Saathos the Wise put out his eyes after gazing upon Qarth for the first time, because he knew that all he saw thereafter should look squalid and ugly by comparison.”

Dany took the warlock’s words well salted,

striped zorses

Lmfao

“Sweet smells are sometimes used to cover foul ones.”

Xaro swore that his home could comfortably house all of her people and their horses besides; indeed, it swallowed them.

“An honor rare as summer snows.”

the Seven Kingdoms are not going to fall into your hands like so many ripe peaches.

Sometimes he thinks of me as a child he must protect, and sometimes as a woman he would like to bed, but does he ever truly see me as his queen?

Even dragons can die.”

“Ravens can’t find Greywater Watch, no more than our enemies can.”

“Open your eye.” “They are open. Can’t you see?” “Two are open.” Jojen pointed. “One, two.” “I only have two.” “You have three. The crow gave you the third, but you will not open it.”

“With two eyes you see my face. With three you could see my heart. With two you can see that oak tree there. With three you could see the acorn the oak grew from and the stump that it will one day become. With two you see no farther than your walls. With three you would gaze south to the Summer Sea and north beyond the Wall.”

“Do you fall every night, Bran?”

“Part of you is Summer, and part of Summer is you. You know that, Bran.”

“A maester forges his chain in the Citadel of Oldtown. It’s a chain because you swear to serve, and it’s made of different metals because you serve the realm and the realm has different sorts of people. Every time you learn something you get another link. Black iron is for ravenry, silver for healing, gold for sums and numbers. I don’t remember them all.”

So long as there was magic, anything could happen. Ghosts could walk, trees could talk, and broken boys could grow up to be knights.

Doubtless he meant to sound threatening, but that absurd wisp of a mustache ruined the effect.

Tell me—did Cersei have you knighted before or after she took you into her bed?”

“Please. Have you given any thought to what Joffrey will do when I tell him you murdered his father to bed his mother?”

he told me to obey her in everything.” “Did he tell you to fuck her too?”

even a poor copy of Jaime is sweeter than an empty bed, I suppose.

“Save it for Joffrey. He likes a good beg.”

If you’re clever, you’ll have a lordship from me before you’re done.”

His ears had turned Lannister crimson.

“I spill my seed on her belly, my lord.” “A lovely belly, I have no doubt. Moisten it as often as you wish … but see that your dew falls nowhere else. I want no more nephews, is that clear?”

“Who pissed in your soup?”

“I hear he was taller.” “Not after Joff took off his head.

He had seldom seen such elegance and dignity in a whore.

Perhaps that is the secret. It is not what we do, so much as why we do it.

The last time he ventured out, a man had spit on him … well, had tried to. Instead he’d spit on Bronn, and in future would do his spitting without teeth.

“He wants to come out and count all my freckles, I think.”

It was pleasant to think that men still sang, even in the midst of butchery and famine.

How could a whore look so clean and sweet and innocent, he wondered?

On the road Arya had felt like a sheep, but Harrenhal turned her into a mouse.

“Realm’s got more kings than a castle’s got rats.”