A Storm of Swords

Begging for help never gets you any.

Outlaws were better at hiding than honest men.

Harsh justice is still justice.

It's not the walls that make a lord, it's the man.

The thing that surprised Dany most was how unsurprised she was.

A toad grows wings and thinks he's a bloody dragon.

The hottest fires burn out quickest.

Outside the flakes drifted down as soft and silent as memory.

The faithful dog is kicked, and no matter how the spider weaves, he is never loved.

She was Daenerys Stormborn, the Unburnt, khaleesi and queen, Mother of Dragons, slayer of warlocks, breaker of chains, and there was no one in the world that she could trust.

“Have they told you who I am?”...

“Some dead man.”

Strangers are not so strange in a port as they are in little villages.

“Another name? Oh, certainly. And when the Faceless Men come to kill me, I’ll say, ‘No, you have the wrong man, I’m a different dwarf with a hideous facial scar.’”

Both Lannisters laughed at the absurdity of it all.

“Who better to command the black cloaks than a man who once commanded the gold cloaks, sire?”

“Any of you, I would think. Even the cook.”

She is brave as well. She had to be, to survive the life she's lived.

If this was power, why did it taste like tedium?

Lord Seaworth is a man of humble birth, but he reminded me of my duty, when all I could think of was my rights. I had the cart before the horse, Davos said. I was trying to win the throne to save the kingdom, when I should have been trying to save the kingdom to win the throne.

What was given once can be given again.

The living have no place at the feasts of the dead.

Sometimes the short road is not the safest ... Sorcery is a sword without a hilt. There is no safe way to grasp it.

Dany stared at herself in silence. Is this the face of a conqueror? So far as she could tell, she still looked like a little girl.

Flies are the dead man's revenge.

He wished he'd been able to think of some rousing last words. "Bugger it all" was not like to earn him much of a place in the histories.

Dawn stole into her garden like a thief.

Could there be honor in a lie if it were told for a ... a good purpose?

The gods gave me no gift but birth, and they stinted me there.

In King's Landing, there are two sorts of people: The players and the pieces.

The oak recalls the acorn, the acorn dreams the oak, the stump lives in them both.

Half a mile north, the wildling encampments were stirring, their campsites sending up smoky fingers to scratch against the pale dawn sky.

If you keep all your treasures in one purse, you only make it easier for those who would rob you.

Small men curse what they cannot understand.

There is much confusion in any war.

Only a starving man begs bread from a beggar.

A bag of dragons buys a man's silence for a while, but a well-placed quarrel buys it forever.

We are puppets dancing on the strings of those who came before us, and one day our own children will take up our strings and dance on in our steads.

A man is never so vulnerable in battle as when he flees. A running man is like a wounded animal to a soldier. It gets his bloodlust up.

You call us thieves, but at least a thief has to be brave and clever and quick.

Defeat is a disease, and victory is the cure.

When your enemies defy you, you must serve them steel and fire. When they go to their knees, however, you must help them back to their feet. Elsewise no man will ever bend the knee to you. And any man who must say "I am the king" is no king at all.

Nothing discourages unwanted questions as much as a flow of pious bleating.

It was almost worth dying to know all the trouble he’d made.

Any man can read, my lord. There is no magic needed, nor high birth.

I'd sooner be stolen by a strong man than be given t'some weakling by my father.

The best way to learn a thing was to do it, he had found; sails or scrolls, it made no matter.

The boar can keep his tusks and the bear his claws. There's nothing half so mortal as a grey goose feather.

Men are seldom as they appear. You look so very guilty that I am convinced of your innocence.

Is it treason to say a man is mortal?

Men can't own the land no more'n they can own the sea or the sky.

Life would be much simpler if men could fuck themselves, don't you agree?

Explain to me why it is more noble to kill ten thousand men in battle than a dozen at dinner.

Ser Meryn got a stubborn look on his face. “Are you telling us not to obey the king?”

“The king is eight. Our first duty is to protect him, which includes protecting him from himself. Use that ugly thing you keep inside your helm. If Tommen wants you to saddle his horse, obey him. If he tells you to kill his horse, come to me.”

The gods sometimes let us glimpse the future as we lay dying.

The Fingers are a lovely place, if you happen to be a stone.

A harp can be as dangerous as a sword, in the right hands.

“Always keep your foes confused. If they are never certain who you are or what you want, they cannot know what you are like to do next. Sometimes the best way to baffle them is to make moves that have no purpose, or even seem to work against you. Remember that, Sansa, when you come to play the game.”

“What...what game?”

“The only game. The game of thrones.”

I never asked for this crown. Gold is cold and heavy on the head ...

"Maybe we can save her!"

"Maybe you can. I'm not done living yet."

He won the war on the battlefield and lost it in the bedchamber, poor fool.

I am speaking to myself, as I was, all cocksure arrogance and empty chivlary. This is what it does to you, to be too good too young.

Nothing says home like the smell of a dung fire burning.

"You're going to fight that?"

"I'm going to kill that."

It was not a life he'd ever dreamed of, but it was a life.

We do not choose our destinies. Yet we must ... we must do our duty, no?

"The Wall will stop them," Jon heard himself say. He turned and said it again louder. "The Wall will stop them. The Wall defends itself." Hollow words, but he needed to say them, almost as much as his brothers needed to hear them.

All men must die, Jon Snow. But first we'll live.

An ant who hears the words of a king may not comprehend what he is saying ... If sometimes I have mistaken a warning for a prophecy, or a prophecy for a warning, the fault lies in the reader, not the book.

We're all just songs in the end. If we are lucky.

These little wars are no more than a scuffle of children before what is to come.

Well, you gave the singers something to make rhymes about, I suppose that's not to be despised.

I count no day as lived unless I have loved a woman, slain a foeman, and eaten a fine meal.

“Her name is Brienne,” Jaime said. “Brienne, the maid of Tarth. You are still maiden, I hope?”

Her broad homely face turned red. “Yes.”

”Oh, good,” Jaime said. “I only rescue maidens.”

Everyone wants something, Alayne. And when you know what a man wants you know who he is, and how to move him.

The sun will not cease to shine if we miss a prayer or two.

The wind ran salty fingers through her hair.

There's a long league's worth of difference between willful and stupid.

The old gods paid no more heed to prayer than the new ones, it would seem. Perhaps he should take comfort in that.

It does not matter how brave or brilliant a man is, if his commands cannot be heard.

The singers make much of kings who die valiantly in battle, but your life is worth more than a song.

A man can own a woman or a man can own a knife, but no man can own both.

Arya was tired of making for Riverrun. She had been making for Riverrun for years, it seemed, without ever getting there. Every time she made for Riverrun, she ended up someplace worse.

That night the wind was howling almost like a wolf, and there were some real wolves off to the west giving it lessons.

A man who fears battle wins no victories ...

They feared the man I was; the man I am they'd pity.

Which is more dangerous—the dagger brandished by an enemy, or the hidden one pressed into your back by the enemy you never see>

Is there anything so disgusting as frozen sweat?

There is truth in the flames, but it is not always easy to see.

A smuggler had best know men as well as tides, or he would not live to smuggle long.

"Some would say it's a poor king who crowns himself with bronze, Your Grace"

"Bronze and iron are stronger than gold and silver"

A valiant deed unsung is no less valiant.

He was tempted to ask what she prayed for, but Sansa was so dutiful she might actually tell him, and he didn't think he wanted to know.

Men die in war, even men who are young and strong.

Do you think I crossed half the world to put yet another vain king on yet another empty throne?

"He likes the stories where the knights fight monsters."

"Sometimes the knights are the monsters, Bran."

The night is dark and full of terrors, the day is bright and beautiful and full of hope.

The crown is crushing him

So easy, he remembered thinking. '"A king should die harder than this."

The north remembers.

This was what he was meant for; he never felt so alive as when he was fighting, with death balanced on every stroke.

Any act can be a prayer, if done as well as we are able.

If a song makes a maid want to take off her clothes and feel the good warm sun kiss her skin, why, is that the singer's fault?

In the world as I have seen it, no man grows rich by kindness.

One voice may speak you false, but in many there is always truth to be found.

A knight's a sword with a horse. The rest, the vows and the sacred oils and the lady's favors, they're silk ribbons tied round the sword. Maybe the sword's prettier with ribbons hanging off it, but it will kill you just as dead.

The feast seemed to go on forever, yet Sansa tasted none of the food. She wanted it to be done, and yet she dreaded its end.

I am not going to banish him just because my wolf doesn't like the way he smells

Is it treason to say the truth? A bitter truth, but no less true for that.

They are children, Sansa thought ... They've never seen a battle, they've never seen a man die, they know nothing.

That was such a slippery word, may. In any language.

What we want is not always what we get.

She loved the sea. She liked the sharp salty smell of the air, and the vastness of the horizons bounded only by a vault of azure sky above. It made her feel small, but free as well.

It seems to me that a queen who trusts no one is as foolish as a queen who trusts everyone.

I never dreamed how quick the sweet would turn to sour.

When I don't fancy a man's eyes, I put an arrow through one.

All she felt was pity, and pity was death to desire.

In times like these, it is better to be insignificant

"Symon says there's to be seventy-seven courses and a hundred doves backed into a great pie," Shae gushed. "When the crust's opened they'll all burst out and fly."After which they will roost in the rafters and rain down birdshit on the guests." Tyrion had suffered such wedding pies before. The doves liked to shit on him especially, or so he had always suspected.

There's naught to eat in the dark but flesh.

We'd been sent out by the King's Hand to deal with the outlaws, you see, but now we were the outlaws ...

He'd been cold for so long he was forgetting what it was like to feel warm.

You're prettier with your mouth closed.

Somehow the singing made the miles seem shorter.

A fat man always sits comfortably, I am thinking, for he takes his pillow wherever he goes.

I've made a botch of everything but the battles, haven't I?

It was easy to lose your way beyond the Wall. Jon did not know that he could tell honor from shame anymore, or right from wrong.

"The crossbow is a coward's weapon."

"It'll put a bolt in your heart all the same."

Sometimes the best thing you can do is nothing.

It is too late for ifs, and too late for rescues. All that matters now is vengeance.

It had been raining for days now, a cold grey downpour that well suited Catelyn's mood.

What good is it to be a skinchanger if you can't wear the skin you like?

Through stone walls and doors, through night and rain, he still knows the smell of death and ruin.

If this is so wrong ... why did the gods make it feel so good?

It was that white cloak that soiled me, not the other way around.

"What of love?"

"When the sun has set, no candle can replace it."

It had been so long since she had enjoyed the company of other women, she had almost forgotten how pleasant it could be.

When the dead walk, walls and stakes and swords mean nothing. You cannot fight the dead, Jon Snow.

There is a savage beast in every man, and when you hand that man a sword or spear and send him forth to war, that beast stirs.

A hall is no place for a wolf. He gets restless, you've seen. Growling and snapping. I should have never taken him into battle with me. He's killed far too many men to fear them now.

We look up at the same stars, and see such different things.

Wars need not be fought until the last drop of blood.

How can the night be so beautiful? he asked himself. Why would the stars want to look down on the likes of me?

A true man steals a woman from afar, t'strengthen the clan.

Littlefinger's gold is made from thin air, with a snap of his fingers.

How can I help you master a gift I do not understand?

The greatest fools are ofttimes more clever than the men who laugh at them.

You know nothing, Jon Snow.

Sometimes Old Nan would tell the same story she’d told before, but we never minded, if it was a good story. Old stories are like old friends, she used to say. You have to visit them from time to time.

Somehow the laughter made her hopeful again, if only for a little while.

"There will be pain."

"I'll scream."

"A great deal of pain."

"I'll scream very loudly."

There is a tool for every task, and a task for every tool.

A man cannot sup from the beggar's bowl all his life and stay a man.

The tip of his tongue ran across his lower lip like a shy pink animal.

To touch the light you must pass beneath the shadow.

They stood among the trees to see the end of the night's dark dance.

Bowen knows a great deal more about counting swords than he's ever known about using them.

There are worse things than dying with a song on your lips.

A man who kills for coin has no honor, but at least they are no slaves.

How can you be the prince of someplace you might never see again?

How could you do this, Robb. How could you be so heedless, so stupid? How could you be so ... so ... very ... young?

Extravagance has its uses.

I know your kneeler's knees must be itching, for want of some king to bend to.

If a man does not use his member it grows smaller and smaller, until one day he wants to piss and cannot find it.

I only sing the songs that better men have made.

A wall is only as strong as the men who defend it.

"They're our horses."

"Meaning you stole them yourselves, is that it? War makes thieves of many honest folk."

Shadows only live when given birth by the light.

I've won every battle, yet somehow I'm losing the war.

A wise man never makes an enemy of a king.

I'm much less boring than these others. I hope that you're fond of fools.

I wonder what the High Septon would say about the sanctity of oaths sworn while dead drunk, chained to a wall, with a sword pressed against your chest?

He knew how to dress and he knew how to smile and he knew how to bathe, and somehow he got the notion that this made him fit to be king.

A good threat is often more telling than a blow.

All he needed to do now was nothing. A few moments more, and he would be with his sons now, resting in the cool green mud of the bottom of the sea, with fish nibbling at his face.

How can a father outlive so many strong young sons?

Thirst, hunger, exposure. These were his companions, with him every hour of every day, and he had come to think of them as his friends.

Once the cow's been milked there's no squeezing the cream back up her udder.

All men are fools, if truth be told, but the ones in motley are more amusing than the ones with crowns.

In the Red Keep a man did his best to hold his tongue. There were rats in the walls, and little birds who talked too much, and spiders.

They had numbers, but the Night's Watch had discipline, and in battle discipline beats numbers nine times out of ten, his father had once said.

That was the day without a dawn. Slowly the sky brightened around them, but they never saw the sun. Black turned to grey, and colors crept timidly back into the world. The soldier pines were dressed in somber greens, the broadleafs in russets and faded golds already beginning to brown.

A singer once said all maids are fair in silk ... but he never met you, did he?

Davos had always been a sailor; he was meant to die at sea.

The best we can hope for is to die with swords in our hands.

My sister has mistaken me for a mushroom. She keeps me in the dark and feeds me shit.

His refuge was no more than a speck on the charts, in a place that honest sailors steered away from, not toward.

Courtesy is a lady's armor.

If there was one thing Sansa had learned here, it was mistrust.

It is easy to mount a lion and not so easy to get off ... Should you ever have a son, Sansa, beat him frequently so he learns to mind you ... All these kings would do a little bit better if they would put down their swords and listen to their mothers.

"I'll leave no innocents to be food for crows."

"A heartless wench. Crows need to eat as well."

It's better if he's scared of me, she told herself. That way he'll do like I say, instead of something stupid.She should be more frightened herself, she knew. She was only ten, a skinny girl on a stolen horse with a dark forest ahead of her and men behind her who would gladly cut off her feet. Yet somehow she felt calmer here than she ever had at Herrenhal.

It's dangerous being free, but most come to like the taste o' it.

Every lord has need of a beast from time to time.

To pay for his one sweet moment, they took his whole life.

A dead enemy is a joy forever.

It made Sansa wince just to watch. They have scarcely finished burying the dead from that last battle, and already they are practicing for the next one.

My hirelings betray me, my friends are scourged and shamed, and I lie here rotting, Tyrion thought. I thought I won the bloody battle. Is this what triumph tastes like?

I’ve never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they’re only men with the useful bits cut off.

Some battles are won with swords and spears, others with quills and ravens.