A Storm of Swords

Harsh justice is still justice.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Small men curse what they cannot understand.

There is much confusion in any war.

Only a starving man begs bread from a beggar.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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 ...

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.

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?

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

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

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

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

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 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>

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

A valiant deed unsung is no less valiant.

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

"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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

In times like these, it is better to be insignificant

Somehow the singing made the miles seem shorter.

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.

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.

"What of love?"

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

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.

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?

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

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.

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

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?

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."

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

A wise man never makes an enemy of a king.

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.

How can a father outlive so many strong young sons?

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.

Courtesy is a lady's armor.

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

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

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?

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