Quotes
The smallfolk are always eager to believe the worst of their lords.
It is real, all of it, he thought, the wars, the intrigues, the great bloody game, and me in the center of it ... me, the dwarf, the monster, the one they scorned and laughed at, but now I hold it all, the city, the girl. This was what I was made for, and gods forgive me, but I love it.
If it is the swordsmen who rule us in truth, why do we pretend kings have the power?
"Power resides where men believe it resides. No more and no less."
"So power is a mummer's trick?"
"A shadow on the wall," Varys murmured, "yet shadows can kill. And ofttimes a very small man can cast a very large shadow."
When a pirate grows rich enough, they make him a prince.
Anger flashed in her brother’s lilac eyes. “Do you take me for a fool?”
The magister bowed slightly. “I take you for a king. Kings lack the caution of common men.”
Catelyn was finding that kings do not listen half so attentively as sons.
Some commands are more easily given than obeyed.
I ask you, Ned, what good is it to wear a crown? The gods mock the prayers of kings and cowherds alike.
A ruler who hides behind paid executioners soon forgets what death is.
Tell me, Lord Eddard ... why is it always the innocents who suffer most, when you high lords play your game of thrones?
Crowns do queer things to the heads beneath them.
