"Can I dwell on what I scarce remember? I held a castle on the Marches once, and there was a woman I was pledged to marry, but I could not find that castle today, nor tell you the color of that woman's hair. Who knighted me, old friend? What were my favorite foods? It all fades. Sometimes I think I was born on the bloody grass in that grove of ash, with the taste of fire in my mouth and a hole in my chest. Are you my mother, Thoros?"

"Hatred does not stir the stone men half so much as hunger."

"Men's lives have meaning, not their deaths."

"Shattered legs may heal in time, but some betrayals fester and poison the soul."

"One voyage to the East and a man could live as rich as a lord until the end of his days. When he'd been younger, Davos had dreamed of making such voyages himself. But the years went dancing by like moths around a flame, and somehow the time had never been quite right."

"It's you and me that matters to me and you."

"One man on the wall is worth ten beneath it."

"Beware men with cold hearts and blue lips."

"There was an agelessness about him, a stillness; on Roose Bolton's face, rage and joy looked much the same."

"A man should smell of sweat, not flowers."

"Why is it that when one man builds a wall, the next man immediately needs to know what's on the other side?"

"Sellswords put gold before honor."

"A good act does not wash out the bad, nor a bad act the good. Each should have its own reward."

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

"He who hurries through life hurries to his grave."

"Wolves and women wed for life."

"Dreams turn to dust in light of day."

"On armageddon day,' Sandy said, 'both armies will think they fight for good. And both of them will be wrong."

"Begging for help never gets you any."

"Death is so terribly final, while life is full of possibilities."

"He is a sweet boy, quick to laugh, easy to love."

"My old grandmother always used to say, Summer friends will melt away like summer snows, but winter friends are friends forever."

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

"It's not a career for anyone who needs or values security. It's a career for gamblers. Every time you write a book you roll the dice again."

"How can you still count yourself a knight, when you have forsaken every vow you ever swore?" Jaime reached for the flagon to refill his cup. "So many vows...they make you swear and swear. Defend the king. Obey the king. Keep his secrets. Do his bidding. Your life for his. But obey your father. Love your sister. Protect the innocent. Defend the weak. Respect the gods. Obey the laws. It's too much. No matter what you do, you're forsaking one vow or the other."

"Ten years from now, no one is going to care how quickly the books came out. The only thing that will matter, the only thing anyone will remember, is how good they were. That's my main concern, and always will be."

"Life is warmth and warmth is fire, and fire is God's and God's alone."

"Fighting is better than this waiting, Brienne said. "You don't feel so helpless when you fight. You have a sword and a horse, sometimes an axe. When you're armored it's hard for anyone to hurt you."Knights die in battle, Catelyn reminded her.Brienne looked at her with those blue and beautiful eyes. "As ladies die in childbed. No one sings songs about them."

"I crossed a thousand leagues to come to you, and lost the best part of me along the way. Don't tell me to leave."

"Robb says the man died bravely, but Jon says he was afraid.""What do you think?" his father asked.Bran thought about it. "can a man still be brave if he's afraid?""That is the only time a man can be brave," his father told him."