A Dance with Dragons Quotes

“Bran knew. "She's a child. A child of the forest." He shivered, as much from wonderment as cold. They had fallen into one of Old Nan's tales.
"The First Men named us children," the little woman said. "The giants called us wok dak nag gran, the squirrel people, because we were small and quick and fond of trees, but we are no squirrels, no children. Our name in the True Tongue means those who sing the song of the earth. Before your Old Tongue was ever spoken, we had sun our songs ten thousand years."
Meera said, "You speak the Common Tongue now."
"For him. The Bran boy. I was born in the time of the dragon, and for two hundred years I walked the world of men, to watch and listen and learn. I might be walking still, but my legs were sore and my heart was weary, so I turned my feet for home."
"Two hundred years?" said Meera.
The child smiled. "Men, they are the children.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“Shadows." The world seemed darker when he said it.
"Every man who walks the earth casts a shadow on the world. Some are thin and weak, others long and dark.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“A lord may love the men that he commands, but he cannot be a friend to them. One day he may need to sit in judgement on them, or send them forth to die.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“I am not blind, nor deaf. I know you all believe me weak, frightened, feeble. Your father knew me better. Oberyn was ever the viper. Deadly, dangerous, unpredictable. No man dared tread on him. I was the grass. Pleasant, complaisant, sweet-smelling, swaying with every breeze. Who fears to walk upon the grass? But it is the grass that hides the viper from his enemies and shelters him until he strikes.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“Sometimes there is truth in dreams.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“The north remembers, Lord Davos. The north remembers, and the mummer’s farce is almost done. My son is home.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“The Lord of Light in his wisdom made us male and female, two parts of a greater whole. In our joining there is power. Power to make life. Power to make light. Power to cast shadows.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“Men live their lives trapped in an eternal present, between the mists of memory and the sea of shadow that is all we know of the days to come. Certain moths live their whole lives in a day, yet to them that little span of time must seem as long as years and decades do to us. An oak may live three hundred years, a redwood tree three thousand. A weirwood will live forever if left undisturbed. To them seasons pass in the flutter of a moth's wing, and past, present, and future are one.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“Death, there will be death, aye. Your lordship lost a son at the Red Wedding. I lost four upon the Blackwater. And why? Because the Lannisters stole the throne. Go to King’s Landing and look on Tommen with your own eyes, if you doubt me. A blind man could see it. What does Stannis offer you? Vengeance. Vengeance for my sons and yours, for your husbands and your fathers and your brothers. Vengeance for your murdered lord, your murdered king, your butchered princes. Vengeance!”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“I can’t command you to be brave, but I can command you to hide your fears.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“Even the sky was grey. Grey and grey and greyer. The whole world grey, everywhere you look, everything grey except the eyes of the bride. The eyes of the bride were brown. Big and brown and full of fear.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“Every battle is a gamble, Snow. The man who does nothing also takes a risk.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“Black or red, a dragon is still a dragon." - Illyrio Mopatis”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“You will never walk again, Bran," the pale lips promised, "but you will fly.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“You cannot tame a dragon with a history lesson.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“Not that I'm complaining. It was better than my old dream, where Harma Dogshead was feeding me to her pigs."
"Harma's dead." Jon said.
"But not the pigs. They look at me the way Slayer used to look at ham. Not to say that the wildlings mean us harm. Aye, we hacked their gods apart and made them burn the pieces, but we gave them onion soup. What's a god compared to a nice bowl of onion soup? I could do with mine myself.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“It is chivalry that makes a true knight, not a sword.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“By the time Jon Snow signed the parchment the Braavosi drew up, both of them were half-drunk and quite unhappy. Jon thought that a good sign.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“I had feared it from the start, from the moment you first smiled at me and let me touch your hand. My own father could not love me. Why would you if not for gold?”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“A little brother may live to be a hundred, but he will always be a little brother.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“Up in the hills we say that autumn kisses you, but winter fucks you hard.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“Without honor, a knight is no more than a common killer. It is better to die with honor than to live without it.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“All my memories are poisoned”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“Once a man has seen a dragon in flight, let him stay at home and tend his garden in content, for this wide world has no greater wonder.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“You took me unawares, my lord. I was not told of your coming." - "And I seem to have prevented yours.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“You Westerosi are all the same. You sew some beast upon a scrap of silk, and suddenly you are all lions, or dragons, or eagles.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“Now I understand why King Stannis let the wildlings through the Wall. He means for us to eat them.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“...But they were all dead now, even Arya, everyone but her half-brother, Jon. Some nights she heard talk of him, in the taverns and brothels of the Ragman's Harbor. The Black Bastard of the wall, one man had called him. Even Jon would never know Blind Beth, i bet. That made her sad.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“Why did you make your people lambs, when the world is full of wolves.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“You know the words, but you are too proud to serve. A servant must be humble and obedient.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons