Top 500 George R.R. Martin Quotes (2025 Update)
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401. “I heard of a man who had a razor made of Valyrian steel. He cut his head off trying to shave.”

— George R.R. Martin

402. “It’s being ready to accept rejection. You can work on a book for two years and get it published, and it’s like you may as well have thrown it down a well. It’s not all champagne and doing interviews with The New York Times.”

— George R.R. Martin

403. “When I sleep I turn into a wolf. Bran turned his face away and looked back out into the night. Do wolves dreams?”

— George R.R. Martin

404. “Most people were startled to find out there were books that preceded Game Of Thrones. I’m a case of working forty years to be an overnight success.”

— George R.R. Martin

405. “Jon Snow had dreamed of leading men to glory just as King Daeron had, of growing up to be a conqueror. Now he was a man grown and the Wall was his, yet all he had were doubts. He could not even seem to conquer those.”

— George R.R. Martin

406. “Robb: Uncle Benjen said to send you to the stables if I saw you. Jon: I have one more farewell to make. Robb: Then I haven’t seen you.”

— George R.R. Martin

407. “The eunuch had looked death in the face, so near he might have kissed her on the lips.”

— George R.R. Martin

408. “They are children, Sansa thought. They are silly little girls, even Elinor. They’ve never seen a battle, they’ve never seen a man die, they know nothing. Their dreams were full of songs and stories, the way hers had been before Joffrey cut her fathers head off. Sansa pitied them. Sansa envied them.”

— George R.R. Martin

409. “Once she had loved Prince Joffrey with all her heart, and admired and trusted her his mother, the queen. They had repaid that love and trust with her father’s head. Sansa would never make that mistake again.”

— George R.R. Martin

410. “When we speak of the morrow nothing is ever certain.”

— George R.R. Martin

411. “One of the hardest parts of writing is writing from the gut or the heart or something like that rather than intellectually.”

— George R.R. Martin

412. “I’ve been very lucky. There were times when I was afraid I would never sell another book, but I never doubted I’d write another book.”

— George R.R. Martin

413. “There are worse ways to die than warm and drunk.”

— George R.R. Martin

414. “Once, I cut off a man’s head, but he did not know it until he tried to brush his hair. Then it fell off.”

— George R.R. Martin

415. “When you have known the kiss of a flaying knife, a laugh loses all its power to hurt you.”

— George R.R. Martin

416. “Tomorrow’s trials concerned her more than yesterday’s triumphs.”

— George R.R. Martin

417. “There are things to be learned even from the dead.”

— George R.R. Martin

418. “Men will always underestimate you, he said, and their pride will make them want to vanquish you quickly, lest it be said that a woman tried them sorely. Let them spend their strength in furious attacks, whilst you conserve your own. Wait and watch, girl, wait and watch.”

— George R.R. Martin

419. “Tyrion: My gentle sister seems to have mistaken me for Ned Stark. Bronn: I hear he was taller. Tyrion: Not after Joff took off his head.”

— George R.R. Martin

420. “Yes – 90% of fantasy is crap. And so is 90% of science fiction and 90% of mystery fiction and 90% of literary fiction.”

— George R.R. Martin

421. “His time was past, her handmaid Irri declared. No man should live longer than his teeth.”

— George R.R. Martin

422. “All dwarfs may be bastards yet not all bastards are dwarfs.”

— George R.R. Martin

423. “There was an agelessness about him, a stillness; on Roose Bolton’s face, rage and joy looked much the same.”

— George R.R. Martin

424. “The sun will soon be setting, and corpses make poor company by night. These were dark and dangerous men, alive. I doubt that death will have improved them.”

— George R.R. Martin

425. “He was beastly tired, but it was hard to stop. One more book, he had told himself, then I’ll stop. One more folio, just one more. One more page, then I’ll go up and rest and get a bite to eat. But there was always another page after that one, and another after that, and another book waiting underneath the pile. I’ll just take a quick peek to see what this one is about, he’d think, and before he knew he would be halfway through it.”

— George R.R. Martin

426. “I have the virtue of being still amongst the living. Some would say that is my only virtue.”

— George R.R. Martin

427. “She walked fast, to keep ahead of her fear,...”

— George R.R. Martin

428. “You ought to thank me for killing your enemy,” Jon said finally, “and curse me for killing your friend.”

— George R.R. Martin

429. “The girl had hoped for fog, but the gods ignored her prayers as gods so often did.”

— George R.R. Martin

430. “When the end comes, I will meet it raging.”

— George R.R. Martin

431. “The air smelled of paper and dust and years.”

— George R.R. Martin

432. “When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground.”

— George R.R. Martin

433. “She just laughed in his face and told him she’d sooner crawl in a bed with his father’s leeches before she’d crawl in one with him. She stopped laughing when he put his knife in her.”

— George R.R. Martin

434. “He wished he could relieve himself of his doubts and guilts half as easily.”

— George R.R. Martin

435. “When a man was hurt you took him to the maester, but what could you do when your maester was hurt?”

— George R.R. Martin

436. “I’d be anonymous. That’s what I’d do differently.”

— George R.R. Martin

437. “These old knights are more cunning than you think, or they would never have lived to see their first grey hair.”

— George R.R. Martin

438. “Littlefinger loves Littlefinger.”

— George R.R. Martin

439. “I have climbed these steps so often I know each one by name.”

— George R.R. Martin

440. “It was astonishing to see how angry Cersei could wax over accusations she knew perfectly well to be true.”

— George R.R. Martin

441. “If half an onion is black with rot, it is a rotten onion. A man is good or he is evil.”

— George R.R. Martin

442. “She remembered the godswood, drooping branches heavy with moisture, and the sound of her brother’s laughter as he chased her through piles of damp leaves.”

— George R.R. Martin

443. “And to Rhaego son of Drogo, the stallion who will mount the world, to him I also pledge a gift. To him I will give this iron chair his mother’s father sat in. I will give him Seven Kingdoms. I, Drogo, khal, will do this thing.”

— George R.R. Martin

444. “That brute you made me marry once hit the boy so hard he knocked out two of his baby teeth, over some mischief with a cat.”

— George R.R. Martin

445. “Oh, my sweet summer child,” Old Nan said quietly, “what do you know of fear? Fear is for the winter, my little lord, when the snows fall a hundred feet deep and the ice wind comes howling out of the north. Fear is for the long night, when the sun hides its face for years at a time, and little children are born and live and die all in darkness while the direwolves grow gaunt and hungry, and the white walkers move through the woods.”

— George R.R. Martin

446. “I have never forgotten, and I can’t imagine you have, and I’ve thought of it over the years. It was so good, when it was good, I kept thinking. How could it go wrong?”

— George R.R. Martin

447. “I have done a lot of work in Hollywood myself. I worked in television for roughly 10 years, from the mid-’80s to mid-’90s. And I was on staff at a couple of shows. I did some feature films, including originals and adaptations.”

— George R.R. Martin

448. “No man is free. Only children and fools think elsewise.”

— George R.R. Martin

449. “I wanted to write a big novel, something epic in scale.”

— George R.R. Martin

450. “His manhood glistened wetly.”

— George R.R. Martin