George R. R. Martin Men Quotations

Of course it's not enough to be a good man to be an effective ruler and it never has been.

When you tear out a man's tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you're only telling the world that you fear what he might say.

Woman? Is that meant to insult me? I would return the slap, if I took you for a man. - Daenerys Targaryen

It was the easiest thing in the world for Arya to step up behind him and stab him. “Is there gold hidden in the village?” she shouted as she drove the blade up through his back. “Is there silver? Gems?” She stabbed twice more. “Is there food? Where is Lord Beric?” She was on top of him by then, still stabbing. “Where did he go? How many men were with him? How many knights? How many bowmen? How many, how many, how many, how many, how many, how many? is there gold in the village?

I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men.

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

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

Power resides only where men believe it resides. [...] A shadow on the wall, yet shadows can kill. And ofttimes a very small man can cast a very large shadow.

The only time a man can be brave is when he is afraid.

Not all men were meant to dance with dragons.

When you know what a man wants you know who he is, and how to move him.

On the gallows tree, all men are brothers.

Most men would rather deny a hard truth than face it.

For men, the answer was always the same and never farther away than the nearest sword. For a woman, a mother, the way was stonier and harder to know.

Those are brave men... lets go kill them

I am surrounded by flatterers and fools. It can drive a man to madness,.. . Half of them don’t dare tell me the truth, and the other half can’t find 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, the beast stirs.

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.

The man who fears losing has already lost.

Men have scars, women mysteries.

Man wants to be the king o' the rabbits, he best wear a pair o' floppy ears.

Give me a good sharp knife and a good sharp cheese and I’m a happy man.

A man who won't listen can't hear.

Every man should lose a battle in his youth, so he does not lose a war when he is old.

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

Inside the room, a man and a woman were wrestling. They were both naked.

The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would take a man's life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die.

The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword.

There is no creature on earth half so terrifying as a truly just man.

The man who never reads lives only one.

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.

I have touched more men that I can count. Some with my lips, more with my axe.

All that Syrio Forel had taught her went racing through her head. Swift as a deer. Quiet as shadow. Fear cuts deeper than swords. Quick as a snake. Calm as still water. Fear cuts deeper than swords. Strong as a bear. Fierce as a wolverine. Fear cuts deeper than swords. Then man who fears losing has already lost. Fear cuts deeper than swords. Fear cuts deeper than swords. Fear cuts deeper than swords.

There is no shame in loving. If your septons say there is, your seven gods must be demons. In the isles we know better. Our gods gave us legs to run with, noses to smell with, hands to touch and feel. What mad cruel god would give a man eyes and tell him he must forever keep them shut, and never look at all the beauty in the world? Only a monster god, a demon of the darkness.

A man does not need to be a wizard to know truth from falsehood, not if he has eyes. You need only learn to read a face. Look at the eyes. The mouth. The muscles here, at the corners of the jaw, and here, where the neck joins the shoulders.

So be it. I'll wear my iron and hold my tongue. A man who won't listen can't hear.

What could he have done, one man against so many?" He could have tried, Brienne thought.

No mortal man could frighten him, no more than the darkness could, nor the bones of his soul, the grey and grisly bones of his soul.

This is the bravo’s dance, the water dance, swift and sudden. All men are made of water, do you know this? When you pierce them, the water leaks out and they die.

Small men oft feel a need to prove their courage with unseemly boasts," he declared. "I doubt if he could kill a duck." Tyrion shrugged. "Fetch the duck.

In a room sit three great men, a king, a priest, and a rich man with his gold. Between them stands a sellsword, a little man of common birth and no great mind. Each of the great ones bids him slay the other two. ‘Do it,’ says the king, ‘for I am your lawful ruler.’ ‘Do it,’ says the priest, ‘for I command you in the names of the gods.’ ‘Do it,’ says the rich man, ‘and all this gold shall be yours.’ So tell me—who lives and who dies?

If half an onion is black with rot, it is a rotten onion. A man is good or he is evil. (Melisandre of Asshai)

All the world knew that a maester forged his silver link when he learned the art of healing—but the world preferred to forget that men who knew how to heal also knew how to kill.

Do dead man dream? The dead themselves are silent on the matter

History is a wheel, for the nature of man is fundamentally unchanging. What has happened before will perforce happen again.

Those are brave men," he told Ser Balon in admiration. "Let's go kill them.

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

A man could not always be where he belonged, though.

I heard of a man who had a razor made of Valyrian steel. He cut his head off trying to shave.

A man who sees nothing has no use for his eyes,” the Mountain declared. “Cut them out and give them to your next outrider. Tell him you hope that four eyes might see better than two . . . and if not, the man after him will have six.

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.

Speak the name, and death will come. On the morrow, at the turn of the moon, a year from this day, it will come. A man does not fly like a bird, but one foot moves and then another and one day a man is there.

Men are mad and gods are madder, she told the grass, and the grass murmured its agreement.

...Ned always said that the man who passes the sentence should swing the blade, though he never took any joy in the duty. But I would, oh, yes.

In the world as I have seen it, no man grows rich by kindness.

Ofttimes a very small man can cast a very large shadow.

Wizards die the same as other men, once you cut their heads off.

What are gods for if not to sit in judgment over men? The Many-Faced God does not weigh men's souls, however. He gives his gift to the best of men as he gives it to the worst. Elsewise the good would live forever.

No man threatens His Grace in the presence of the Kingsguard.” Tyrion Lannister raised an eyebrow. “I am not threatening the king, ser, I am educating my nephew. Bronn, Timett, the next time Ser Boros opens his mouth, kill him.” The dwarf smiled. “Now that was a threat, ser. See the difference?

Mothers." The man made a word sound like a curse. "I think birthing does something to your minds. You are all mad.

And any man who must say 'I am king' is no true king at all.

The gods are blind. And men see only what they wish" - Tyrion Lannister

Ser Jaime?" Even in soiled pink satin and torn lace, Brienne looked more like a man in a gown than a proper woman."I am grateful, but...you were well away. Why come back?" A dozen quips came to mind, each crueler than the one before, but Jaime only shrugged. "I dreamed of you," he said.

You are grown so very great now, yet the higher a man climbs the farther he has to fall.

All my life men like you've sneered at me, and all my life I've been knocking men like you into the dust.

Dragons old and young, true and false, bright and dark. And you. A small man with a big shadow, snarling in the midst of all.

The old man laid a withered, spotted hand on his shoulder. "It hurts, boy," he said softly. "Oh, yes. Choosing . . . it has always hurt. And always will. I know.

You kill men for the wrongs they have done, not the wrongs that they may do someday.

In King’s Landing, there are two sorts of people. The players and the pieces… Every man’s a piece to start with, and every maid as well. Even some who think they are players." Petyr Baelish

She was no stranger to waiting, after all. Her man had always made her wait.

Books are dead men talking.

Men are men, vows are words, and words are wind.

Valar Morghulis- All men must die

I knew a man once who told me that I smiled at the wrong things." "Do you? "Only by the light of those who smile at nothing.

Men see what they expect to see.

A man who fights for coin is loyal only to his purse.

I have been despised by better men than you.

But what a man can do and what a man will do are two different things, he knew.

You'll find truth in your looking glass, not on the tongues of men.

Jaime smiled knowingly. Men will read all sorts of things into a knowing smile if you let them.

The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. Look her in the eyes before you kill her. See her tears, hear her last words. You owe her that much at least." - Eddard Stark

When I was a boy, I dreamt that I could fly, he announces. When I woke, I couldn't... or so the maester said. But what if he lied? What do you mean? Perhaps we can fly. All of us. How will we ever know unless we leap from some tall tower? No man ever truly knows what he can do unless he dares to leap. There is the window. Leap. What do you want? The world.

Let his sword break and his shield shatter, Sansa thought coldly as she shoved out through the doors, let his courage fail him and every man desert him.

Time is different for a tree than for a man. Sun and soil and water, these are the things a weirwood understands, not days and years and centuries. For men, time is a river. We are trapped in its flow, hurtling from past to present, always in the same direction. The lives of trees are different. They root and grow and die in one place, and that river does not move them. The oak is the acorn, the acorn is the oak.

The gods don’t care about men, no more than kings care about peasants.

He is a man of the Night's Watch, She thought, as he sang about some stupid lady throwing herself off some stupid tower because her stupid prince was dead. The lady should go kill the ones who killed her prince. Arya Stark (page 514)

It's not," Mormont told him. "Gods save us, boy, you're not blind and you're not stupid. When dead men come hunting in the night, do you think it matters who sits the Iron Throne?

a man who hates music can’t be trusted, I always say.

If a man paints a target on his chest, he should expect that sooner or later someone will loose an arrow on him.

Only a fool humbles himself when the world is so full of men eager to do that job for him. (Theon Greyjoy)

Viserys sold my mother's crown, and men called him a beggar. I shall keep this one, so men will call me a queen. (Daenerys)

Tears, she said scornfully to Sansa as the woman was led from the hall. The woman's weapon, my lady mother used to call them. The man's weapon is a sword. And that tells us all you need to know, doesn't it?

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

That man said he’d take your head too.” “Well, as to that,” Yoren said, “if he can get it off my shoulders, he’s welcome to it.

Why should death make a man truthful, or even clever? The dead are likely dull fellows, full of tedious complaints - the ground's too cold, my gravestone should be larger, why does he get more worms than I do...

There are no men like me. There's only me

And pray that he is the man I think he is, he finished silently, and not the man I fear he has become.

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.

Woman?” She chuckled. “Is that meant to insult me? I would return the slap, if I took you for a man.” Dany met his stare. “I am Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, the Unburnt, Mother of Dragons, khaleesi to Drogo’s riders, and queen of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros.

No man should live longer than his teeth.