George R. R. Martin quotes

George R. R. Martin is an American novelist and screenwriter, best known for his epic fantasy series "A Song of Ice and Fire." His intricate storytelling and complex characters have captivated millions of readers and viewers worldwide. He has greatly influenced the modern fantasy genre, especially through the television adaptation, "Game of Thrones." Here are 121 of his quotes:

I've been killing characters my entire career, maybe I'm just a bloody minded bastard, I don't know, [but] when my characters are in danger, I want you to be afraid to turn the page (and to do that) you need to show right from the beginning that you're playing for keeps.

George R. R. Martin

In real life, the hardest aspect of the battle between good and evil is determining which is which.

George R. R. Martin

Nobody is a villain in their own story. We're all the heroes of our own stories.

George R. R. Martin

Tolkien made the wrong choice when he brought Gandalf back. Screw Gandalf. He had a great death and the characters should have had to go on without him.

George R. R. Martin

Of all the bright cruel lies they tell you, the cruelest is the one called love.

George R. R. Martin

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.

George R. R. Martin

Much as I admire Tolkien, I once again always felt like Gandalf should have stayed dead. That was such an incredible sequence in Fellowship of the Ring when he faces the Balrog on the Khazad-dûm and he falls into the gulf, and his last words are, "Fly, you fools." What power that had, how that grabbed me. And then he comes back as Gandalf the White, and if anything he's sort of improved. I never liked Gandalf the White as much as Gandalf the Grey, and I never liked him coming back. I think it would have been an even stronger story if Tolkien had left him dead.

George R. R. Martin

Old stories are like old friends, she used to say. You have to visit them from time to time.

George R. R. Martin

Sure. Some of the reviews have been very flattering, but the series is not finished yet. The end needs to be as strong as the beginning.

George R. R. Martin

My own heroes are the dreamers, those men and women who tried to make the world a better place than when they found it, whether in small ways or great ones. Some succeeded, some failed, most had mixed results... but it is the effort that's heroic, as I see it. Win or lose, I admire those who fight the good fight.

George R. R. Martin

My reading of history has shown me that simply 'being a good man' is not enough. That there are many kings who are good men and yet bad kings. And even good kings sometimes make disastrous decisions. So government is complex, politics is complex.

George R. R. Martin

The battle between Good and Evil is a theme of much of fantasy. But I think the battle between Good and Evil is fought largely within the individual human heart, by the decisions that we make. It's not like evil dresses up in black clothing and you know, they're really ugly. These are some of the things that Tolkien did; he made them work fabulously, but in the hands of his imitators, they become total clichés. I mean the orc-like creatures who always do dress in black and... they're really ugly and they've got facial deformities or something. You can tell that if somebody's ugly, he must be evil. And then Tolkien's heroes are all very attractive people and all that, of course, again this became cliché in the hands of the Tolkien imitators.

George R. R. Martin

I think that for science fiction, fantasy, and even horror to some extent, the differences are skin-deep. I know there are elements in the field, particularly in science fiction, who feel that the differences are very profound, but I do not agree with that analysis. I think for me it is a matter of the furnishings. An elf or an alien may in some ways fulfill the same function, as a literary trope. It's almost a matter of flavor. The ice cream can be chocolate or it can be strawberry, but it's still ice cream. The real difference, to my mind, is between romantic fiction, which all these genres are a part of, and mimetic fiction, or naturalistic fiction.

George R. R. Martin

Nothing someone says before the world 'but' really counts. - Benjen Stark.

George R. R. Martin

Every flight begins with a fall.

George R. R. Martin

Fear cuts deeper than swords.

George R. R. Martin

A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.

George R. R. Martin

All fiction has to have a certain amount of truth in it to be powerful.

George R. R. Martin

I've said in many interviews that I like my fiction to be unpredictable. I like there to be considerable suspense.

George R. R. Martin

When I am writing best, I really am lost in my world. I lose track of the outside world. I have a difficult time balancing between my real world and the artificial world.

George R. R. Martin

I hear you jeering. Pfui. Those of you who know my work only from A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE may not be aware that I was once considered the most romantic science fiction writer of the 70s, back when I was doing my Thousand Worlds stuff.

George R. R. Martin

The House of Fantasy is built of stone and wood and furnished in High Medieval. Its people travel by horse and galley, fight with sword and spell and battle-axe, communicate by palantir or raven, and break bread with elves and dragons. The House of Science Fiction is built of duralloy and plastic and furnished in Faux Future. Its people travel by starship and aircar, fight with nukes and tailored germs, communicate by ansible and laser, and break protein bars with aliens. The House of Horror is built of bone and cobwebs and furnished in Ghastly Gothick. Its people travel only by night, fight with anything that will kill messily, communicate in screams and shrieks and gibbers, and sip blood with vampires and werewolves.

George R. R. Martin