Martin > Martin's Quotes

“Judge us not equally, Abraham. We may all deserve hell, but some of us deserve it sooner than others”
― Seth Grahame-Smith, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

“Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armour yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“The brightest flame casts the darkest shadow.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings

“I am in truth the Steppenwolf that I often call myself; that beast astray that finds neither home nor joy nor nourishment in a world that is strange and incomprehensible to him.”
― Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf

“To the generations of Americans raised since World War 2, the identities of criminals such as Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd, Baby Face Nelson, "Ma" Barker, John Dillenger, and Clyde Barrow are no more real than are Luke Skywalker and Indiana Jones. After decades spent in the washing machine of popular culture, their stories have been bled of all reality, to an extent that few Americans today know who these people actually were, much less that they all rose to national prominence at the same time. They were real.”
― Bryan Burrough, Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34

“When I have neither pleasure nor pain and have been breathing for a while the lukewarm insipid air of these so called good and tolerable days, I feel so bad in my childish soul that I smash my moldering lyre of thanksgiving in the face of the slumbering god of contentment and would rather feel the very devil burn in me than this warmth of a well-heated room. A wild longing for strong emotions and sensations seethes in me, a rage against this toneless, flat, normal and sterile life. I have a mad impulse to smash something, a warehouse, perhaps, or a cathedral, or myself, to commit outrages, to pull off the wigs of a few revered idols...”
― Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf

“I would traverse not once more, but often the hell of my inner being. One day I would be a better hand at the game. One day I would learn how to laugh. Pablo was waiting for me, and Mozart too.”
― Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf

“Call me Dudley. We're of equal rank. I'm older, but you're far better looking. I can tell we're going to be grand partners.”
― James Ellroy, The Big Nowhere

“Barbarianism is the natural state of mankind. Civilization is unnatural. It is the whim of circumstance. And barbarianism must ultimately triumph”
― Robert E. Howard

“Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices,
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open, and show riches
Ready to drop upon me; that, when I waked,
I cried to dream again.”
― William Shakespeare, The Tempest

“Do you want to die old and craven in your bed?- How else? Though not till I'm done reading.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Feast for Crows

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“It's easy to sound good. All you do is leave in the parts where you act tough and forget the parts where you get shoved around.”
― Robert Crais, The Monkey's Raincoat

“The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“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.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords

“Once you've got a task to do, it's better to do it than live with the fear of it.”
― Joe Abercrombie, The Blade Itself

“But my patience isn't limitless... unlike my authority.”
― Dan Abnett, Xenos

“Intelligence and education that hasn't been tempered by human affection isn't worth a damn.”
― Daniel Keyes

“Wraiths! Wraiths on wings!”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

“Impaler,’ she declared, ‘I have no equal.”
― Kim Newman, Anno Dracula