I don’t know if I have any particular views about women in positions of power, though I do think it’s more difficult for women, particularly in a Medieval setting. They have the additional problem that they’re a woman and people don’t want them in a position of power in an essentially patriarchal society. George R. R. Martin Read Quote
The odd thing about being a writer is you do tend to lose yourself in your books. Sometimes it seems like real life is flickering by and you’re hardly a part of it. You remember the events in your books better than you remember the events that actually took place when you were writing them. George R. R. Martin Read Quote
The distinction between literary and genre fiction is stupid and pernicious. It dates back to a feud between Robert Louis Stevenson and Henry James. James won, and it split literature into two streams. But it’s a totally false dichotomy. George R. R. Martin Read Quote
Over the years, more than one reviewer has described my fantasy series, ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’, as historical fiction about history that never happened, flavoured with a dash of sorcery and spiced with dragons. I take that as a compliment. George R. R. Martin Read Quote
I can see a scene in my head, and when I try to get it down in words on paper, the words are clunky; the scene is not coming across right. So frustrating. And there are days where it keeps flowing. Open the floodgates, and there it is. Pages and pages coming. Where the hell does this all come from? I don’t know. George R. R. Martin Read Quote
You can have the power to destroy, but it doesn’t give you the power to reform, or improve, or build. George R. R. Martin Read Quote
I tend to write one character at a time. But I don’t write the entirety of one character at a time. George R. R. Martin Read Quote
Dreamsongs’ allows me to show the scope of my writing – with personal commentary that puts the works in context and includes some autobiographical details intended to reveal how each piece came to be, what it represents, and how it has formed, or been informed by, my philosophy of writing. George R. R. Martin Read Quote
An awful lot of fantasy, and even some great fantasy, falls into the mistake of assuming that a good man will be a good king, that all that is necessary is to be a decent human being and when you’re king everything will go swimmingly. George R. R. Martin Read Quote
