I looked on, I thought, I reflected, I admired, in a state of stupefaction not altogether unmingled with fear! - Jules Verne
Was he being devoured by one of those secret rages, all the more terrible because contained, and which only burst forth, with irresistible force, at the last moment? - Jules Verne
A lot of writing takes place in the subconscious, and it's bound to have an effect. - George R. R. Martin
And I have a tender spot in my heart for cripples and bastards and broken things. - George R. R. Martin
As much as I love historical fiction, my problem with historical fiction is that you always know what's going to happen. - George R. R. Martin
Believe it or not, I worked four summers in college as a sports writer covering baseball for a parks and rec department in Bayonne, N.J. - George R. R. Martin
'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
Fantasy is silver and scarlet, indigo and azure, obsidian veined with gold and lapis lazuli. Reality is plywood and plastic, done up in mud brown and olive drab. Fantasy tastes of habaneros and honey, cinnamon and cloves, rare red meat and wines as sweet as summer. Reality is beans and tofu, and ashes at the end. Reality is the strip malls of Burbank, the smokestacks of Cleveland, a parking garage in Newark. Fantasy is the towers of Minas Tirith, the ancient stones of Gormenghast, the halls of Camelot. Fantasy flies on the wings of Icarus, reality on Southwest Airlines. Why do our dreams become so much smaller when they finally come true? - George R. R. Martin
Fiction is lies; we're writing about people who never existed and events that never happened when we write fiction, whether its science fiction or fantasy or western mystery stories or so-called literary stories. All those things are essentially untrue. But it has to have a truth at the core of it. - George R. R. Martin
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
I grew up with four T.V. channels. If you missed a show, you missed it. You gotta wait a week for the next one. I'd mail-order books: take a quarter, get an envelope, send off for it and wait until it arrived. I grew up waiting for things. - George R. R. Martin
I had an encyclopedia with a list of flags in the back, so I would look at all these flags of China and Liberia and England and Denmark and whatever, and I learned all the different flags, and I tried to imagine what it would be like to be voyaging on some of these ships. - George R. R. Martin
I have always regarded historical fiction and fantasy as sisters under the skin, two genres separated at birth. - George R. R. Martin
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
I think that, in all of my time, I got just one fan letter, from an NFL fullback named Darian Barnes. NFL players might not have enough time for my books. - George R. R. Martin
I was a novelist first. But in the mid-'80s, I did work in television for ten years. And yes, that was frequently the reaction to my scripts. People would say, 'You know, George, this is great. We love it, a terrific script, but it would cost five times our budget to shoot this.' - George R. R. Martin
I watch NFL football on Sundays. I enjoy gaming with friends, meaning role-playing games; I still enjoy going to conventions and traveling. - George R. R. Martin
I work for two years on a book and it comes out and two days later I've got my first e-mail: When is the next one coming out? - George R. R. Martin
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