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“Who ever heard of a king without ears? Why, his crown would fall straight down to his neck!”
― George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords

“On Dorne and the North:
One is hot and one is cold, yet these ancient kingdoms of sand and snow are set apart from the rest of Westeros by history, culture, and tradition.
Both are thinly peopled compared to the lands betwixt. Both cling stubbornly to their own laws and their own traditions. Neither was ever truly conquered by the dragons. The king in the North accepted Aegon Targaryen as his overlord peaceably, whilst Dorne resisted the might of the Targaryens valiantly for almost two hundred years, before finally submitting to the Iron Throne through marriage.
Dornishmen and Northmen alike are derided as savages by the ignorant of the five 'civilized' kingdoms, and celebrated for their valor by those who have crossed swords with them.”
― George R.R. Martin, The World of Ice & Fire: The Untold History of Westeros and the Game of Thrones

“If I lived anywhere else for the sheer love of it, it would only be farther and farther north, chasing the boreal up to the Yukon or the Northwest Territories. There’s something about living beside a great stretch of forest, both as participant and as witness, that is endlessly absorbing, at once enchanting and distressing. The former because there are vistas and qualities of light in the spaces of the everyday that are otherworldly, requiring an absolute halting of all activity and an undivided attention to just that light at that time. The latter because there is an incredible amount to learn to feel as though you have some small right to be here, holding fast on the patch of ground you stand on.”
― Jenna Butler, A Profession of Hope: Farming on the Edge of the Grizzly Trail

“The southron knights rode out in plate and mail, dinted and scarred by the battles they had fought, but still bright enough to glitter when they caught the rising sun. Faded and stained, torn and mended, their banners and surcoats still made a riot of colors amidst the winter wood--azure and orange, red and green, purple and blue and gold, glimmering amongst bare brown trunks, grey-green pines and sentinels, drifts of dirty snow.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“ERIC: She looked like Gerry Adams without the beard.

BRIDGET: Ok...

ERIC: It is of course hard to imagine Gerry Adams without the beard. The Gerry Adams beard is part and parcel of the Gerry Adams persona. It symbolises his revolutionary ardour, his passion for constitutional change. And now as it whitens it cements his status as eminence grise, aging philosopher-king. But without the beard he'd look like she did to me that cold autumnal morning on Cyprus Avenue. Innocent. Irrelevant. Lost.”
― David Ireland, Cyprus Avenue

“With the raw-ribbed Wild that abhors all life, the Wild that would crush and rend,
I have clinched and closed with the naked North, I have learned to defy and defend;
Shoulder to shoulder we have fought it out—yet the Wild must win in the end.”
― Robert W. Service, The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses