a-storm-of-swords

Sometimes," Catelyn said slowly, "the best thing you can do is nothing. When I first came to Winterfell, I was hurt whenever Ned went to the godwood to sit beneath his heart tree. Part of his soul was in that tree, I know, a part I would never share. Yet, without that part, I soon realized, he would not have been Ned. Jeyne, child, you have wed the north, as I did ... and in the north, the winters will come." She tried to smile."Be patient. Be understanding. He loves you and he needs you, and he will come back to you soon enough. This very night, perhaps. Be there when he does. That is all I can tell you.

Up and down," Meera would sigh sometimes as they walked, "then down and up. Then up and down again. I hate these stupid mountains of yours, Prince Bran.""Yesterday you said you loved them.""Oh, I do. My lord father told me about mountains, but I never saw one till now. I love them more than I can say."Bran made a face at her. "But you just said you hated them.""Why can't it be both?" Meera reached up to pinch his nose."Because they're different," he insisted. "Like night and day, or ice and fire.""If ice can burn," said Jojen in his solemn voice, "then love and hate can mate. Mountain or marsh, it makes no matter. The land is one.""One," his sister agreed, "but over wrinkled.

It all goes back and back," Tyrion thought, "to our mothers and fathers and theirs before them. We are puppets dancing on the strings of those who came before us, and one day our own children will take up our strings and dance in our steads.

Noseless and Handless, the Lannister Boys.