pocus.

“Would you prefer to dress in silk and velvet? There was a time when you were fond of such, I do recall.”

“No,” he insisted, shrilly. “No, I only want these clothes. Reek’s clothes. I’m Reek, it rhymes with peek.” His heart was beating like a drum, and his voice rose to a frightened squeak. “I don’t want a bath. Please, m’lord, don’t take my clothes.”

“Will you let us wash them, at least?”

“No. No, m’lord. Please.”
↳ A Dance with Dragons / A Song of Ice and Fire

It’s too simplistic to say that people start to believe what’s written about them. But what happens is that you become a certain way to please people, to be liked, to be what’s expected of you, to change yourself so that you become the best possible version of yourself for people who don’t know you. And I think that’s a terrible, pernicious thing.

The night was windless, the snow drifting straight down out of a cold black sky, yet the leaves of the heart tree were rustling his name. “Theon,” they seemed to whisper, “Theon.” The old gods, he thought. They know me. They know my name. I was Theon of House Greyjoy. I was a ward of Eddard Stark, a friend and brother to his children.

“Please.” He fell to his knees. “A sword, that’s all I ask. Let me die as Theon, not as Reek.” Tears trickled down his cheeks, impossibly warm. “I was ironborn. A son… a son of Pyke, of the islands.”

↳ A Dance with Dragons / A Song of Ice and Fire

We live closer to the green in our bogs and crannogs, and we remember Earth and water, soil and stone, oaks and elms and willows, they were here before us all and will still remain when we are gone.

cristinamoreno:

Leonardo DiCaprio’s version of Romeo’s speech at Juliet’s bier was so good it moved Claire Danes to tears, nearly ruining the scene. The moment the director yelled “cut!,” Danes smacked DiCaprio on the arm and said, “Don’t make me cry. I’m supposed to be comatose, here!”

Oh, look. It’s Leonardo DiCaprio being an amazing actor…again.

“Jaime,” she said, tugging on his ear, “sweetling, I have known you since you were a babe at Joanna’s breast. You smile like Gerion and fight like Tyg, and there’s some of Kevan in you, else you would not wear that cloak … but Tyrion is Tywin’s son, not you. I said so once to your father’s face, and he would not speak to me for half a year. Men are such thundering great fools. Even the sort who come along once in a thousand years.”

“From 1964-1967, I successfully impersonated an airline pilot for Pan Am airways, and I flew over two million miles for free. During that time, I was also the chief resident pediatrician at a Georgia hospital and an assistant attorney general for the state of Louisiana. By the time I was caught, I was considered the youngest and most daring con-man in US history. I had cashed almost four million dollars in fraudulent checks in twenty-six foreign countries and all fifty states. And I did it all before my nineteenth birthday. My name is Frank William Abagnale.”

Time cannot permeate this sabbatical. We do not stay dead long. Once my Luger lets me go, my birth, next time around, will be upon me in a heartbeat. Thirteen years from now we’ll meet again at Gresham, ten years later I’ll be back in this same room, holding this same gun, composing this same letter, my resolution as perfect as my many-headed sextet. Such elegant certainties comfort me at this quiet hour.

Sunt lacrimæ rerum.

R.F.

The soul’s made of stories, not atoms. Everything that ever happened to us. People we loved, people we lost. People we found again against all the odds.

“He will not come,” Kraznys said. “There is a reason. A dragon is no slave.” And Dany swept the lash down as hard as she could across the slaver’s face. Kraznys screamed and staggered back, the blood running red down his cheeks into his perfumed beard. The harpy’s fingers had torn his features half to pieces with one clash, but she did not pause to contemplate the ruin. “Drogon, ” she sang out loudly, sweetly, all her fear forgotten. “Dracarys.” The black dragon spread his wings and roared. A lance of swirling dark flame took Krazynys in the face.