Our list of the best quotes from HBO TV series created by George R. R. Martin and Ryan J. Condal. House Of The Dragon is set three hundred years before the events of Game of Thrones and chronicles the rise and the downfall of the Targaryens, who are the only family of dragonlords to survive the Doom of Valyria, and the events leading up to the Targaryen civil war, known as the “Dance of the Dragons”.
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Season 1 Quotes
Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen: Jaehaerys called the Great Council to prevent a war being fought over his succession. For he knew the cold truth. The only thing that could tear down the House of the Dragon was itself.
Young Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen: I’d rather serve as a knight and ride to battle and glory.
Aemma Arryn: We have royal wombs, you and I. The child bed is our battlefield. We must learn to face it with a stiff lip.
Young Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen: [to Alicent] I want to fly with you on dragon back, see the great wonders across the Narrow Sea, and eat only cake.
King Viserys Targaryen: The dream. It was clearer than a memory. Our son was born wearing Aegon’s iron crown. When I heard the sound of thundering hooves, splintering shields, and ringing swords. And I placed our son upon the Iron Throne as the bells of the Grand Sept tolled, and all the dragons roared as one.
Prince Daemon Targaryen: In the Vale, men are said to f*** sheep instead of women. I can assure you, the sheep are prettier.
Princess Rhaenys Velaryon: These knights are as green as summer grass. None have known real war. Their lords sent them to the tourney field with fists full of steel, and balls full of seed, and we expect them to act with honor and grace. It’s a marvel that war didn’t break out at first blood.
Ser Otto Hightower: The gods have yet to make a man who lacks the patience for absolute power, Your Grace.
King Viserys Targaryen: “The Heir for a Day.” Did you say it?
Prince Daemon Targaryen: We must all mourn in our own way, Your Grace.
Prince Daemon Targaryen: I’ve only ever spoken the truth. I see Otto High tower for what he is.
King Viserys Targaryen: An unwavering and loyal Hand?
Prince Daemon Targaryen: A c***.
Prince Daemon Targaryen: [referring to Otto] He doesn’t protect you. I would.
King Viserys Targaryen: From what?
Prince Daemon Targaryen: Yourself. You’re weak, Viserys. And that council of leeches knows it. They all prey on you for their own ends.
King Viserys Targaryen: The idea that we control the dragons is an illusion. They’re a power man should never have trifled with. One that brought Valyria its doom. If we don’t mind our own histories, it will do the same to us. Targaryen must understand this to be King, or Queen.
King Viserys Targaryen: I’m sorry, Rhaenyra. I have wasted the years since you were born wanting for a son. You are the very best of your mother. And I believe it, I know she did, that you could be a great ruling queen.
King Viserys Targaryen: A dragon’s saddle is one thing, but the Iron Throne is the most dangerous seat in the realm.
King Viserys Targaryen: Our histories, they tell us that Aegon looked across the Blackwater from Dragonstone saw a rich land ripe for the capture. But ambition alone is not what drove him to conquest. It was a dream. And just as Daenys foresaw the end of Valyria, Aegon foresaw the end of the world of men. ‘Tis to begin with a terrible winter gusting out of the distant north.
King Viserys Targaryen: Aegon saw absolute darkness riding on those winds. And whatever dwells within will destroy the world of the living. When this Great Winter comes, Rhaenyra, all of Westeros must stand against it. And if the world of men is to survive, a Targaryen must be seated on the Iron Throne. A king or queen. Strong enough to unite the realm against the cold and the dark. Aegon called his dream The Song of Ice and Fire. This secret, it’s been passed from king to heir since Aegon’s time. Now you must promise to carry it and protect it. Promise me this, Rhaenyra. Promise me.
Lord Corlys Velaryon: To elude a storm, you can either sail into it, or around it. But you must never await its coming.
Ser Otto Hightower: I dearly loved my own lady wife. The pain of her passing still haunts me. And to be compelled to replace her for duty’s sake. You are the King. But I do not envy you.
King Viserys Targaryen: I imagine even dragons get lonely.
Princess Rhaenys Velaryon: [to Rhaenyra] Here is the hard truth, which no one else has the heart to tell you. Men would sooner put the realm to the torch than see a woman ascend the Iron Throne. And your father is no fool.
Lord Lyonel Strong: [to Viserys] You sit upon the highest seat in the realm, Your Grace. Proud men don’t like having to look up.
Prince Daemon Targaryen: It was never my brother’s strongest trait.
Lord Corlys Velaryon: What?
Prince Daemon Targaryen: Being King.
Prince Daemon Targaryen: I will speak of my brother as I wish. You will not.
Lord Corlys Velaryon: We are the realm’s second sons, Daemon. Our worth is not given. It must be made.
King Viserys Targaryen: Jason Lannister is an excellent match.
Young Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen: He’s arrogant and self-serious.
King Viserys Targaryen: Well, I thought you might have that in common.
King Viserys Targaryen: I came here to hunt, not to be suffocated by all this f***ing politicking!
King Viserys Targaryen: Many in my line have been dragon riders. Very few among us have been dreamers. What is the power of a dragon next to the power of prophecy.
King Viserys Targaryen: That I am forever doomed to anger one person in the pleasing of another.
Vaemond Velaryon: Daemon is why we are losing!
Young Laenor Velaryon: He at least is fighting this war. What role have you played in his council, uncle, other than Master of Complaints?
Young Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen: How romantic it must be to get imprisoned in a castle and made to squeeze out heirs.
Young Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen: [in High Valyrian] For men marriage might be a political arrangement. For women it is like to be a death sentence.
Prince Daemon Targaryen: [in High Valyrian] This is a tragic world. You cannot live your life in fear, or you will foresake the best parts of it.
Prince Daemon Targaryen: [as he’s kissing Rhaenyra] F***ing is a pleasure, you see. For the woman as it is the man. A marriage is a duty, yes. But that doesn’t stop us from doing what we want. From f***ing who we want.
Mysaria: Hard lessons are not welcomed but suffered.
King Viserys Targaryen: [to Otto] You think yourself a cunning man. Your designs are obvious. Do you wish to have your blood on the Iron Throne so badly that you are willing to destroy mine own?
King Viserys Targaryen: [to Daemon] I have spent a lifetime defending you. But your heart is even blacker than I thought.
King Viserys Targaryen: [to Daemon] You are no conqueror. You are a plague sent to destroy me.
Young Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen: “From my blood come the Prince That Was Promised, and his will be the Song of Ice and Fire.”
King Viserys Targaryen: The truth does not matter, Rhaenyra. Only perception. You have exposed yourself. Now we must both suffer the consequences.
King Viserys Targaryen: [to Otto] Just five days, you went from being another man in Jaehaerys’s court, to the second most powerful man in the realm. I wonder, how long did it take you to choose yourself over your King?
Ser Otto Hightower: A loyal Hand must tell his king a discomforting truth from time to time, Your Grace. If he doesn’t, he’s failed as a servant.
Ser Otto Hightower: You’re no fool, and yet you choose not to see it. The time is coming, Alicent. Either you prepare Aegon to rule, or you cleave to Rhaenyra, and pray for her mercy.
Larys Strong: When one is never invited to speak, one learns instead to observe.
Young Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen: I am the crown, Ser Criston. Or I will be. I may chafe at my duties, but do you think I would choose infamy in exchange for a bushel of oranges, or a ship to Asshai? It is my duty to marry a nobleman from a great house.
Lord Lyonel Strong: Is it not better to live in peace than to have songs sung after you are dead?
Lord Lyonel Strong: Many that are tested, only wish to have been spared it.
Lord Jason Lannister: This is why men wage war, because women would never be ready for the battle in time.
Prince Daemon Targaryen: You know, in King’s Landing, men are made to answer for their slanders. Even old bronze c***s like you.
Young Lady Laena Velaryon: A Targaryen prince, a dashing knight, and a dragon rider. You appear to be every young maiden’s dream.
Prince Daemon Targaryen: That’s only because you don’t know me yet.
Queen Alicent Hightower: [referring to baby Joffrey] Do keep trying, Ser Laenor. Soon or late, you may get one who looks like you.
Queen Alicent Hightower: [to Viserys, referring to Rhaenyra] I have raised this matter before, and you forbade me to speak of it, so I held my tongue. To have one child like that is a mistake. To have three is an insult, to the throne, to you, to House Velaryon, and the match you battled so hard to make for her. Not to mention decency itself.
King Viserys Targaryen: Nature is a thing of mysterious works.
Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen: [to Viserys] You told me it was our duty to hold the realm united against a common foe. By naming me heir, you divided the realm. I thought I wanted it. But the burden is a heavy one. It’s too heavy. Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen: We don’t choose our destiny, Luke. It chooses us.
King Viserys Targaryen: [as they watch his children and grandchilren train] This is the stuff, Lyonel. Lads that learn together, train together, knock each other down, pick each other up.
Ser Criston Cole: When steel is drawn, a fair match isn’t something anyone should expect.
Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen: You do not desert your post when the storm lashes.
Ser Laenor Velaryon: The wise sailor flees the storm as it gathers.
Queen Alicent Hightower: How sweetly the fox speaks when it’s been cornered by the hounds.
Larys Strong: [to Alicent] Truth has many flavors, Your Grace.
Larys Strong: You cannot say, my Queen, that your father would be impartial in this matter.
Queen Alicent Hightower: No, but he would be partial to me! In all of King’s Landing, is there no one to take my side?
Larys Strong: What are children, but a weakness? A folly? A futility? Through them, you imagine you cheat the great darkness of its victory. You will persist forever, in some form or another. As if they will keep you from the dust. But for them, you surrender what you should not. You may know what is the right thing to be done, but love stays the hand. Love is a downfall. Best to make your way through life unencumbered, if you ask me.
Princess Helaena Targaryen: Hand turns loom. Spool of green, spool of black. Dragons of flesh weaving dragons of thread.
Prince Daemon Targaryen: No matter how fat the leech grows, it always wants for another meal.
Princess Rhaenys Targaryen: Daemon only ever does what is best for Daemon.
Lord Corlys Velaryon: What is this brief mortal life, if not the pursuit of legacy?
Lord Corlys Velaryon: History does not remember blood. It remembers names.
Prince Daemon Targaryen: Each of us is capable of depravity. And more than you would believe.
Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen: I believe it of you.
Prince Daemon Targaryen: If you’re accusing me of some depravity, you’ll need to be more specific.
Lady Rhaena Targaryen: [referring to Vhagar] She was mine to claim.
Prince Aemond Targaryen: Then you should’ve claimed her!
Queen Alicent Hightower: There is a debt to be paid. I shall have one of her son’s eyes in return.
Queen Alicent Hightower: [to as Rhaenyra after attempting to attack Lucerys] Where is duty? Where is sacrifice? It’s trampled under your pretty foot again.
Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen: [to Alicent] Exhausting, wasn’t it? Hiding beneath the cloak of your own righteousness. But now they see you as you are.
Prince Aemond Targaryen: Do not mourn me, Mother. It was a fair exchange. I may have lost an eye, but I gained a dragon.
Ser Otto Hightower: [to Alicent] We play an ugly game. And now, for the first time, I see that you have the determination to win it.
Ser Otto Hightower: [to Alicent] I promise you, in time, you and I together will prevail. What that rogue Aemond has done in winning Vhagar to our side. The boy was right. It’s worth a thousand times the price he paid.
Ser Laenor Velaryon: I should’ve been there.
Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen: Those should be our house words.
Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen: [to Daemon] Fire is such strange power. Everything that House Targaryen possesses is owed to it. Yet it has cost us both what we loved.
Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen: Fire is a prison. The sea offers an escape.
Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen: I will not be a tyrant. And rule through terror.
Prince Daemon Targaryen: A tyrant rules only through terror. If the King isn’t feared, he is powerless. If you are to be a strong queen, you must cultivate love and respect, yes, but your subjects must fear you.
Queen Alicent Hightower: I do not rule, as you well know. My father and I are mere stewards of the King’s will and wisdom.
Prince Daemon Targaryen: And how exactly is that wisdom expressed, hm? In blinks and wheezes? I’d be surprised if he could remember his own name, or if you could.
Ser Vaemond Velaryon: [referring to Rhaenyra] Her children are b****rds! And she is a whore.
King Viserys Targaryen: I will have your tongue for that.
Prince Daemon Targaryen: [as he decapitates Vaemond’s head] He can keep his tongue.
Maester Orwyle: It is ill luck to look upon the face of death.
Princess Rhaenys Targaryen: The Stranger has visited me more times than I can count, Grand Maester. I assure you, he cares little whether my eyes are open or closed.
King Viserys Targaryen: It both gladdens my heart and fills me with sorrow to see these faces around the table. The faces most dear to me in all the world, yet grown so distant from each other in the years past. My own face is no longer a handsome one, if indeed it ever was. But tonight, I wish you to see me as I am. Not just a king, but your father. Your brother. Your husband, and your grand sire. Who may not, it seems, walk for much longer among you.
King Viserys Targaryen: Let us no longer hold ill feelings in our hearts. The crown cannot stand strong if the House of the Dragon remains divided. But set aside your grievances. If not for the sake of the crown, then for the sake of this old man who loves you all so dearly.
Princess Helaena Targaryen: Beware the beast beneath the boards.
Queen Alicent Hightower: I saw him last night before he… He told me he wished for Aegon to be king. It is the truth. Uttered with his own lips. His last words to me and I was the only one to hear it. And now he’s dead.
Lord Lyman Beesbury: I am six-and-seventy years old. I have known Viserys longer than any who sit at this table. And I will not believe that he said this on his deathbed, alone, with only the boy’s mother as a witness. This is seizure! It is theft! It is treason!
Princess Helaena Targaryen: It is our fate, I think, to crave always what is given to another. If one possesses a thing, the other will take it away.
Princess Helaena Targaryen: There is a beast beneath the boards.
Queen Alicent Hightower: We do not rule, but we may guide the men that do. Gently, away from violence, and sure destruction, and instead toward peace.
Queen Alicent Hightower: A true queen counts the cost to her people.
Princess Rhaenys Targaryen: And yet you toil still in service to men. Your father, your husband, your son. You desire not to be free, but to make a window in the wall of your prison. Have you never imagined yourself on the Iron Throne?
Mysaria: There is no power but what the people allow you to take.
Queen Alicent Hightower: Reluctance to murder is not a weakness!
Ser Criston Cole: The crown of the Conqueror, passed down through generations. Let the Seven bear witness, Aegon Targaryen is the true heir to the Iron Throne.
Prince Daemon Targaryen: Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen, First of Her Name, Queen of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men. Lady of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm. Your Grace.
Prince Daemon Targaryen: [to Otto] I would rather feed my sons to the dragons than have them carry shields and cups for your drunken, usurper c*** of a king.
Ser Otto Hightower: Stale oaths will not put you on the Iron Throne, Princess. The succession changed the day your father sired a son. I only regret that you and he were the last to see the truth of it.
Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen: When dragons flew to war, everything burned. I do not wish to rule over a kingdom of ash and bone.
Prince Daemon Targaryen: My brother was a slave to his omens and portents. Anything to make his feckless reign appear to have purpose. Dreams didn’t make us kings. Dragons did.
Princess Rhaenys Targaryen: That “girl” is holding the realm together at present. Every man standing around the Painted Table urges her to plunge the realm into war. Rhaenyra’s the only one who’s demonstrated restraint.
Lord Corlys Velaryon: Hope is the fool’s ally.
Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen: Taking caution does not mean standing fast. I wish to know who my allies are before I send them to war.
Lord Borros Baratheon: Which is it? King or Queen? The House of the Dragon does not seem to know who rules it.
Prince Lucerys ‘Luke’ Velaryon: I will not fight you. I came as a messenger, not a warrior.
Prince Aemond Targaryen: A fight would be little challenge. No. I want you to put out your eye. As payment for mine. One will serve. I would not blind you. I plan to make a gift of it to my mother.