We've still got months until the premiere of Game of Thrones season seven [1], but there's no time to waste. With just a few precious episodes left [2] before the series comes to a close, we're looking at any and every hint that will tell us of what's to come. That means analyzing theories [3], poring over all the set pictures [4], and even scrutinizing every behind-the-scenes Instagram [5]. On top of all that, there's one other source that may give us a clue of what to expect when season seven rolls around: the cast and crew themselves! We've pulled all the cryptic quotes we've gotten about what's next.

• Nathalie Emmanuel (Missandei) is sure it will top every other season: [6] "I can tell you that this season somehow is going to blow everyone's minds even more than the last. . . . The momentum that we've been building up for sort of really kicks into gear. . . . Storylines are happening and sort of combining and crashing together. It's a very, very dynamic season. I'm really excited for people to watch it."
• John Bradley (Samwell Tarly) thinks the ending could be bleak: [7] "It's interesting thinking about the end of Game of Thrones. Because we don't know how it ends. We don't know who wins or who loses. We've got no idea what kind of story we're telling. We don't know if it's an indictment of how bad people can triumph if good men do nothing, or a redemptive story about good triumphing over evil. We just don't know, so that mystery has fed in to everything we've done so far."
• Maisie Williams (Arya Stark) shared the one thing we can expect: [8] "A huge cliffhanger . . . it's just kind of tumbling now. . . . We've come to the climax and it's rolling down to the end. It's exciting. I really felt like at the end of last season everything was set up for how it was going to end. Every character came to a little junction in their lives. Now we're all going to crash down together to however this show ends."
• Kit Harington (Jon Snow) thinks it will get worse before it gets better: [9] "I think it's going to get very bleak before, if there is a happy ending. I think it's going to get very dark before it gets better. I think what we might see this season is those White Walkers and that Army of the Dead really come into force. . . . I think with the whole 'Winter is finally here' business, it means everyone is going to have a really bad time."
• Harington also teased a highly anticipated moment: [10] "They really focused [the action] because less characters are coming in, and they're focusing in on the existing ones, and there are lots of people who cross paths, and that's something that I think the audience has been waiting for for a long time."

• Sophie Turner (Sansa Stark) has some thoughts about Sansa and Jon Snow: [11] "She thinks they should both be king and queen of the North for sure. I'm not sure about the Iron Throne. I'm not sure she's so keen on that anymore. I'm not sure she believes that Jon is capable of running Winterfell. I think she thinks he doesn't have the intellect, the knowledge, the experience that she has, and I concur. She knows he has wonderful morals and those Stark morals that inevitably he'll make the right decision — or the good decision — but whether it's going to benefit anyone is another story."
• D.B. Weiss (cocreator) thinks Cersei could go mad: [12] "That's what so much of next season is going to be about: finding out what Cersei's mindset is. Who is she? While Cersei has certainly done a lot of horrible things in her life and she could be a very cruel person, the one thing that was redemptive about her was that she genuinely loved her children. Now they're all gone, and I think that is very interesting for us. Who is she without her children? The answer is something you'll find out next season."
• Weiss insists Daenerys Targaryen will set everything into motion: [13] "Once she gets on those ships and crosses West, that's when the clock on the end game starts ticking. The question has been: When is she going to get back across the Narrow Sea? When is she going to take back her homeland? It's been a long time for her, and it's been something that's such an imperative for people watching. You know she's not going to go there for a beach vacation . . . when she gets back to Westeros, it's on. Her return is the first domino."
• David Benioff (cocreator) hints The Night King is headed further south: [14] "The Wall isn't just a physical structure keeping the army of the dead out. If the Wildlings managed to make it over, which they have, and the Night King has so much more in the way of both power and troops who'll do literally anything he says . . . we'll keep it at that for now."
• Benioff dishes on the endgame: "The pieces are on the board now. Some of the pieces have been removed from the board and we are heading toward the end game. The thing that has excited us from the beginning, back to the way we pitched it to HBO is, it's not supposed to be an ongoing show, where every season it's trying to figure out new story lines. We wanted it to be one giant story, without padding it out to add an extra 10 hours, or because people are still watching it. We wanted to something where, if people watched it end to end, it would make sense as one continuous story. We're definitely heading into the end game now."