Finally someone takes me seriously enough to ask for my word of honor, and itโs a villain.
Sherwood SmithOne doesn't lose a self, like a pair of gloves or a pine. We learn and change, or we harden into stone.
Sherwood SmithWhen people first discover beauty, they tend to linger. Even if they donโt at first recognize it for what it is.
Sherwood SmithFemale authors were still using male names when I was young, or they were neatly shoehorned into womens books except for those few that men could always point at when the disparity was pointed out.
Sherwood SmithSo let me end with the wish that you find the same kind of happyiness, and laughter, and love, that I have found, and that you have the wisdon to make them last.
Sherwood SmithWhy is it the songs all end with the good people winning, but in life they don't?" They don't make songs when the good lose," I muttered. "They make war chants against the bad. So there won't be any songs for us.
Sherwood SmithThe only noise now was the rain, pattering softly with the magnificent indifference of nature for the tangled passions of humans.
Sherwood SmithNo, I don't think I could fall in love with him, handsome though he is, because I don't accept any of that huff he gives me about my great beauty and all that. I'd have to trust a man's words before I could love him. I think.
Sherwood SmithExcept. What is normal at any given time? We change just as the seasons change, and each spring brings new growth. So nothing is ever quite the same.
Sherwood SmithAngry men with pointy things sent to secure a foreign city are pretty much alike anywhere. That's what I've heard. So far nothing's convinced me different.
Sherwood SmithDespite how entertaining certain stories were, at the bottom of every item of gossip there was someone getting hurt.
Sherwood SmithIf more people recognized the difference between friendship and mere attraction, or how love must partake of both to prosper, I expect there'd be more happy people." "And a lot fewer poems and plays," I said, laughing as I splashed about in the scented water.
Sherwood SmithWe'll abduct Garian. Or Jason." "Andโ?" "And dump them into the ocean. Nobody would ever pay a ransom for them.
Sherwood SmithI had seen ardency in men's eyes, but I had only felt it once. With Flauvic, false and therefore easy to dismiss. I suddenly wished that I could feel it now. No, I did feel it. I did have the same feeling, only I had masked it as restlessness, or as the exhortation to action, or as anger. I thought how wonderful it would be to see that spark now, in the right pair of eyes.
Sherwood SmithWhy did I laugh at his sorry, bedraggled appearance? Because ridiculousness made a repellant situation more bearable.
Sherwood SmithA wager?" I repeated. "Yes," he said, and gave me a slow smile, bright with challenge. ... "Stake?" I asked cautiously. He was still smiling, an odd sort of smile, hard to define. "A kiss." My first reaction was outrage, but then I remembered that I was on my way to Court, and that had to be the kind of thing they did at Court. And if I win I don't have to collect. I hesitated only a moment longer, lured by the thought of open sky, and speed, and winning. "Done," I said.
Sherwood SmithMemory warps time, as it does the sights and sounds and smells of reality; for what shapes it is emotion, which can twist what seems clear, just as the surface of a pond seems to bend the stick thrust into the water.
Sherwood SmithIt would have been funny if I had been an observer and not a participant, an idea that gave me a disconcerting insight into gossip. As I walked beside the silent Tamara, I realized that despite how entertaining certain stories were, at the bottom of every item of gossip there was someone getting hurt.
Sherwood Smith