Memory 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.

When people first discover beauty, they tend to linger. Even if they don’t at first recognize it for what it is.

Finally someone takes me seriously enough to ask for my word of honor, and it’s a villain.

The only noise now was the rain, pattering softly with the magnificent indifference of nature for the tangled passions of humans.

Because you showed one face to all the rest of the world, and another to me.

A 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.

When in doubt, be ridiculous.