Sherwood Smith

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

"What if feeling good only comes after you destroy someone you hate?"

"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."

"Who in the universe halts when the enemy tells them to?"

"It 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 talked 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."

"If your opponent is better armed and has longer reach, then surprise is your only ally. And then youd better hope hes half asleep."

"If more people recognized the difference between friendship and mere attraction, and how love must partake of both to prosper, I expect thered be more happy people."

"What might have happened to them to make them the way they were? It did not change what they now did, but it changed, profoundly, how he perceived their motivations, their place in the world."

"It is a shame when we must regard a people as an enemy. It is a shame and a regret when the two peoples share so much. And it is a shame, a regret, and a tragedy when those peoples meet as individuals and find much to admire."

"I realized that despite how entertaining certain stories were, at the bottom of every item of gossip there was someone getting hurt."

"Judging the actions of the many by those of the one is both human and dangerous."

"Nothing is "always," my dear. Except the greater truths, one of which is that power begets politics, and politics are more dangerous than war because there are fewer rules."