Sherwood Smith

Sherwood Smith (born 1951) is an American writer of fantasy and science fiction for young adults as well as adults.

Quotes

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 desolates me to disappoint you, but your brother is not here. Despite two really praiseworthy attempts at rescue.'

... The hint of amusement irritated me, and sick and hurt as I was, I simply had to retort something. 'Glad... at least... you're desolated.'

- dialogue between Vidanric and his prisoner-of-war Meliara.
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 more people recognized the difference between friendship and mere attraction, and how love must partake of both to prosper, I expect there'd be more happy people.
If your opponent is better armed and has longer reach, then surprise is your only ally. And then you'd better hope he's half asleep.
I realized that despite how entertaining certain stories were, at the bottom of every item of gossip there was someone getting hurt.
I've been working hard at assuming Court polish, but the more I learn about what really goes on behind the pretty voices and waving fans and graceful bows, the more I comprehend that what is really said matters little, so long as the manner in which it is said pleases. I understand it, but I don't like it. Were I truly influential, then I would halt this foolishness that decrees that in Court one cannot be sick; that to admit you are sick is really to admit to political or social or romantic defeat; that to admit to any emotions usually means one really feels the opposite. It is a terrible kind of falsehood that people can only claim feelings as a kind of social weapon.

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.
- Chapter One

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

Choose the duty that you can most effectively execute: that is, finally, all we can do in life.

Angry 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.
He’d spent his entire exile schooling himself to face that he would never get what he wanted. People didn’t, sometimes. So you made a life as best you could.
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 am old, but the word to me means familiar, comfortable. Accustomed after long and venerable use. Not dilapidated and useless.
War is a convenient fix for government problems if it happens somewhere else. To other people.

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

'What's it really like to always be the prettiest person in a room? Dos it mean you're always acting as if in a play, because no one stops looking at you?'

'Life is a play, isn't it?”

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Sherwood Smith