Sherwood Smith Quotes

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.

~ Sherwood Smith

Despite how entertaining certain stories were, at the bottom of every item of gossip there was someone getting hurt.

~ Sherwood Smith

No, 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 Smith

A horse blanket, Mel?I remembered what I was wearing. 'It tore in half when Hrani tried washing it. She was going to mend it. This piece was too small for a horse, but it was just right fo

~ Sherwood Smith

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.

~ Sherwood Smith

Except. 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 Smith

When in doubt, be ridiculous.

~ Sherwood Smith

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

~ Sherwood Smith

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

~ Sherwood Smith

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?

~ Sherwood Smith

What if feeling good only comes after you destroy someone you hate?''That's not good, that's triumph

~ Sherwood Smith

If everywhere you go everyone watches you, and wants you, can you truly be yourself?

~ Sherwood Smith

Act'. How many good people do you really know? I discount those who mouth out platitudes for the edification of the young, and who truly are 'good', whatever that means?What a strange subject, and from such a strange person!Everyone I know is a mixture, some with more good than bad, and it varies on different days

~ Sherwood Smith

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

~ Sherwood Smith

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.

~ Sherwood Smith

No, my career as a warrior princess, short as it had been, was over, I thought morosely. Violence only works if you're good at it. Otherwise, it hurts too much.

~ Sherwood Smith

But I will never ask anyone from our village-from any village in Tlanth-to risk his or her life unless I'm willing to myself.

~ Sherwood Smith

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

~ Sherwood Smith

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.

~ Sherwood Smith

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 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

When I turned thirteen and took a typing class, with typical early teen enthusiasm and total lack of critical ability, I started sending my stuff to publishers once I'd babysat long enough to earn the postage.

~ Sherwood Smith