Smoothed Quotes

He has a vision of his life as a sliver of soap, worn and used and smoothed into a slender, blunt-edged arrow-head, a little more of it disintegrating with every day. ~ Hanya Yanagihara

Stirring the pastry cream and putting it in the blast chiller in the island, a total chefly indulgence that I have never once regretted. The house filling with the scent of rich, dark chocolate as the cakes rise in the oven. The treat of the moist trimmings as I even up the layers before spreading the thick custard filling between them. The fudgy frosting smoothed perfectly over the whole thing, and then immediately marred with chocolate cookie crumbs. ~ Stacey Ballis

Vimes stuck his helmet under his arm, smoothed back his hair, and knocked. He'd considered asking Sargent Colon to accompany him, but had brushed the idea aside quickly. He couldn't have tolerated the sniggering. Anyway, what was there to be afraid of? He'd stared into the jaws of death three times; four, if you included telling Vetinari to shut up. ~ Terry Pratchett

Faith shall save your Soul from Death. Without Faith, Death is a drowning, the end of ends, and what sane man wouldn't fear that? But with Faith, Death is nothing worse than the end of the voyage we call life, and the beginning of an eternal voyage in a company of our Loved Ones, with griefs and woes smoothed out, and under the capacity of our Creator... ~ David Mitchell

Mama," the child exclaimed, breathless and agitated.
Phoebe looked down at him in concern. "Justin, what is it?"
"Galoshes brought me a dead mouse. She dropped it on the floor right in front of me!"
"Oh, dear." Tenderly Phoebe smoothed his dark, ruffled hair. "I'm afraid that's what cats do. She thought it was a fine gift."
"Nanny won't touch it, and the housemaid screamed, and I had a fight with Ivo."
Although Phoebe's younger brother Ivo was technically Justin's uncle, the boys were close enough in age to play together and quarrel.
"About the mouse?" Phoebe asked sympathetically.
"No, before the mouse. Ivo said there's going to be a honeymoon and I can't go because it's for grownups." The boy tilted his head back to look up at her, his lower lip quivering. "You wouldn't go to the honeymoon without me, would you, Mama?"
"Darling, we've made no plans to travel yet. There's too much to be done here, and we all need time to settle in. Perhaps in the spring - "
"Dad wouldn't want to leave me behind. I know he wouldn't!"
In the electrified silence that followed, Tom shot a glance at West, who looked blank and startled.
Slowly Phoebe lowered to the ground until her face was level with her son's. "Do you mean Uncle West?" she asked gently. "Is that what you're calling him now?"
Justin nodded. "I don't want him to be my uncle - I already have too many of those. And if I don't have a dad, I'll never learn how to tie my shoes ~ Lisa Kleypas

Towards midnight the rain ceased and the clouds drifted away, so that the sky was scattered once more with the incredible lamps of stars. Then the breeze died too and there was no noise save the drip and tickle of water that ran out of clefts and spilled down, leaf by leaf, to the brown earth of the island. The air was cool, moist, and clear; and presently even the sound of the water was still. The beast lay huddled on the pale beach and the stains spread, inch by inch.

The edge of the lagoon became a streak of phosphorescence which advanced minutely, as the great wave of the tide flowed. The clear water mirrored the clear sky and the angular bright constellations. The line of phosphorescence bulged about the sand grains and little pebbles; it held them each in a dimple of tension, then suddenly accepted them with an inaudible syllable and moved on.

Along the shoreward edge of the shallows the advancing clearness was full of strange, moonbeam-bodied creatures with fiery eyes. Here and there a larger pebble clung to its own air and was covered with a coat of pearls. The tide swelled in over the rain-pitted sand and smoothed everything with a layer of silver. Now it touched the first of the stains that seeped from the broken body and the creatures made a moving patch of light as they gathered at the edge. The water rose further and dressed Simon's coarse hair with brightness. The line of his cheek silvered and the turn of his shoulder became sculptured mar ~ William Golding

He grinned and smoothed her hair back from her face. "That's exactly what we're about to do, darlin'. Negotiate. ~ Lena Diaz

Poirot smoothed his mustache, as if he imagined that laughing might have shaken it out of shape. ~ Sophie Hannah

Nice dress. Can you breathe in that thing?"
I smoothed the front of my dress. "It would be much more fun to wear if it wasn't what I was going to be buried in."
"You are not going to be buried." He paused, lifted the clothes up suspiciously.
"Vampires don't bury their victims," he added distractedly.
"Hey, looking for comfort here. ~ Alyxandra Harvey

Don't be upset," he whispered.
"I couldn't stop it from happening," she said in a plaintive voice.
"You weren't supposed to," he said tenderly. "I was playing with you. Teasing you."
"But I wanted it to last longer. It's our wedding night, and it's already over." Pausing, Beatrix added glumly, "At least my part of it is."
Christopher averted his face, but she could see that he was struggling to contain a laugh. When he had mastered himself, he looked down at her with a slight smile and smoothed her hair back from her face. "I can make you ready again."
Beatrix was quiet for a moment as she evaluated her spent nerves and limp body. "I don't think so," she said. "I feel like a wrung-out kitchen mop."
"I promise to make you ready again," he said, his voice threaded with amusement.
"It will take a long time," Beatrix said, still frowning.
Gathering her into his arms, Christopher crushed his mouth over hers. "I can only hope so. ~ Lisa Kleypas

Pulling my hand away, he rose, slanting his head to kiss me deeply as he pushed me onto my back, with his weight draped over me. "I've never had anything that was my own," he said against my mouth. "Nothing that was ever for just me and no one else. I've never been anyone's first." He kissed me and then lifted his head. I stared into his eyes. "I've never been anyone's only."
That made my heart ache for him as I raised my hand, pressing my palm against his cheek. "You're my first," I whispered. "You're ... you're my only."
His lips parted. "You can't say that and not mean it."
I held his gaze as my chest swelled. "I mean it."
He smoothed his thumb over my lip. "I really am a lucky son of a bitch. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

Eric Steele was strapped in and rubbing a rag over his father's 1911. Demo had brought the pistol with the rest of Steele's
gear on board the C-17. In the cockpit, the pilot pushed the throttle forward, shoving Steele back in his seat. He barely
noticed because he was thinking about the first time his father let him hold the pistol. It had felt so heavy in his hands
back then.


So much I never got to ask him.

He ran his thumb over the spot where the serial number should have been. It was silver and all traces of the file marks were
smoothed out by years of use. The pistol was one of John Moses Browning's masterpieces, the same design that the American
infantryman had carried in the Battle of Belleau Wood, Iwo Jima, Korea, and Vietnam. It was the only thing he had to remind
him of the father he never really knew.


Steele had made the pistol his own by modifying it to shoot 9mm, adding a threaded barrel, and installing suppressor sights,
which were taller than the factory ones. It was his gun now, and he slipped it away before taking an amphetamine tablet out
of his pocket and downing it with a sip of water. ~ Sean Parnell

she thought about being held to the woman's chest, and lying there hair-smoothed and quiet until she felt she'd found home. ~ Emily Franklin

Lena Smoothed her hair. Crazy weather you have down here. ~ Kami Garcia

He got in beside her and impatiently reached for her seat belt, snapping it in place. "You always forget," he murmured, meeting her eyes.
Her breath came uneasily through her lips as she met that level stare and responded helplessly to it. He was handsome and sexy and she loved him more than her own life. She had for years. But it was a hopeless, unreturned adoration that left her unfulfilled. He'd never touched her, not even in the most innocent way. He only looked.
"I should close my door to you," she said huskily. "Refuse to speak to you, refuse to see you, and get on with my life. You're a constant torment."
Unexpectedly he reached out and touched her soft cheek with just his fingertips. They smoothed down to her full, soft mouth and teased the lower lip away from the upper one. "I'm Lakota," he said quietly. "You're white."
"There is," she said unsteadily, "such a thing as birth control."
His face was very solemn and his eyes were narrow and intent on hers. "And sex is all you want from me, Cecily?" he asked mockingly. "No kids, ever?"
It was the most serious conversation they'd ever had. She couldn't look away from his dark eyes. She wanted him. But she wanted children, too, eventually. Her expression told him so.
"No, Cecily," he continued gently. "Sex isn't what you want at all. And what you really want, I can't give you. We have no future together. If I marry one day, it's important to me that I marry a woman with the same backgroun ~ Diana Palmer

I'll keep the girl out of trouble," Gray said, in what seemed to him a rather magnanimous gesture. "I'll watch out for her."
"Oh, I've no doubt you will. But who's going to watch out for you?"
Gray's nerves prickled. So, it wasn't the girl Joss was concerned about. No, he expected Gray to cock it all up.
"Right, Joss. I'm an unprincipled, lecherous bastard." He paused, waiting for his brother to argue otherwise.
He didn't.
Gray protested. "She's a governess, for the love of gold. Prim, proper, starched, dull." Soft, he thought in counterpoint. Delicate, sweet. Intriguing.
"Ah. So you'll dally with any chambermaid or serving wench who'll lift her skirts, but you'd draw the line at seducing a governess?"
"Yes. Have a look at me, man." Gray smoothed his brushed velvet lapel, then gestured upward at the banners trimming the freshly tarred rigging. "Look at this ship. I'm telling you, my libertine days are over. I've gone respectable."
"It's easy to change your coat. It's a great deal harder to change your ways. ~ Tessa Dare

He seemed to be drinking in her face, looking at her instead of into her.
"Stop. Stop that. This isn't goodbye."
Blake pulled her left hand to his mouth and kissed her ring finger. "I'm still glad it's empty. He never deserved you. Of that, I'm very sure."
Livia saw moisture in his eyes. "You're saying goodbye. No. Here's what I'm sure of. I'll walk away from this house right now, wearing only what I have on my back and be happy. With you I can taste forever - it's right here." Livia pointed at her lips and then kissed his.
Blake allowed the kiss, but mumbled a question as well, "How many shotguns does he have?"
"Not enough to get me away from you." Livia traced his jaw.
Blake took her hand and kissed her palm, then her forehead, "Livia, go in there and let him talk to you. He's a father. I'd want to talk to my daughter at a moment like this. Let's give him that respect."
"I will not go in there. Where will you go?"
Livia felt a gentle tug on her heart. She was torn. She wanted to comfort her dad and get him to understand who Blake was, but in as little time as possible so she could get back to Blake.
"My inamorata, you know where I'll be: where I'll always be. Waiting. For you." Blake began putting the mask on.
Livia looked around wildly, feeling close to irrational. "I don't want you to go." These words were inadequate to express her need.
Blake smoothed her hair away from her face. "I've often wished I had a father. L ~ Debra Anastasia

Only people who've been discriminated against can really know how much it hurts. Each person feels the pain in his own way, each has his own scars. So I think I'm as concerned about fairness and justice as anybody. But what disgusts me even more are people who have no imagination. The kind T. S. Eliot calls hollow men. People who fill up that lack of imagination with heartless bits of straw, not even aware of what they're doing. Callous people who throw a lot of empty words at you, trying to force you to do what you don't want to. Like that lovely pair we just met." He sighs and twirls the long slender pencil in his hand. "Gays, lesbians, straights, feminists, fascist pigs, communists, Hare Krishnas-- none of them bother me. I don't care what banner they raise. But what I can't stand are hollow people. When I'm with them I just can't bear it, and wind up saying things I shouldn't. With those women--I should've just let it slide, or else called Miss Saeki and let her handle it. She would have given them a smile and smoothed things over. But I just can't do "do that. I say things I shouldn't, do things I shouldn't do. I can't control myself. That's one of my weak points. Do you know why that's a weak point of mine?"
"'Cause if you take every single person who lacks much imagination seriously, there's no end to it," I say. ~ Haruki Murakami

Beauty

Void lay the world, in nothingness concealed,
Without a trace of light or life revealed,
Save one existence which second knew-
Unknown the pleasant words of We and You.
Then Beauty shone, from stranger glances free,
Seen of herself, with naught beside to see,
With garments pure of stain, the fairest flower
Of virgin loveliness in bridal bower.
No combing hand had smoothed a flowing tress,
No mirror shown her eyes their loveliness
No surma dust those cloudless orbs had known,
To the bright rose her cheek no bulbul flown.
No heightening hand had decked the rose with green,
No patch or spot upon that cheek was seen.
No zephyr from her brow had fliched a hair,
No eye in thought had seen the splendour there.
Her witching snares in solitude she laid,
And love's sweet game without a partner played.
But when bright Beauty reigns and knows her power
She springs indignant from her curtained bower.
She scorns seclusion and eludes the guard,
And from the window looks if doors be barred.
See how the tulip on the mountain grown
Soon as the breath of genial Spring has blown,
Bursts from the rock, impatient to display
Her nascent beauty to the eye of day.
When sudden to thy soul reflection brings
The precious meaning of mysterious things,
Thou canst not drive the thought from out thy brain;
Speak, hear thou must, for silence is suc ~ Nūr Ad-Dīn 'Abd Ar-Rahmān Jāmī

The other way that rocks are smoothed is by grinding against each other. God has placed us among people who manage to rub us the wrong way. I am sure that you may feel this way about more than one person in your life. I am convinced we will always be given someone to grind on us! ~ Andrew Mullek

And she was *happy*. The kind of happy that smoothed time into still frames. ~ Victoria Schwab

Going through old papers I came across the transcript of a university debate on Rublyov. God, what a level. Abysmal, pathetic. But there is one remarkable contribution by a maths professor called Manin, Lenin Prize winner, who can hardly be more than thirty. I share his views. Not that one should say that about oneself. But it's exactly what I felt when I was making Andrey. And I'm grateful to Manin for that.

"Almost every speaker has asked why they have to be made to suffer all through the three hours of the film. I'll try to reply to that question.
It is because the twentieth century has seen the rise of a kind of emotional inflation. When we read in a newspaper that two million people have been butchered in Indonesia, it makes as much impression on us as an account of our hockey team winning a match. The same degree of impression! We fail to notice the monstrous discrpancy between these two events. The channels of our perception have been smoothed out to the point where we are no longer aware. However, I don't want to preach about this. It may be that without it life would be impossible. Only the point is that there are some artists who do make us feel the true measure of things. It is a burden which they carry throughout their lives, and we must be thankful to them. ~ Andrei Tarkovsky

The old master oil paintings were usually done in transparent oil colors on top of a black-and-white underpainting, which was often painted in egg temperas. My version of this technique was to start with a watercolor underpainting, which is fast drying like tempera, but I have an easier time controlling it. Then I seal the underpainting with a coat of clear, matte acrylic medium. That keeps the oil paints, which come next, from soaking into the paper, where they would turn dull and flat. Instead, thin layers of transparent oil paint can be smoothed into glowing colors and bold, glossy surfaces, with a depth and space that I don't think can be gotten any other way. It isn't easy to do, but when it works, the results can still surprise me. ~ Paul O. Zelinsky

The parents are the worst! They completely lose their minds, like academic bridezillas, focused on getting their precious mini-me into college and never for a minute thinking about what happens when the poor bastards actually get there, not to mention when they get out! God forbid they learn to fend for themselves or trust their own judgment or fail and struggle and succeed on their own terms. No! Everything has to be smoothed out and landscaped for Tiffany and Kody and Jasmine and Joshua, and if regular people get run over in the process, then that's how the cookie crumbles! ~ Abbi Waxman

My writing is jagged and harsh, I want it to remain that way; I don't want it smoothed out. ~ Charles Bukowski

Introduction to Kate. - Satisfied she had concluded her notes on the manuscript she had been reading, Kate placed her heel back in its shoe and stood up. She smoothed her skirt and paused to spare a thought for Vincent.
"What is going to happen next?" Kate remembered him pleading.
Claire had said this would happen. ~ Francine Scott

Fucking hell." He smoothed her hair back with shaking fingers before turning to kiss her cheek. "All those years wasted, when I could have been loving you."
The answer was easy, obvious. "You were."
He choked on a laugh and coaxed her head back, urging her to meet his eyes. "Fine, then. All those wasted years, I could have been being loved."
"You were that, too. ~ Kit Rocha

But what I could see out of the corner of my eye made me think of two lovely bundles of silk floating along a stream. In a moment they were hovering on the walkway in front of me, where they sank down and smoothed their kimono across their knees. ~ Arthur Golden

Eric, I'm going to pay you back for leaving me." She smoothed her dress. "You understand?" "Yes," he said, and walked into the kitchen. "I'll devote my life to it," Kathy said, from the bedroom. "Now I have a reason for living. It's wonderful to have a purpose at last; it's thrilling. After all these pointless ugly years with you. God, it's like being born all over again." "Lots of luck," he said. ~ Philip K. Dick

At dawn, in the great meadow, a solitude
As easy as white paint comes down from the mountains
To daydream, bending the grass.

I take my body, familiar bundle of sorrows, to be
Touched by its hem, and smoothed over . . .

There's only one secret in life that's worth knowing,
And you found it.

I'll find it too. ~ Charles Wright

He glanced down at her, keeping his expression carefully impassive. "I hate to leave you." There was a gently mocking edge to his tone. "You need someone to follow you around and keep you safe from mishaps. On the other hand, you also need someone to find a beekeeper."
Realizing he was not going to talk about Leo, Amelia followed his lead. "Will you do that for us? I would consider it a great favor."
"Of course. Although…" His eyes held a wicked glitter. "As I mentioned before, I can't keep doing favors for you with no reward. A man needs incentive."
"If … if you want money, I'll be glad to - "
"God, no." Rohan was laughing now. "I don't want money." Reaching out, he smoothed back her hair, letting the heel of his hand graze the edge of her cheekbone. The brush of his skin was light and erotic, causing her to swallow hard. "Goodbye, Miss Hathaway. I'll see myself out." He flashed a smile at her and advised, "Stay away from the windows."
On the way down the stairs, Rohan passed Merripen, who was ascending at a measured pace.
Merripen's face darkened at the sight of the visitor. "What are you doing here?"
"It seems I'm helping with pest eradication."
"Then you can begin by leaving," Merripen growled.
Rohan only grinned nonchalantly, and continued on his way. ~ Lisa Kleypas

Water has its own archaeology, not a layering but a leveling, and thus is truer to our sense of the past, because what is memory but near and far events spread and smoothed beneath the present's surface. ~ Ron Rash

I stared. "But you're saying--"

"Yes, Clay" - her mouth smoothed into a chilly smile - "Image of El, breath of God. In such an unworthy vessel. Something far more precious than diamonds, denied even to us but entrusted to a container of mud. ~ Tosca Lee

Kathel smoothed out his shirt in an exaggerated manner. "It was the least I could do. I owed her one," he said referring to when Keirah saved Willow. He looked at Keirah and winked. Yeah, so not the thing to do right now, Keirah thought. ~ Madison Thorne Grey

My loneliness ... still comes over me sometimes ... It's a liminal, lost sensation of having wandered wide, endless boulevards, among rows of orange trees, winter butterflies, seasons reversed and out of order, dogs barking from behind fences meant to keep out intruders. It's not the place that impoverishes me but I who bring my own sense of poverty, of loss, to the place. It's a sense of near nothingness, as though I were not so much a blank slate as an erased chalkboard, still bearing illegible smudges of smoothed-over writing. ~ Marco Roth

I lit a Camel, blew smoke through my nose and looked at a piece of black shiny metal on a stand. It showed a full, smooth curve with a shallow fold in it and two protuberances on the curve. I stared at it. Marriott saw me staring at it. "An interesting bit," he said negligently. "I picked it up just the other day. Asta Dial's Spirit of Dawn." "I thought it was Klopstein's Two Warts on a Fanny," I said. Mr. Lindsay Marriott's face looked as if he had swallowed a bee. He smoothed it out with an effort. ~ Raymond Chandler

Hey, Dad, if I needed to check someone's background, would you be able to do that for me?"
"That's a little unethical, Liv." John smoothed his mustache. "Is this about a boy?"
Livia cringed. "Yeah, it is."
"Then absolutely. I'd be happy to. ~ Debra Anastasia

Mountains aren't eternal: even the most imposing massifs are smoothed away by weathering in a few hundred million years or less. Plate tectonics makes new ones, and without it, our future would be flat. ~ Seth Shostak

Her eyes widened as he guided her backward until she was trapped against the bed. He turned her around so that she faced it.
"You remember when we met, how you told me off in your office? Ever since then, I've wanted something." He smoothed his hands up her legs and pushed up her skirt. With one sharp tug, he ripped her lacy thong and tossed it to the floor. "You at my mercy."
He heard the excited catch of her breath and bent his head to murmur in her ear. "Good thing you still have those heels on. ~ Julie James

But no one wants to listen to our sad stories unless they are smoothed over with a joke or nice melody. And even then, not always. No one wants to hear a woman talking or writing about pain in a way that suggests that it doesn't end. Without a pat solution, silver lining, or happy ending we're just complainers -- downers who don't realize how good we actually have it.

Men's pain and existential angst are the stuff of myth and legends and narratives that shape everything we do, but women's pain is a backdrop- a plot development to push the story along for the real protagonists. Disrupting that story means we're needy or shellfish, or worst of all, man-haters - as if after all men have done to women over the ages the mere act of not liking them for it is most offensive. ~ Jessica Valenti

All around her it was like that: a fast crack on the head if you let the hunger show so she decided then and there at the age of twelve in Baltimore never to be broken in the hands of any man. Whatever it took
knife blades or screaming teeth
Never. And yes, she would tap dance, and yes, she would skate, but she would do it with a frown, pugnacious lips and scary eyes, because Never. And anybody who wanted nice from this little colored girl would have to get it with pliers and chloroform, because Never. When her mother died and she went to Philadelphia and then away to school, she was so quick to learn, but no touchee, teacher, and no, I do not smile, because Never. It smoothed out a little as she grew older. The pugnacious lips became a seductive pout
eyes more heated than scary. But beneath the easy manners was a claw always ready to rein in the dogs, because Never. ~ Toni Morrison

Most childhoods are full of anxiety, but that tends to get smoothed over, so you have a sense of nostalgia. ~ Romesh Gunesekera

The moon is the better storyteller for this event. Our ancient craters are smoothed over by erosion and tectonic motion. With no erosion, no wind, and no liquid water on the moon, craters can remain perfectly visible for billions of years, an orbiting catalog of impacts. ~ Craig Childs

Why are you making that face, Fern?" Bailey asked.
"What face?"
"That face that looks like you can't figure something out. Your eyebrows are pushed down and your forehead is wrinkled. And you're frowning."
Fern smoothed out her face, realizing she was doing exactly what Bailey said she was doing. "I was thinking about a story I've been writing. I can't figure out how to end it. What do you think this face means?" Fern gave herself an underbite and crossed her eyes.
"You look like a brain-dead cartoon character," Bailey answered, snickering.
"What about this one?" Fern pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows while wincing.
"You're eating something super sour!" Bailey cried. "Let me try one." Bailey thought for a minute and then he made his mouth go slack and opened his eyes as wide as they could go. His tongue lolled out the side of his mouth like a big dog.
"You're looking at something delicious," Fern guessed.
"Be more specific," Bailey said and made the face once more.
"Hmm. You're looking at a huge ice cream sundae," Fern tried again. Bailey pulled his tongue back into his mouth and grinned cheekily.
"Nope. That's the face you make every time you see Ambrose Young."
Fern swatted Bailey with the cheap stuffed bear she'd won at the school carnival in fourth grade. The arm flew off and ratty stuffing flew in all directions. Fern tossed it aside.
"Oh yeah? What about you? This is the face you make whenever Rita comes ~ Amy Harmon

Biting his lip, blinking against fresh tears, Kien smoothed Ela's dark tangled hair, then dared another look at her face. So serene. Beautiful beneath the dried trails of blood. What had she suffered? Brave little prophet.
He whispered, "I love you!" Always. ~ R.J. Larson

I just want to make sure Mama. Sometimes I don't even know what I want. A lot of times I'm just tired."
Mama reached up and smoothed Liza's curls away from her face. "Well darlin', that's the sign of a life being lived. I think we're all tired when we're giving it our best. ~ Gwenn Wright

But I think parents aren't teachers anymore. Parents
or a whole lot of us, at least
lead by mouth instead of by example. It seems to me that if a child's hero is their mother or father
or even better, both of them in tandem
then the rough road of learning and experience is going to be smoothed some. And every little bit of smoothing helps, in this rough old world that wants children to be miniature adults, devoid of charm and magic and the beauty of innocence. ~ Robert McCammon

Slowly, her slim hand smoothed over the swell of his buttock, lingering there. A shocked laugh choked his throat, the sound muddled by a stifled groan that her intrigued touch elicited. The saucy little sneak thief was copping a feel. He felt inclined to turn around and let her get a handful. ~ Kristen Callihan

Without you having to do anything, the phone brackets the shot so that you can pretend to time travel, to pick the perfect instant when everyone is smiling. Skin is smoothed out; pores and small imperfections are erased. What used to take my father a day's work is now done in the blink of an eye, and far better.

Do the people who take these photos believe them to be reality? Or have the digital paintings taken the place of reality in their memory? When they try to remember the captured moment, do they recall what they saw, or what the camera crafted for them? ~ Ken Liu

Oh, how can I put into words the joys of a walk over country such as this; the scenes that delight the eyes, the blessed peace of mind, the sheer exuberance which fills your soul as you tread the firm turf? This is something to be lived, not read about. On these breezy heights, a transformation is wondrously wrought within you. Your thoughts are simple, in tune with your surroundings; the complicated problems you brought with you from the town are smoothed away. Up here, you are near to your Creator; you are conscious of the infinite; you gain new perspectives; thoughts run in new strange channels; there are stirrings in your soul which are quite beyond the power of my pen to describe. Something happens to you in the silent places which never could in the towns, and it is a good thing to sit awhile in a quiet spot and meditate. The hills have a power to soothe and heal which is their very own. No man ever sat alone on the top of a hill and planned a murder or a robbery, and no man ever came down from the hills without feeling in some way refreshed, and the better for his experience. ~ Alfred Wainwright

I read it over and over again. I turned it over, turned it back, smoothed it out on my pillow and then read it some more. It was written on a piece of torn-out spiral notebook paper. It had seams like it had been folded and unfolded a few times. I looked into the manila envelope again to see if there was anything else. There wasn't. ~ Emma Rathbone

Let go of me." It smoothed its tentacles again. "Be grateful, Joe. I'm not going to let go of you. ~ Octavia E. Butler

She smoothed her hair, tugged down the hem of her dress. She would have to act normal, pretend nothing had happened. But Alex knew that wouldn't be a problem. She'd been doing it her whole life. ~ Leigh Bardugo

Rolling flat onto his back, Drake shuddered. Then he inhaled deeply. He stared up at the night sky. "We're going to win," he said, his voice calmer, less strained. "This is nothing. Keep going. They can't stop us. Jason, give Rachel the necklace. Tell her ... tell her I'm sorry. Tell her ... I wanted ... to show her ... my little valley. Tell her I tried."
His voice was growing weak. Farfalee smoothed a hand over his brow. "Shhh," she whispered. "Be still, Drake. You can rest now. You did it. Rest. We'll take it from here."
"Failie," he whispered, his hand twitching toward the back of his neck with little jerks. "Where's my seed?" His head tipped sideways. The breath went out of him. ~ Brandon Mull

The girls seemed unconcerned and went about their days, each as lovely in their own way as the flowers they tended. Sorrel's black hair became streaked with premature white, which gave her an exotic air, although the elegance was somewhat ruined by the muddy jeans and shorts she practically lived in. Nettie, on the other hand, had a head of baby-fine blonde hair that she wore short, thinking, wrongly, that it would look less childlike. Nettie wouldn't dream of being caught in dirty jeans and was always crisply turned out in khaki capris or a skirt and a white shirt. She considered her legs to be her finest feature. She was not wrong.
Patience was the sole Sparrow redhead, although her hair had deepened from its childhood ginger and was now closer to the color of a chestnut. It was heavy and glossy as a horse's mane, and she paid absolutely no attention to it or to much else about her appearance, nor did she have to. In the summer her wide-legged linen trousers and cut-off shorts were speckled with dirt and greenery, her camisoles tatty and damp. The broad-brimmed hat she wore to pick was most often dangling from a cord down her back. As a result, the freckles that feathered across her shoulders and chest were the color of caramel and resistant to her own buttermilk lotion (Nettie smoothed it on Patience whenever she could make her stand still). When it was terribly hot, Patience wore the sundresses she'd found packed away in the attic. She knew they were her mother's, an ~ Ellen Herrick

The King smoothed the blanket on Thackeray's back. He opened his mouth, and shut it. Then he opened it again, and after a moment, said, "You used to call me Papa, do you remember that?"
The question took Azalea back.
"No," she said. ~ Heather Dixon

Our encounter with cancer has rounded us off; it has smoothed and polished us like river rocks. ~ Siddhartha Mukherjee

Jane." Molly rubbed her arm. "You've got so much going on! You don't need this Pembrook Park, and you definitely don't need Mr. Darcy."
"I know. I mean, he's not even real. He's not, he's not, I know he's not, but maybe ... "
"There's no maybe. He's not real."
Jane groaned. "But I don't want to have to settle."
"You always do. Every single guy you ever dated was a settle."
She sat up. "None of them loved me, did they? Ever. Some of them liked me or I was convenient but ... Am I truly that pathetic?"
Molly smoothed her hair. "No, of course not," she said, which meant, Yes, but I love you anyway. ~ Shannon Hale

It's precarious to hang onto the veracity of memory because its edges are smoothed by the river of time. ~ Khang Kijarro Nguyen

If I could just have him until the day was over. Just a few more hours. But he was gone. I clasped my hand tightly over my mouth and felt a trembling that started deep inside move out to make all of me shake. I had a mighty impulse, it truly was mighty, to rise to my feet and howl. To overturn the chair and nightstand, to rip at my clothes, to bring down the very walls around us. But of course I did not do that. I pulled an elemental sense of outrage back inside and smoothed it down. I forced something far too big into something far too small, and this made for a surprising and unreasonable weight, as mercury does. I noticed sounds coming from my throat, little unladylike grunts. I saw that everything I'd ever imagined about what it would feel like when was pale. Was wrong. Was the shadow and not the mountain. And then, "It's all right," I said, quickly. "It's all right." To whom? I wondered later. ~ Elizabeth Berg

You never made me weak," he said, giving her a little shake. "You make me strong." His big hands smoothed up her arms. "Just knowing you're in this world makes me want to live in it, makes me want to fight. ~ Kristen Callihan

My head is so full of memories!" Cinderheart wailed. "I feel as though there are two lives inside me, not one. How can it be my choice to make? Doesn't Cinderpelt have a choice? I can't make her a warrior! She was a medicine cat!"
Lionblaze pressed his muzzle closer. "She chose you", he murmured. "She gave you the choice".
Cinderheart began to tremble. Lionblaze could sense her mind whirling. "You can only live one life, Cinderheart. It's your choice! This is your destiny, not Cinderpelt's. She lived her own life".
Cinderheart gasped. Then her pelt smoothed. She lifted her chin. "Then I choose the life of a warrior". Her blue eyes shone. "And I choose you".
A breeze stirred the ferns. Lionblaze glimpsed a pale gray shape appear like a shadow beside Cinderheart. Stepping back in surprise, he saw it peel away from her and drift up like a cobweb carried by the wind. A soft voice whispered, Thank you.
Lionblaze's fur stood on end. "Did you see that?
Cinderheart was watching the shadow disappear into the trees. "It was Cinderpelt", she breathed. "I've set her free".
Lionblaze purred loudly. "Will you fight alongside me?"
Cinderheart pressed her muzzle fiercely against his. "Always". ~ Erin Hunter

He smoothed his fingers along her jawline and lifted her chin, kissing her gently, testing.
Lindsey went light-headed with the rush of sensation, the touch of his lips leaving her longing for more. Clutching his shirt in her fingers - napkin and all - she pulled him closer, melting into his kiss. Carden took it from tentative to tender, then parted her lips with the velvety sweep of his tongue. She matched his languid rhythm, hypnotized. He was all chocolate and caramel, creamy cool and sweet.
'Sinfully delicious'.
No doubt he was 31 flavors of trouble, but resisting him seemed impossible. ~ Tracy March

Leaning down onto his arms, he prowled up the bed to her body, his eyes fixated on her secret skin as if he'd never seen anything like it. When he got in range, wide hands smoothed their way up the insides of her thighs, opening them even farther.
But then he frowned and looked up at her. "Wait, I'm supposed to kiss you on the mouth first, aren't I? I mean, males start at the top and work their way down, don't they?"
What and odd question... like he'd never done this at all?
Before she could reply he began to move back, so she sat up and captured his face in her hands.
"You can do whatever you like to me."
His eyes flashed and he held his position for a split second.
Then he lunged at her, taking her down onto the bed. His tongue shot into her mouth and his hands tangled in her hair, pulling on her, arching her, trapping her head. The hunger in him was ferocious, a warrior's thick-blooded need for sex. He was going to take her with all the strength he had, and she was going to be sore when he was through using her. Sore and utterly blissed out. She couldn't wait. ~ J.R. Ward

Language, like the mouths that hold and release it, is wet & living, each word is wrinkled with age, swollen with other words, with blood, smoothed by the numberless flesh tongues that have passed across it. Your language hangs around your neck, a noose, a heavy necklace; each word is empire, each word is vampire and mother. ~ Margaret Atwood

I produced a fulsome sermon. When the appointed Sunday arrived, I used all of my best grooming skills. I picked the cat hairs off my most expensive suit, smoothed my hair, and put a Band-aid on the thumb I had chewed while working overtime on my sermon. Once I met the delegation at church I did my best to dazzle them, and after the service was over we sat for almost two hours in a Sunday School room as I answered question after question about my history, my beliefs, my weaknesses, and my strengths. One man on the committee noticed the Band-aid on my thumb. "What did you do to yourself?" he asked sympathetically. "I cut it while I was cooking, "I lied. ~ Barbara Brown Taylor

The city had grown, implacably, spreading its concrete and alloy fingers wider every day over the dark and feral country. Nothing could stop it. Mountains were stamped flat. Rivers were dammed off or drained or put elsewhere. The marshes were filled. The animals shot from the trees and then the trees cut down. And the big gray machines moved forward, gobbling up the jungle with their iron teeth, chewing it clean of its life and all its living things.
Until it was no more.
Leveled, smoothed as a highway is smoothed, its centuries choked beneath millions and millions of tons of hardened stone.
The birth of a city ... It had become the death of a world. ~ Charles Beaumont

The sun was up, the room already too warm. Light filtered in through the net curtains, hanging suspended in the air, sediment in a pond. My head felt like a sack of pulp. Still in my nightgown, damp from some fright I'd pushed aside like foliage, I pulled myself up and out of my tangled bed, then forced myself through the usual dawn rituals - the ceremonies we perform to make ourselves look sane and acceptable to other people. The hair must be smoothed down after whatever apparitions have made it stand on end during the night, the expression of staring disbelief washed from the eyes. The teeth brushed, such as they are. God knows what bones I'd been gnawing in my sleep. ~ Margaret Atwood

Jaenelle peered into the space between the chair arms. "Saetan?" she said in a small, quivery voice. "Saetan, are you all right?"
Using Craft, Saetan sent the top chair back to the blackwood desk. "I'm fine, witch-child." He stuffed his feet into his shoes and gingerly stood up. "That's the most excitement I've had in centuries."
"Really?" He straightened his black tunic-jacket and smoothed back his hair.
"Yes, really." And Guardian or not, a man his age shouldn't have his heart gallop around his rib cage like this. Saetan looked around the study and stifled a groan. ~ Anne Bishop

Time was rushing around me like water around a big wet rock. The only difference is, I was not so durable as stones. Very quickly I would be smoothed away. ~ Louise Erdrich

To be present at the time of death can be one of the most important moments in life. To see those last, awesome minutes of transition from life into death can only be described as a spiritual experience. And then afterwards, when the body lies still, one gets the strange feeling that the person has simply gone away, as though he has said, 'I'm just going into the other room. I'll leave that thing there while I'm gone; I won't be needing it.' It's a very odd experience – the body is there, but the person has gone. No one would say, 'I am a body'; we say, 'I have a body'. So what, therefore, is the 'I'? The 'I' or perhaps 'me' has just stepped into the other room. It is a strange feeling, and I can't describe it in any other way. Another thing that is strange is that the body left behind looks smaller, quite a lot smaller, than the living person. The face looks the same, but calm and relaxed, wrinkles and worry lines are smoothed, and a feeling of serenity pervades the entire room. But the person, the 'I', has gone. It also greatly helps the process of mourning to see the body after death, and preferably to assist in the laying out. Nurses used to do the job when I was young girl, and we always asked the relatives if they wanted to help. Nurses don't do it any more, but anyone can ask. ~ Jennifer Worth

Pamela pulled off her cloak and Alexei gasped.
"You have on breeches!" He stared in disbelief. "Breeches!"
"I've never worn them before, and they are extremely comfortable. I quite like them." She smoothed the fabric over her hip. "Besides, you don't expect me to duel in a dress, do you?"
"I do not expect you to duel at all!"
Pamela ignored him. "That would be most unfair, dueling in a dress, unless, of course, you would be willing to wear a dress as well?"
"Don't be absurd." He snorted in disdain. "I have no intention of ever wearing women's clothing again."
"Again?" She raised a brow.
"It was an unavoidable disguise," he muttered. ~ Victoria Alexander

I once read that if the folds in the cerebral cortex were smoothed out it would cover a card table. That seemed quite unbelievable but it did make me wonder just how big the cortex would be if you ironed it out. I thought it might just about cover a family-sized pizza: not bad, but no card-table. I was astonished to realize that nobody seems to know the answer. A quick search yielded the following estimates for the smoothed out dimensions of the cerebral cortex of the human brain.

An article in Bioscience in November 1987 by Julie Ann Miller claimed the cortex was a "quarter-metre square." That is napkin-sized, about ten inches by ten inches. Scientific American magazine in September 1992 upped the ante considerably with an estimated of 1 1/2 square metres; thats a square of brain forty inches on each side, getting close to the card-table estimate. A psychologist at the University of Toronto figured it would cover the floor of his living room (I haven't seen his living room), but the prize winning estimate so far is from the British magazine New Scientist's poster of the brain published in 1993 which claimed that the cerebral cortex, if flattened out, would cover a tennis court. How can there be such disagreement? How can so many experts not know how big the cortex is? I don't know, but I'm on the hunt for an expert who will say the cortex, when fully spread out, will cover a football field. A Canadian football field. ~ Jay Ingram

A river shaped her,
smoothed her with sand and battered
her against the shore, and she
resisted, she is still here. ~ Margaret Atwood

What's wrong?" Lane ran his thumb over my cheek.

"I wish… I just…" I frowned, trying to find the words I wanted. "I want to go home. I want to go check on Iggy. I want this to be a really bad and really long nightmare. I wish that instead of being in the truck, we were on our couch. You'd be sitting with your legs stretched out and I'd be lying on your lap. We could watch a movie. We'd be having a beer and nachos… I'd kill for a fucking beer right now." I stopped my rambling to swallow down the lump forming in my throat.

"It will be okay." He pressed his lips to my forehead. "I don't know what the fuck is going on, but someone will figure it out and they'll find a way to fix it. We're safe here for now." He maneuvered over the shift stick settled himself beside me. I laid my head against his shoulder and closed my eyes as he smoothed my hair.

"Lane?"

"Hmmm?"

I looked up at him and raised a hand to touch his cheek. My heart skipped, my lips brushed over his, and I took a deep breath. I remembered all those times I'd told him, but at the same time hadn't told him. I decided that from now on, for whatever time we had left, he'd know.

"I love you, Lane. Always have."

His smile melted every bone in my body. "I love you, Gabrielle. Always will. ~ Meaka Kyel

He got out a tube and since she'd yet to put the sweater on, squeezed ointment onto his fingers and began to gently rub it on her abraded skin. She recognized the scent.
"That's for horses."
"So?"
She laughed and let him fuss. "Does this make me your mare now?"
"No, you're too young and delicate of bone for that. You're still a filly."
"Are you going to train me, Donnelly?"
"Oh, you're out of my league, Miss Grant." He glanced up, cocked a brow when he saw her grinning at him. "And what amuses you?"
"You can't help it can you? You have to tend."
"I put the marks on you," he muttered as he smoothed on the ointment. "It follows I should see to them."
She lifted a hand to toy with the ends of his damp, gold-tipped hair. "I like being seen to by a man with a tough mind and a soft heart."
That soft heart sighed a little, ached a little. But he spoke lightly. "It's no hardship running my fingers over skin like yours." With his eyes on hers, he used the pad of his thumb to spread ointment over the gentle swell of her breast. "Particularly since you don't seem to have a qualm about standing here half naked and letting me."
"Should I blush and flutter?"
"You're not the fluttering sort. I like that about you." Satisified, he capped the tube, then tugged the sweater over her head himself. "But I can't have such a fine piece of God's work catching a chill. There you are." He lifted her hair out of the neck.
"You don't have ~ Nora Roberts

Knitting her reddish-brown hairy stocking, with her head outlined absurdly by the gilt frame, the green shawl which she had tossed over the edge of the frame, and the authenticated masterpiece by Michael Angelo, Mrs. Ramsay smoothed out what had been harsh in her manner a moment before, raised his head, and kissed her little boy on the forehead. "Let us find another picture to cut out," she said. ~ Virginia Woolf

There are times when you may feel your life has been crumpled,
crushed, stomped on, or even torn in pieces. Your value and
worth is not determined by what has happened to you, but rather
by the value placed upon you by the one who governs your life
(the one who created you in His image and likeness). The one
who sees you as wonderfully and fearfully made.
....
A $100 dollar bill can be crumpled, crushed, stomped on or even
torn -- it is still is worth $100. The value of the $100 dollar bill is
not determined by what happened to it. To the government it will
still spend as a $100; its value has not changed even if the state of
its condition has. Even crumpled, it could be pressed out, crushed
it could be pressed and smoothed out, or stomped on and torn, it
could be taped back together and still be worth $100 in value.

What may have happened to you in life does not define who you
are. You are the apple of God's eye. You are His prize possession
and treasure. You must see yourself as a person of worth and
value. ~ Jennifer Johnson

She smoothed the long sleeve of her tight, orange t-shirt. "What? You've never seen a woman wear more than one shirt before?"
Odin's mouth closed and opened a few times before words finally came out. "She's like a fuckin' seven layer burrito someone forgot was in the back of the fridge for six months."
She had to laugh. How could she not with such vivid imagery coming from someone who dressed like he was going on an unholy crusade at any moment? ~ Jennifer Turner

Cinderheart gasped. Then her pelt smoothed. She lifted her chin. "Then I choose the life of a warrior." Her blue eyes shone. "And I choose you. ~ Erin Hunter

It felt oily inside her head. There were strings of Xavier Stancliff caught inside of her, holding on and spiderwebbing out as he plotted and waited and thought: this is all the bitch deserves. Swallowing, Sandra pushed herself off the bed. It was late and the room was dark. She could see the bundled lump of Jack beneath his own covers. He'd left the television on and the light flickered down the tiny hall. Shadows danced and Sandra shivered as she left the room.

In another life, she would have told Danny and Jack about the man. Danny would have whispered, "It's alright," and smoothed back her hair from her face and kissed her, lips dry and coarse on her forehead. Then he and Jack would've left while she was sleeping. They would've trampled the flowers and climbed into Xavier Stanliff's window and when Sandra woke up there would have been one less man in the world. ~ Angele Gougeon

On the final stretch of the road we passed three or four hammer-stones set on the verges to honour the thunder-god. Snorri checked for rune-stones around each, but found only a stray black pebble, river-smoothed and wide enough to cover his palm, bearing a single rune. Perhaps local children made off with the rest.
'Thuriaz.' He let it fall.
'Hmmm?'
'Thorns.' He shrugged. 'It means nothing. ~ Mark Lawrence

Men are polished, through act and speech, Each by each, As pebbles are smoothed on the rolling beach. ~ John Townsend Trowbridge

Max smoothed Cameron's curls from her forehead and placed a feather light kiss there before he rolled beside her. While his heart beat a jungle rhythm, his soul remained rooted firmly inside hers. ~ Mia Dymond

I want to kiss you," he said. His thumb moved out of the hollow of her throat, and then back in. "Badly."
Her eyes closed and her brows hunched over them a moment. Then her forehead smoothed, as if she had worked out the solution to a problem. "No," she said. "You want to kiss me well. You just want it badly. ~ Suanne Laqueur

I did not have all the pieces of myself intact but the shattered ones lay quieter than they had gradually being smoothed over so that they no longer cut me as often. ~ Eilis O'Neal

Then he took the pages, smoothed them with the palm of his hand, and fixed them with pins to the walls. So that now, if he sat looking down upon Grape Street, the letters and images encircled him. And it was while he sat here, scarcely moving, that he was in hell and no one knew it. At such times the future became so clear that it was as if he were remembering it, remembering it in place of the past which he could no longer describe. But there was in any case no future and no past, only the unspeakable misery of his own self. ~ Peter Ackroyd

Oh Josie," Samuel sighed gently. "Your heart is too tender for your own good."
"I don't usually cry like this, Samuel. Geez, it's been years since I've cried like this. Since you've been back I can't seem to stop. It's like a cloud has burst inside me, and I'm caught in a constant downpour"
"Come here, Josie," Samuel said, and when I slid over next to him he kissed me gently on the forehead and smoothed my hair from my damp cheeks. "Well then, maybe you should go ahead and just let it rain for a while"
And so I did. ~ Amy Harmon

It's only when it's smoothed out by history and we try to make sense of it - this incredibly complicated period when everyone's doing something different every day - that we look for those stylistic similarities and we say, "Well, that's what that was about," and sort of forget all the other nuance. I definitely feel that that's true for this time in my community of artists, and I'm sure that it was true at other times too. ~ Missy Mazzoli

Most beings only saw the beauty of a smoothed stone and thought nothing of the shape it might once have held or of the ceaseless pressure that formed it. Perhaps that was enough, though, for the rock to bear its own hardship in silence and share only with others what they wanted to see. ~ Dallas E. Caldwell

He pulled my face up with his hand cupping my cheek and kissed me on my trembling mouth. He smoothed his hands down my arms, my back, my hair, my cheek, soothing me.

"There's a picture of you two in the dictionary under 'get a room'," Kyle said from behind me. ~ Shelly Crane

McGrath smoothed his hair with the flat of his hand. He was silently gazing along the copper colored pathway as though it led to a mystical place where men found answers just lying, uncovered on the warm, soft earth. A place where men knew everything and the blackness of infinity was just a ghost story told to scare children. ~ Mark Arundel

She looked at him, his soft brown eyes and tall form, and contemplated raising herself on her toes and kissing his ear, or his cheek ...
Instead, impulsively before leaving, she reached up and smoothed his mussed hair.
Mr. Bradford beamed. ~ Heather Dixon

Maybe when your big picture is in place, all those bumps in the road along the way get sort of smoothed over. ~ Michelle Dalton

I don't want to...be like this," I whispered as I looked away, and once I said it, I didn't even want to take the words back. A weird sensation hit me, almost like...like relief. That didn't make sense. Or did it? "I don't like who I am."
My gaze returned to his, and the concern was still there, filling his hazel eyes and thinning out his mouth. Tears crawled up the back of my throat. Humiliating actually, to admit something so intimate like that, but now I wasn't the only one who knew this about myself. It wasn't my secret.
"It's okay. You're not going to feel that way forever." Rider smoothed his thumb along my jaw. I closed my eyes, wanting to believe him. Needing to. He kept his voice low as he spoke. "Nothing lasts forever, Mouse. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

Willow turned her gaze from him as he sat down on the bed and smoothed her tangled hair off her face. "I'm sorry I wasn't here for you, sweetheart. Are you all right now?"
Willow couldn't help flinching from his touch. "Of course I'm all right," she snapped.
Rider jerked his hand back as if bitten. "Freckles, honey, is something wrong, something you're not telling me?"
The angry redhead shrugged. "What could possibly be wrong?"
"I don't know. You just seem a little....out of sorts."
Bastard, she silently cursed. But aloud she said, "I'm fine. Just tired, I guess."
"Do you want me to bring your supper to you in here? I'd be happy to keep you company."
"I would like to have my supper in here but don't bother yourself on my account. I'm sure you have things to discuss with Pa and the boys."
Rider stood abruptly, obviously at a loss over her attitude. "Fine,Willow, if that's what you want."
"It is."
He opened the door to leave but halted when she called, "Rider."
"Yes?"
"You better move your things in with one of the boys. Miriam is sharing my bed tonight."
"Tonight? But I'm leaving tomorrow and won't be back until-"
"Really,Rider, it's only for one night and I ain't,er, am not in any shape for fooling around!"
"I know that," he bit out, his ire piqued now. "I just thought it might be nice to hold you."
With that, he slammed out the door and Willow broke into tears. Before they stopped, her head was p ~ Charlotte McPherren

You do love him," I said, and she swung her gaze back to me.
"I do." She smoothed her hand over her thighs, flattening imaginary wrinkles from the linen.
"Even though he's not your family."
Saylor laughed, a surprisingly husky sound. "Don't you love people who aren't your family, Harper Jane?"
"Of course I do. But you love him for more than the whole Oracle thing. You love him because he's David. ~ Rachel Hawkins

I'm sure we'll need some- oof!" She was never to finish the thoughts she was startled by a creature that came bounding swiftly around the side of the carriage. A glimpse of floppy ears and jolly brown eyes filled her vision before the enthusiastic canine pounced so eagerly that she toppled backward from her squatting position. She landed on her rump, the impact knocking her hat to the ground. A swath of hair came loose and slid over her face, while a young tan-and black retriever leapt around her as if he were on springs. She felt a huff of dog breath on at her ear and the swipe of a tongue on her cheek.
"Ajax, no," she heard Ivo exclaim.
Realizing what a mess she'd become, all in a matter of seconds, Pandora experienced a moment of despair, followed by resignation. Of course this would happen. Of course she would have to meet the duke and duchess after tumbling on the drive like a half-witted carnival performer. It was so dreadful that she began to giggle, while the dog nudged his head against hers.
In the next moment, Pandora was lifted to her feet and caught firmly against a hard surface. The momentum threw her off balance, and she clung to St. Vincent dizzily. He kept her anchored securely against him with an arm around her back.
"Down, idiot," St. Vincent commanded. The dog subsided, panting happily.
"He must have slipped past the front door," Ivo said.
St. Vincent smoothed Pandora's hair back from her face. "Are you hurt?" His gaze ran over ~ Lisa Kleypas

The measuring and mixing always smoothed out her thinking processes - nothing was as calming as creaming butter - and when the kitchen was warm from the oven overheating and the smell of baking chocolate, she took final stock of where she'd been and where she was going. Everything was fine. ~ Jennifer Crusie

Racism may be as systemic as it always was. It is the great problem of America. It's the one stumbling block that I don't believe was ever smoothed over. ~ Robert Guillaume