Melanie Pieper

“There are some things in this world you can never get back... There's no reclaiming that piece of the past. Don't you think it'd be better to abandon it completely and consider instead what you did wrong and learn from it?”
― Fuyumi Ono, The Twelve Kingdoms: Skies of Dawn

“When the reader has stopped to wonder at your delamificatious vocabulary, or, worse, when the reader has stopped because the word you've used has no more meaning to him than a random ptliijnbvc of letters, the reader is not involved in your story. ... Generally, saying 'edifice' instead of 'building' doesn't tell your reader anything about the building; it tells the reader that you know that word edifice.”
― Howard Mittelmark, How Not to Write a Novel: 200 Classic Mistakes and How to Avoid Them—A Misstep-by-Misstep Guide

“Happiness isn't a thing. You can't go out and get it like a cup of tea. It's the way you feel about things.”
― Diana Wynne Jones, Fire and Hemlock

“I, too, am among those unable to step outside the realm of worldly distinctions. I hide my excesses of joy and sorrow beneath a robe of false contentment and drown in a pool of tears unseen by others. How I envy those naive enough to covet the glory of others. Do they not realize that tears fall not only on the sleeves of worn and tattered kimonos? The jewels that spill, glittering, onto my brocade are the very water of life, but they are mistaken for mere ornament. Although no one notices, my heart is shattered into a thousand pieces.”
― Shikin Shimizu