Secrets of the heart. We swallow hard against them every day, forcing them deep inside us. There they sit, growing heavier, festering. Given enough time, they cannot help but crush the heart that holds them.

We try to spread the word about the charity by doing fun little stunts to catch people's attention. Like when Hank Green did a music video for us.

So Stapes conducted a dinner for just the two of us, then informed me of a dozen small but important mistakes I had made. Setting down a dirty utensil was considered crude, for example. That meant it was perfectly acceptable to lick one's knife clean. In fact, if you didn't want to dirty your napkin it was the only seemly thing to do.

Just handle the books gently and you’ll get along fine.

Reading is professionally important for me to keep tuned in to what's being written in my genre, let's not lie. But that's not the reason I read. I read for my own emotional and mental health. If I stopped reading, I'd probably just die.

What do they do to students at the University who eavesdrop?” Bast asked curiously. “I haven’t the slightest idea. I was never caught. I think making you sit and listen to the rest of my story should be punishment enough.

It's one thing to not want an evil-sorcerer type villain in your story, but it's another thing to avoid having any sort of antagonist at all. A story without an antagonist gets weird pretty quick.