In making Achilles and Patroclus lovers, I wasn't trying to speak for all gay men, just as when I write straight characters, I don't claim to speak for all straight people. My job as an author is to give voice to these very particular characters - these two men, in this time, and in this place

No man is worth more than another, wherever he is from.

I stopped watching for ridicule, the scorpion's tail hidden in his words. He said what he meant; he was puzzled if you did not. Some people might have mistaken this for simplicity. But is it not a sort of genius to cut always to the heart?

I shift, an infinitesimal movement, towards him. It is like the leap from a waterfall. I do not know, until then, what I am going to do.

When I first started studying Greek, one of my absolute favorite parts was realizing that so many English words had these old, secret roots. Learning Greek was like being given a super-power: linguistic x-ray vision.

It was almost like fear, in the way it filled me, rising in my chest. It was almost like tears, in how swiftly it came. But it was neither of those, buoyant where they were heavy, bright were they dull.

and her skin shone luminous and impossibly pale, as if it drank light from the moon.