Engrossed Reader

“So, he agreed: I would be exiled, and fostered in another man’s kingdom. In exchange for my weight in gold, they would rear me to manhood. I would have no parents, no family name, no inheritance. In our day, death was preferable. But my father was a practical man. My weight in gold was less than the expense of the lavish funeral my death would have demanded.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“After getting dressed and putting my Walkman on, clipping its body to the Lycra shorts and placing the phones over my ears, a Stephen Bishop/Christopher Cross compilation tape Todd Hunter made for me,”
― Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho

“I have never loved anyone like this,” he says. “I didn’t love my mother; I obeyed her. I don’t even love football. I was good at it, and it got me what she wanted for me. That was it. Then there was you.”
― Avery Collins, Dirty Hit

“In our countries, a man often took a wife before his beard was fully fledged. How much earlier then, did he take a serving girl? It was expected; very few men came to their marriage beds without having done so. Those who did were unlucky indeed: too weak to compel, too ugly to charm, and too poor to pay.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles