Steve

“His wealth, his upbringing, his reputation, well known among the students, as a young militant on the left, his sociability, even his courage when he delivered carefully measured speeches against powerful people within and outside the university—all this had given him an aura that automatically extended to me, as his fiancée or girlfriend or companion, as if the pure and simple fact that he loved me were the public sanctioning of my talents.”
― Elena Ferrante, The Story of a New Name

“The two drinks were brought in, poured out already in the glasses, like ‘doubles’ at a bar, and all our eyes followed the tray, as though we were dogs in a dining-room smelling game.”
― Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited

“Next morning at first light to Guy’s surprise the troopship at last emerged from the haze of myth and was seen to be solidly at anchor beyond the mouth of the harbor.”
― Evelyn Waugh, Sword of Honor Trilogy

“answered slowly: I don’t know, I don’t want to know. And then I admitted that there had been a kind of admiration for her body, maybe that, yes, but I ruled out anything ever happening between us. Too much fear, if we had been seen we would have been beaten to death.”
― Elena Ferrante, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay