Tom the Teacher

“In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.”
― Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Complete Poems

“He is half of my soul, as the poets say.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“When we press the thorn to our chest we know, we understand, and still we do it.”
― Colleen McCullough, The Thorn Birds

“By the end, Arthur Less is in tears, sobbing in his seat, and he thinks he has been sobbing quietly until the lights come up and the woman seated beside him turns and says, “Honey, I don’t know what happened in your life, but I am so so sorry,” and gives him a lilac-scented embrace. Nothing happened to me, he wants to say to her. Nothing happened to me. I’m just a homosexual at a Broadway show.”
― Andrew Sean Greer, Less