Ikkk

“You would have loved or hated him.”
“What makes you say that?”
“That’s how he was.”
“What about you? Did you love him or hate him?”
“Usually both at once.”
“Is this what you mean about feeling everything twice?”
“Ah,” I say. “You see, you do understand me.”
― M.L. Rio, If We Were Villains

“You see, Spuddy, my dear,” said Ralph, speaking with great kindness and with care that Laurie shouldn’t be hurt, “you have a very sweet nature, really, and you let it ride you a bit sometimes. You say this boy has guts, but what you’re trying to do for him is to keep him like a mid-Victorian virgin in a world of illusion where he doesn’t know he’s alive. He mustn’t be told he’s a passenger when human decency’s fighting for survival, in case it upsets his religion. He mustn’t be told he’s a queer, in case he has to do a bit of hard thinking and make up his mind. He mustn’t know you’re in love with him, in case he feels he can’t go on having his cake and eating it. If he amounts to anything, he won’t really want to be let off being human. And if he does want it, then he isn’t worth all this, Spud. I’m sorry, but there it is.”
― Mary Renault, The Charioteer