Status Updates From a novel:The Magicians byGro...

He was one of those superficially jolly people whose jolliness didn’t quite reach all the way up to his eyes.

He spoke very correctly, as if he wished he had an English accent but wasn’t quite pretentious enough to affect one.

Eliot had an air of effortless self-possession that made Quentin urgently want to be his friend, or maybe just be him period. He was obviously one of those people who felt at home in the world—he was naturally buoyant, where Quentin felt like he had to dog-paddle constantly, exhaustingly, humiliatingly, just to get one sip of air.