As an author, one of the most important things I think you can do once you've written a novel is step back. When the book is out, it belongs to the readers and you can't stand there breathing over their shoulders.

No man is worth more than another, wherever he is from.

In making Achilles and Patroclus lovers, I wasn't trying to speak for all gay men, just as when I write straight characters, I don't claim to speak for all straight people. My job as an author is to give voice to these very particular characters - these two men, in this time, and in this place

The door snicked shut.

I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.

There is no law that gods must be fair, Achilles,” Chiron said. “And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone. Do you think?

. . .nothing could eclipse the stain of his dirty, mortal mediocrity.

She wants you to be a god, I told him. I know. His face twisted with embarrassment, and in spite of itself my heart lightened. It was such a boyish response. And so human. Parents, everywhere.

I shift, an infinitesimal movement, towards him. It is like the leap from a waterfall. I do not know, until then, what I am going to do.

He is a weapon, a killer. Do not forget it. You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature.

In the darkness, two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk. Their hands meet, and light spills in a flood like a hundred golden urns pouring out of the sun.

I feel like I could eat the world raw.

Chiron had said once that nations were the most foolish of mortal inventions. No man is worth more than another, wherever he is from.

I lay back and tried not to think of the minutes passing. Just yesterday we had a wealth of them. Now each was a drop of heartsblood lost.

It was almost like fear, in the way it filled me, rising in my chest. It was almost like tears, in how swiftly it came. But it was neither of those, buoyant where they were heavy, bright were they dull.