A starving man won't notice a dirty plate. - Mary Renault

(Alexander)'Sometimes I forget all this for months on end. Sometimes I think of it day and night. Sometimes I think, unless I find out the truth of it, I shall go mad.'
(Hephaistion)'That's stupid. You've got me now. Do you think I'd let you go mad?

The lovers of the innocent must protect them above all from the knowledge of their own cruelty.

A young man sat down beside him on the divan and, without any kind of preliminary, said, ‘Is it a queer book?’
‘No,’ said Laurie.
‘Oh,’ said the young man, on a note of utter deflation. He got up and went away.