Shreve was nineteen, a few months younger than Quentin. He looked exactly nineteen; he was one of those people whose correct age you never know be-cause they look exactly that and so you tell yourself that he or she cannot possibly be that because he or she looks too exactly that not to take advantage of the appearance: so you never be-lieve implicitly that he or she is either that age which they claim or that which in sheer desperation they agree to or which some-one else reports them to be.

— Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner (Page 300)