I love writers all across the board, but one who influenced me very directly at the beginning was Mary Renault.
“I'm terrible at relationships. I consider myself to be smart and a good mother but it's taken me this long to realise you don't have to marry a guy after three days or dump him.”
“And what we were trying to offer every day was one-on-one attention. The goal was to have a one-to-one ratio with every one of these students.”