Carlota Baruffi

“He’ll never know the bracing sensation of diving headfirst into the river, the roar of entry followed by enveloping silence. All water is connected, and her world is limitless. He stands at the limits”
― Abraham Verghese, The Covenant of Water

“All night long Alec sat in his chair in his pyjamas and dressing gown, socks on his feet to keep out the cold, a cigarette in his fingers with a long ash hovering over a half-full ashtray. He attempted to go to bed but the incident with Father Joe kept his mind in turmoil. This girl, well, woman now – she would be around thirty – was a mystery during the war. She was kidnapped, it was thought, from her school, the day the Germans entered Paris. Her uncle, Sir Jason Barrett MP, was in England; her step-parents were somewhere else in France, on holiday, and found they could not get back; and Charlotte was being cared for by a Swedish couple, a nanny or housekeeper and her chauffeur husband.
Was Charlotte actually Freya? What had this baron fellow to do with Freya, apart from marrying her? Had she been a prostitute? And what was the old cleric babbling on about “finding her and protecting her”? From whom?”
― Hugo Woolley, The Wasp Trap

“I feel like I owe him something, and I hate owing people. Maybe if I had thanked him at some point, I'd be feeling less conflicted now. I thought about it a couple of times, but the opportunity never seemed to present itself. And now it never will. Because we're going to be thrown into an arena to fight to the death. Exactly how am I supposed to work in a thank-you in there? Somehow it just won't seem sincere if I'm trying to slit his throat.”
― Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games

“The verdict got both the fish and me off the hook.”
― Gabriel F.W. Koch, Death Leaves a Shadow