Mattie

“You won’t get me to commit myself on that point,’ said Lazenby.”
― Agatha Christie, Towards Zero

“Late in the afternoon we returned to the First Vestibule. Just before we parted Raphael said, ‘I love the quiet here. No people!’ She said the last part as if it were the greatest advantage of all. ‘Don’t you like the people in your own Halls?’ I asked, puzzled. ‘I like them,’ she said, with no very great enthusiasm. ‘Mostly I like them. Some of them. I don’t always get them. They don’t always get me.”
― Susanna Clarke, Piranesi

“I came out of the park. The city streets rose up around me. There was a hotel with a courtyard with metal tables and chairs for people to sit in more clement weather. Today they were snow-strewn and forlorn. A lattice of wire was strung across the courtyard. Paper lanterns were hanging from the wires, spheres of vivid orange that blew and trembled in the snow and the thin wind; the sea-grey clouds raced across the sky and the orange lanterns shivered against them. The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite.”
― Susanna Clarke, Piranesi

“You have never sought to make light of your failings, I do not think you need fear our too harsh condemnation. You have been commonly your own sternest judge.” So he had, but that, well handled, can be one way of evading and forestalling the judgements of others.”
― Ellis Peters, A Morbid Taste for Bones