Nancy

“In the beginning, long ago, he fled his country, one of those bland, flat communist lands, and as a young immigrant got hired to work on a whaling ship. At that time, he had only a few English words under his belt, intermittent pinpoints between “yes” and “no,” just exactly enough to answer the simple grunts the guys on the ship would exchange among themselves.”
― Olga Tokarczuk, Flights

“No. It does not come to me in quite so direct a line as that; it takes a bend or two, but nothing of consequence. The stream is as good as at first; the little rubbish it collects in the turnings, is easily moved away. Mr. Elliot talks unreservedly to Colonel Wallis of his views on you—which said Colonel Wallis I imagine to be in himself a sensible, careful, discerning sort of character; but Colonel Wallis has a very pretty silly wife, to whom he tells things which he had better not, and he repeats it all to her.”
― Jane Austen, Persuasion

“Isn’t it obvious?” “Apparently not.” “I’m not just writing about you,” said Shane. “I’m writing to you.”
― Tia Williams, Seven Days in June

“Indeed, Mrs. Smith, we must not expect to get real information in such a line. Facts or opinions which are to pass through the hands of so many, to be misconceived by folly in one, and ignorance in another, can hardly have much truth left.”
― Jane Austen, Persuasion