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Robert Frobisher
Luisa Ray is the protagonist of “Half-Lives,” a detective novel manuscript that Timothy Cavendish receives. She is a 26-year-old journalist who writes a gossip column but who dreams of writing more serious stories like her father, the renowned Vietnam correspondent Lester Rey. She is one of the characters with a comet birthmark. Luisa gets her opportunity for a big story when the scientist Rufus Sixsmith reveals to her that a planned nuclear plant on Swannekke Island carries a serious risk of disaster. After hired assassin Bill Smoke murders Rufus as part of the cover-up, Luisa spends much of the story searching for a report from Rufus that details all the nuclear plant’s problems. Meanwhile, a nefarious group of people associated with Seaboard Power all try to stop or even kill her before she can get her story to print. Luisa’s story demonstrates both the danger and necessity of telling the truth, as she ultimately triumphs over forces much bigger than herself by stopping the construction of the dangerous nuclear plant—but only after overcoming serious threats to her own life.
Luisa Rey Quotes in Cloud Atlas
The Cloud Atlas quotes below are all either spoken by Luisa Rey or refer to Luisa Rey. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 2
Quotes
She plays with that birthmark in the hollow of my shoulder, the one you said resembles a comet—can’t abide the woman dabbling with my skin.
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Chapter 3
Quotes
Robert Frobisher mentions a comet-shaped birthmark between his shoulder blade and collarbone.
I just don’t believe in this crap. I just don’t believe it. I don’t.
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He yanks the wheel sharply, and metal screams as the Beetle is sandwiched between his car and the bridge railing until the railing unzips from its concrete and the Beetle lurches out into space.
Chapter 7
Quotes
We see a game beyond the endgame. I refer to my Declarations, Archivist. Media has flooded Nea So Copros with my Catechisms. Every schoolchild in corpocracy knows my twelve “blasphemies” now.
Chapter 9
Quotes
“I ask three simple questions. How did he get that power? How is he using it? And how can it be taken off the sonofabitch?”
Seaboardgate is no longer her scoop. Swannekke swarms with reporters, Senate investigators, FBI agents, county police, and Hollywood scriptwriters. Swannekke B is in mothballs; C is suspended.
Chapter 10
Quotes
Spent the fortnight gone in the music room, reworking my year’s fragments into a “sextet for overlapping soloists”: piano, clarinet, ‘cello, flute, oboe, and violin, each in its own language of key, scale, and color. In the first set, each solo is interrupted by its successor: in the second, each interruption is recontinued, in order. Revolutionary or gimmicky? Shan’t know until it’s finished, and by then it’ll be too late, but it’s the first thing I think of when I wake, and the last thing I think of before I fall asleep.
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Luisa Rey Quotes in Cloud Atlas
The Cloud Atlas quotes below are all either spoken by Luisa Rey or refer to Luisa Rey. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 2
Quotes
She plays with that birthmark in the hollow of my shoulder, the one you said resembles a comet—can’t abide the woman dabbling with my skin.
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3
Quotes
Robert Frobisher mentions a comet-shaped birthmark between his shoulder blade and collarbone.
I just don’t believe in this crap. I just don’t believe it. I don’t.
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
He yanks the wheel sharply, and metal screams as the Beetle is sandwiched between his car and the bridge railing until the railing unzips from its concrete and the Beetle lurches out into space.
Chapter 7
Quotes
We see a game beyond the endgame. I refer to my Declarations, Archivist. Media has flooded Nea So Copros with my Catechisms. Every schoolchild in corpocracy knows my twelve “blasphemies” now.
Chapter 9
Quotes
“I ask three simple questions. How did he get that power? How is he using it? And how can it be taken off the sonofabitch?”
Seaboardgate is no longer her scoop. Swannekke swarms with reporters, Senate investigators, FBI agents, county police, and Hollywood scriptwriters. Swannekke B is in mothballs; C is suspended.
Chapter 10
Quotes
Spent the fortnight gone in the music room, reworking my year’s fragments into a “sextet for overlapping soloists”: piano, clarinet, ‘cello, flute, oboe, and violin, each in its own language of key, scale, and color. In the first set, each solo is interrupted by its successor: in the second, each interruption is recontinued, in order. Revolutionary or gimmicky? Shan’t know until it’s finished, and by then it’ll be too late, but it’s the first thing I think of when I wake, and the last thing I think of before I fall asleep.
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