How can dust around a quasar hide some of its light?

Dust around a quasar can obscure its light due to the presence of dust-laden gas clouds located farther from the central black hole but still largely within the plane of the accretion disk.1

Because a quasar possesses a complex physical structure, its appearance to an observer is heavily influenced by the orientation of the accretion disk's rotation axis relative to the observer's line of sight. If these dust-laden clouds are positioned between the observer and the central engine of the quasar, they can block or obscure the light emitted from the inner regions. Consequently, the prominence of various quasar components—such as the accretion disk or emission-line clouds—varies depending on this viewing angle, leading to a wide range of observed phenomena from physically similar sources.1