Diana Gabaldon Quotes

Within an hour, I had gone from anguish at the thought of losing him in Scotland, to a strong desire to bed him in the herbaceous borders, and from that to a pronounced urge to hit him on the head with an oar. Now I was back to tenderness.

Her maternal feelings were unlikely to be assuaged by hearing that the marriage had been performed in the middle of the night on a West Indian beach by a disgraced - if not actually defrocked - priest, witnessed by twenty-five seamen, ten French horses, a small flock of sheep - all gaily beribboned in honor of the occasion - and a King Charles spaniel, who added to the generally festive feeling by attempting to copulate with Murphy's wooden leg at every opportunity. The only thing that could make things worse, in Laoghaire's view, would be to hear that I had participated in the ceremony.

Put not your trust in princes'?

newly-farrowed sow, but Ian had managed to lean in and

bedframe shuddering with the force of the struggle taking place

Blessed are those who eat greens, for they shall keep their teeth. Blessed are those who wash their hands after wiping their arses, for they shall not sicken. Blessed are those who boil water, for they shall be called saviors of mankind.

I am a coward, damn you! I couldna tell ye, for fear ye would leave me, and unmanly thing that I am, I thought I couldna bear that!

Arisaid. A night breeze brushed a strand of hair across my face.

There is nothing more delightful in life than a feather bed and an open fire - except a feather bed with a warm and tender lover in it.

neighborhood - his name's pronounced 'Kirry,' but it's spelt 'C-i-r-e.'

Jamie was a much a sponge as his grandson, I reflected, watching him rootle about, completely naked and totally unconcerned about it. He took in everything, and seemed able to deal with whatever came his way, no matter how familiar or foreign to his experience.
Anything he could not defeat, outwit, or alter, he simply accepted-rather like the sponge and its embedded shell.
Pursuing the analogy further, I supposed I was the shell. Snatched out of my own small niche by an unexpected strong current, taken in and surrounded by Jamie and his life. Caught forever among the strange currents that pulsed through this outlandish environment.

My parents would take my sister and me out for dinner now and then, and while waiting for the food to be served, would point out the oldest, most harried looking waitress in the place, saying sternly, Be sure you get a good education, so you don't have to do that when you're fifty!

She lifted the small stack of books from their wrappings, stroking the soft leather cover of the top one with a forefinger that trembled with delight. Jenny loved books with the same passion her brother reserved for horses.

The dark came down on All Hallows' Eve. We went to sleep to the sound of howling wind and pelting rain, and woke on the Feast of All Saints to whiteness and large soft flakes falling down and down in absolute silence. There is no more perfect stillness than the solitude in the heart of a snowstorm. This is the thin time, when the beloved dead draw near. The world turns inward, and the chilling air grows thick with dreams and mystery. The sky goes from a sharp clear cold where a million stars burn bright and close, to the gray-pink cloud that enfolds the earth with the promise of snow.

You want to anchor the scene with physical details, but by and large it's better to use sensual details rather than overtly sexual ones.

Must have stayed that way for some time; I slept sometimes, dreaming of the last few days of the Jacobite Rising - I saw again the dead man in the wood, asleep beneath a coverlet of bright blue fungus, and Dougal MacKenzie dying on the floor of an attic in Culloden House; the ragged men of the Highland army, asleep in the muddy ditches; their last sleep before the slaughter. I would wake screaming or moaning,

I suppose ye might give him a wee dram that would keep him quiet so ye could tell them he was gone. Or maybe lock him in a closet? Tied up wi' a gag if it should be he's got his voice back by then, he added. Germain was a very logical, thorough-minded sort of person; he got it from Marsali.

Then came an evil wind, that blew the seeds of misfortune into my garden.

Has he come armed, then?" she asked anxiously. "Has he brought a pistol or a sword?"
Ian shook his head, his dark hair lifting wildly in the wind.
"Oh, no, Mam!" he said. "It's worse. He's brought a lawyer!

How to tell her in words, then, what he had learned himself by pain and grace? That only by forgiveness could she forget - and that forgiveness was not a single act, but a matter of constant practice. Perhaps

He blinked , and his eyes moved at last from her face, slowly taking in her appearance, and- with what seemed to her a new and horrified awareness- her height.
"My God," he croaked. "You're huge.

He thought of such places in a way that had no words, only recognizing one when he came to it. He might have called it holy, save that the feel of such a place had nothing to do with church or saint. It was simply a place he belonged to be, and that was sufficient.

Please," she said, "don't mention Jamie Fraser to my daughter.

I believe you," he said firmly. "I dinna understand it a bit - not yet - but I believe you. Claire, I believe you! Listen to me! There's the truth between us, you and I, and whatever ye tell me, I shall believe it." He gave me a gentle shake. "It doesna matter what it is. You've told me. That's enough for now. Be still, mo duinne. Lay your head and rest. You'll tell me the rest of it later. And I'll believe you.

He smelt strongly of woodsmoke, blood, and unwashed male, but the night chill bit through my thin dress and I was happy enough to lean back against him.

What possessed ye, woman, to hit me in the heid wi' a fish whilst I was fighting for my life?

I was sorry that I'd told him, but I had no defenses anymore. I could not lie, even for the best of reasons; there was simply no place to go, nowhere to hide. I felt beset by whispering ghosts, their loss, their need, their desperate love pulling me apart. Apart from Jamie, apart from myself.

A party at which the guests are all of the beautiful persuasion tends to be dull indeed, as they have no conversation that does not pertain to themselves. A successful gathering requires a number of the ill-favored but clever. The beautiful are but ornaments - desirable, but dispensable.

the fragrant bunches of nettle and dried lavender overhead, dusty gold

Ute McGillivray looked like a Valkyrie on a starchy diet;

A good marriage is one of the most precious gifts from God,

They're girls," she replied briefly. "They were born in danger and will live their lives in that condition, regardless of circumstance.

There comes a turning point in intense physical struggle where one abandons oneself to a profligate usage of strength and bodily resource, ignoring the costs until the struggle is over. Women find this point in childbirth; men in battle.

Not wi' child yet?" she demanded. "Raspberry leaves, that's the thing. Steep a handful wi' rosehips and drink it when the moon's waxing, from the quarter to the full. Then when it wanes from the full to the half, take a bit o' barberry to purge your womb." "Oh," I said, "well - " "I'd a bit of a favor to ask his lairdship," the old lady went on. "But as I see he's a bit occupied at present, I'll tell you about it." "All right," I agreed weakly, not seeing how I could stop her anyway. "It's my grandson," she said, fixing me

Some were in Gaelic and some in English, used apparently according to which language best fitted the rhythm of the words, for all of them had a beauty to the speaking, beyond the content of the tale itself.

Let's go." Jamie's hand was firm on my arm, and I made no protest. Following Jared, guarded by the sailors, we stole away from the quay, surreptitious as though we had started the fire.

Ye always carry your women wi ye into battle, Ian Og. They're the root of your strength, man.

Still, as the Mass went on, things seemed more normal; there were Bible readings, quite familiar, and then the accustomed descent into the vaguely pleasant boredom of a sermon, in which the inevitable Christmas annunciations of "peace," "goodwill," and "love" rose to the surface of his mind, tranquil as white lilies floating on a pond of words.

He had never seen a woman look like that, he thought, fascinated despite his worry for Henry. She had tied back her outrageous hair and wrapped her head carefully in a cloth like a Negro slave woman. With her face so exposed, the delicate bones made stark, the intentness of her expression
with those yellow eyes darting like a hawk's from one thing to another
was the most unwomanly thing he had ever seen. It was the look of a general marshaling his troops for battle, and seeing it, he felt the ball of snakes in his belly relax a little.
She knows what she's doing, he thought.
She looked at him then, and he straightened his shoulders, instinctively awaiting orders
to his utter amazement.

Oh, many and many a time," he whispered. "When I saw you. When I took ye, not caring did ye want me or no, did ye have somewhere else to be, someone else to love.

23 RETURN TO LEOCH

I shook so that it was some time before I realized that he was shaking too, and for the same reason. I don't know how long we sat there on the dusty floor, crying in each others arms with the longing of twenty years spilling down our faces.

Your son is a drunkard," she informed him. Then she caught a whiff of Roger's breath. "Following in his father's footsteps, I see," she added coldly.

She said if ever I saw you again, I was to tell you two things, just as she told them to me. The first was, "I think it is possible, but I do not know." And the second - the second was just numbers. She made me say them over, to be sure I had them right, for I was to tell them to you in a certain order. The numbers were one, nine, six, and seven.

A well-expressed opinion is usually better than a badly expressed fact,

Come to think, perhaps being nearly killed wasn't always a misfortune-so long as you didn't actually die of it.

And if your life is a suitable exchange for my honor, why is my honor not a suitable exchange for your life?

I understood very well just then, why it is that men measure time. They wish to fix a moment, in the vain hope that doing so will keep it from departing.

I had kissed my share of men, particularly during the war years, when flirtation and instant romance were the light-minded companions of death and uncertainty. Jamie, thought, was something different. His extreme gentleness was in no way tentative; rather it was a promise of power known and held in leash; a challenge and a provocation the more remarkable for its lack of demand. I am yours, it said. And if you will have me, then ...

Thee is my wolf," she'd said to him. "And if thee hunts at night, thee will come home." "And sleep at thy feet," he'd replied.

I'm not sure that religion was constructed with time travelers in mind." Buck's brows rose at that. "Constructed?" he echoed, surprised. "Who builds God?

It wasn't the risk," I said, flicking my toes at a big black-and-white splotched carp. "Or not entirely. It was - well, it was partly fear, but mostly it was that I - I couldn't leave Jamie." I shrugged helplessly. "I - simply couldn't.

Do you know where Laoghaire is?

I kept havin' terrible lewd dreams about ye, all the night long," he explained, twitching his breeks into better adjustment. "Every time I rolled over, I'd lie on my cock and wake up. It was awful." I burst out laughing, and he affected to look injured, though I could see reluctant amusement behind it. "Well, you can laugh, Sassenach," he said. "Ye havena got one to trouble ye." "Yes, and a great relief it is, too," I assured him.

Don't you go up on the roof in that!" I exclaimed, sitting up abruptly. "That's your good woolen shirt!" He halted by the door, glared briefly at me, then, with the rebuking expression of an early Christian martyr, laid down his tools, stripped off the shirt, dropped it on the floor, picked up the tools, and strode majestically out to deal with the leak, buttocks clenched with determined zeal. I

Jemmy won't get to go to Disneyland - but he'll have that. A family that laughs - and millions of little lights in the trees.

I read all the time. People ask, 'Do you read while you work?' And I say, 'I better.' I take two or three years to finish one of my enormous books, and I can't go that long without reading.

My marriage to Jamie had been for me like the turning of a great key, each small turn setting in the intricate fall of tumblers within me. Bree had been able to turn that key as well, edging closer to the unlocking of the door of myself. But the final turn of the lock was frozen
until I had walked into the print shop in Edinburgh, and the mechanism had sprung free with a final, decisive click.

It wasn't a very likely place for disappearances, at least at first glance.

He looked like Bree, didn't he? He was like her?" "Yes." He breathed heavily, almost a snort. "I could see it in your face - when you'd look at her, I could see you thinking of him. Damn you, Claire Beauchamp," he said, very softly.

I reached for a pair of my own, intrigued. "Why not? Did the ancient Gaels not wear undergarments?" Frank leered. "You've never heard that old song about what a Scotsman wears beneath his kilts?" "Presumably not gents' knee-length step-ins," I said dryly. "Perhaps I'll go out in search of a local kilt-wearer whilst you're cavorting with vicars and ask him." "Well, do try not to get arrested, Claire. The dean of St. Giles College wouldn't like it at all." In

That's not what I asked," she said, a noticeable edge in her voice. "I asked why my father shot him."
He sighed. She could have found gainful employment with the Spanish Inquisition, he thought
ruefully; no chance of escape or evasion.

How shall I tell ye what it is, to feel the need of a place?" he said softly. "The need of snow beneath my shoon. The breath of the mountains, breathing their own breath in my nostrils as God gave breath to Adam. The scrape of rock under my hand, climbing, and the sight of the lichens on it, enduring in the sun and the wind."

His breath was gone and he breathed again, taking mine. His hands were linked behind mv head, holding me, face-to-face.
"If I am to live as a man, I must have a mountain," he said simply.

For your sake, I will continue - though for mine alone ... I would not.

I have lived through a fucking world war," I said, my voice low and venomous. "I have lost a child. I have lost two husbands. I have starved with an army, been beaten and wounded, been patronized, betrayed, imprisoned, and attacked. And I have fucking survived!" My voice was rising, but I was helpless to stop it. "And now should I be shattered because some wretched, pathetic excuses for men stuck their nasty little appendages between my legs and wiggled them?!

To this point, he could not really have said that he loved William. Feel the terror of responsibility for him, yes. Carry thought of him like a gem in his pocket, certainly, reaching now and then to touch it, marveling. But now he felt the perfection of the tiny bones of William's spine through his clothes, smooth as marbles under his fingers, smelled the scent of him, rich with the incense of innocence and the faint tang of shit and clean linen. And thought his heart would break with love.

The position of sun and moon on the Feast of Beltane is one, with a list if two hundred paired figures laid out beneath. Similar tables existed for Hogmanay and Midsummer's Day, and Samhainn, the Feast of All Hallows. The ancient feasts of fire and sun, and Beltane's sun would rise tomorrow.

I felt adrift, anchorless in a running sea. This is now my home.

There are things that I canna tell you, at least not yet. And I'll ask nothing of ye that ye canna give me. But what I would ask of ye
when you do tell me something, let it be the truth. And I'll promise ye the same. We have nothing now between us, save
respect, perhaps. And I think that respect has maybe room for secrets, but not for lies. Do ye agree?

Jaime, you must be half-dead"
He laughed tiredly, holding me close with one large warm hand on the small of my back.
"A lot more than half, Sassenach. I'm knackered, and my cock's the only thing too stupid to know it. I canna lie wi' ye without wanting you, but wanting's all I'm like to do.

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There's no place on earth with more of the old superstitions and magic mixed into its daily life than the Scottish Highlands.

I think it's as though everyone has a small place inside themselves, maybe, a private bit that they keep to themselves. It's like a little fortress, where the most private part of you lives - maybe it's your soul, maybe just that bit makes you yourself and not anyone else. You don't usually show that bit of yourself to anyone, usually, unless sometimes to someone that ye love greatly.

Recognizing a persimmon is no great feat, for God's sake," I said. "They look like orange baseballs!" "And they taste like the bottom of a chamber pot," Jamie added,

Good luck will do," he said, and his hand tightened on mine…. "I love ye does much better."
He touched my hand, lifted his own and touched my hair, my face, looking into my eyes as though to capture my image in this moment- just in case it should be his last glimpse of me.
"There may come a day when you and I shall part again," he said softly, at last, and his fingers brushed my lips, light as the touch of a falling leaf. He smiled faintly. "But it willna be today.

He was generally aware that he had been blessed in her beauty; even in her usual homespun, knee-deep in mud from her garden, or stained and fierce with the blood of her calling, the curve of her bones spoke to his own marrow, and those whisky eyes could make him drunk with a glance. Besides, the mad collieshangie of her hair made him laugh.

Damn you, Sassenach!" his voice said, from a very great distance. His voice was choked with passion. "Dam you! I swear if ye die on me, I'll kill you!

Who you jiving, L.J.? I heard Joe Abernathy's voice say, derisive and affectionate. I

Incongruous that he laughed. And then realized that there

More than most men, he valued his name-I only hoped that given time, it would once more have value.

But from the very start, there is that small streak of steel within each child. That thing that says "I am," and forms the core of personality.

I had not slept with many men other than my husband, but I had noticed that before to sleep, actually sleep with someone did give this sense of intimacy, as though your dreams had flowed out of you to mingle with his and fold you both in a blanket of unconscious knowing.

For God's sake, be careful, Sassenach!" he muttered. "Dinna go near those things!

A general cry of What book? What book? Let us see this famous book!

Roger, listening intently, couldn't keep from asking a question at this point.
Is it true Colonel Stark said 'Don't fire till you see the whites of their eyes?'
Lee coughed discreetly.
Well sir. I couldn't say for sure as no one said that, but I didn't hear it myself. Mind, I DID hear one colonel call out, 'Any whoreson fool wastes his powder afore the bastards are close enough to kill is gonna get his musket shoved up his arse butt-first!

You said you could tear me limb from limb without touching me," I said. "You were right, damn you."
"I am sorry," he whispered again, but this time he reached for me, and held me tight against him.
"That I loved you? Don't be sorry for that," I said, my voice half muffled in his shirt. "Not ever.

How old was Jem when he finally learned to tell jokes? You remember how he got the form of jokes but didn't really understand the idea of content?" "What's the difference between a ... a ... a button and a sock?" she mimicked, catching Jem's breathless excitement to a T. "A ... BUFFALO! HAHAHAHAHA!

Brave' covers everything from complete insanity and bloody disregard of other people's lives - generals tend to go in for that sort - to drunkenness, foolhardiness, and outright idiocy - to the sort of thing that will make a man sweat and tremble and throw up ... and go and do what he thinks he has to do anyway.

Kitchen window. Scairt the chickens out o' the yard," he added, with a feeble grin. "Less about chickens, Young Ian," I said, looking

So you've not only somehow married Fraser's wife, but you've accidentally been raising his illegitimate son for the last fifteen years?

small bottle of penicillin tablets.

I didna say I wanted an apology, did I? If I recall aright, what I said was 'Bite me again.

Good sex scene is about the exchange of emotions, not bodily fluids

Any piece of good music is in essence a love song.

Does it ever stop, Claire? The wanting?

Sassenach," he said against my shoulder, a moment later. "Mm?" "Who in God's name is John Wayne?" "You are," I said. "Go to sleep.

Our lovemaking was always risk and promise-for if he held my life in his hands when he lay with me, I held his soul, and knew it.

He was laughing so hard at this point that he had to gasp for breath between phrases. "Jamie...I said...for all she's a Sassenach bitch...with a tongue like an adder's ...with a bum like that...what does it matter if she's a f-face like a sh-sh-eep?"

I tripped him neatly and landed on his stomach with both knees as he hit the floor with a crash that shook the house.

"You mean to tell me that you married me out of love?" I demanded. He raised his eyebrows, struggling to draw in breath.

"Have I not...just been...saying so?"
― Diana Gabaldon, Outlander

Was my future any more certain than hers? And did I not depend for my life upon a man bound to me - at least in part - by desire of my body? A faint wind breathed through the trees, and I hitched the blanket higher on my shoulder. The fire had burned to embers, and so high in the mountains, it was cool at night. The moon had set, but it was very clear; the stars blazed close, a net of light cast over the mountains' peaks. No, there were differences. However unknown my future, it would be shared, and the bond between my man and me went much deeper than the flesh. Beyond all this was the one great difference, though - I had chosen to be there.

When ye set about a difficult quest - if ye're Kahnyen'kehaka, I mean - ye generally go aside for a time, to fast and pray for guidance. We havena time to be doing that now, of course. But often, while ye're doing that, ye choose a talisman - or to be right about it, it chooses you - " He sounded completely matter-of-fact about this procedure, Roger noted. "And ye carry it with ye through the quest, to keep the attention of the spirits upon your desire and ensure your success.

She was a very old lady indeed, or at least she looked it. She leaned on a hawthorn stick, enveloped in garments she must have