Quotes from Diana Gabaldon

You forget the life you had before, after awhile. Things you cherish and hold dear are like pearls on a string. Cut the knot and they scatter across the floor, rolling into dark corners never to be found again. So you move on, and eventually you forget what the pearls even looked like. At least, you try.

Despair dragged at me like an anchor, pulling me down. I closed my eyes and retreated to some dim place within, where there was nothing but an aching grey blankness…

If she was broken, she would slash him with her jagged edges, reckless as a drunkard with a shattered bottle.

You're beautiful to me, Jamie," I said softly, at last. "So beautiful, you break my heart.

One dictum I had learned on the battlefields of France in a far distant war: You cannot save the world, but you might save the man in front of you, if you work fast enough.

Ye've no idea how lovely ye look, stark naked, wi' the sun behind you. All gold, like ye were dipped in it.

still I dinna expect anything to happen to me. But if it should...If it does, then I want there to be a place for you; I want someone for you to go to if I am...not there to care for you. If it canna be me, then I would have it be a man who loves you.

I heard you went to Ireland...I haven't seen it in many years. Is it still green then, and beautiful? Wet as a bath sponge and mud to the knees but, aye, it was green enough.

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 put back my head, looking up at the deep black sky swimming with hot stars. If you knew they were really balls of flaming gas, you could imagine them as Van Gogh saw them, without difficulty . . . and looking into that illuminated void, you understood why people have always looked up into the sky when talking to God. You need to feel the immensity of something very much bigger than yourself, and there it is - immeasurably vast, and always near at hand. Covering you.

Ye gave me a child, mo nighean donn, he said softly, into the cloud of my hair. We are together for always. She is safe; and we will live forever now, you and I. He kissed me, very lightly, and laid his head upon the pillow next to me. Brianna, he whispered, in that odd Highland way that made the name his own.

Oh, womanly sympathy, love AND food? I said, laughing. Don't want a lot, do you?

They're only Scotch pearls," he said, apologetically, "but they look bonny on you." His fingers lingered a moment on my neck. "Those were your mother's pearls!" said Dougal, glowering at the necklace. "Aye," said Jamie calmly, "and now they're my wife's. Shall we go?

He leaned close, rubbing his bearded cheek against my ear. 'And how about a sweet kiss, now, for the brave lads of the clan MacKenzie? Tulach Ard!' Erin go bragh,' I said rudely, and pushed with all my strength.

I thought he said you weren't drunk if you could find your arse with both hands." He eyed me appraisingly. "I hate to tell ye, Sassenach, but it's not your arse ye've got hold of—it's mine." "That's all right," I assured him. "We're married. Share and share alike. One flesh; the priest said so.

I wouldna cross the road to see a scrawny woman if she was stark naked and dripping wet. ~Jamie Fraser

I can stand a lot! But just because I can, does that mean I must? Do I have to bear everyone's weakness? Can I not have my own?

The colors of living things begin to fade with the last breath, and the soft, springy skin and supple muscle rot within weeks. But the bones sometimes remain, faithful echoes of the shape, to bear some last faint witness to the glory of what was.

Many of the lost will be found, eventually, dead or alive. Disappearances, after all, have explanations.

I would." He kissed the top of my head. "I saw Ian's face; it was like his own flesh was being torn, each time Jenny screamed." My arms were around him, stroking the ridged scars on his back. "I can bear pain, myself," he said softly, "but I couldna bear yours. That would take more strength than I have.

Murtagh was one of those men who always looked a bit startled to find that women had voices, but he nodded politely enough.

Jamie, I had found out by accident a few days previously, had never mastered the art of winking one eye. Instead, he blinked solemnly, like a large red owl.

This was nonsense, he thought. The need of her was a physical thing, like the thirsty of a sailor becalmed for weeks on the sea. He'd felt the need before, often, often, in their years apart. But why now? She was safe; he knew where she was - was it only the exhaustion of the past weeks and days, or perhaps the weakness of creeping age that made his bones ache, as though she had in fact been torn from his body, as God had made Eve from Adam's rib?

When you hold a child to your breast to nurse, the curve of the little head echoes exactly the curve of the breast it suckles, as though this new person truly mirrors the flesh from which it sprang.