Quotes from Diana Gabaldon

Alright, all right, I said. What if I tell you a story, instead? Highlanders loved stories, and Jamie was no exception. Oh, aye, he said, sounding much happier. What sort of story is it?

It was possible to leave things behind—places, people, memories—at least for a time. But places held tight to the things that had happened in them, and to come again to a place you had once lived was to be brought face-to-face with what you had done there and who you had been.

It was a leap of faith—to throw one's heart across a gulf, and trust another to catch it.

Once I told him I thought beating your son was a most uncivilized method of getting your own way. He said I'd about as much sense as the post I was standing next to, if as much. He said respect for your elders was one of the cornerstones of civilized behavior, and until I learned that, I'd better get used to looking at my toes while one of my barbaric elders thrashed my arse off.

Like plumbing, medicine is a profession where you learn early on not to put your fingers in your mouth.

Ïf ye've ever the privelege of seeing a woman in her skin, gentlemen,he said, looking over his shoulder toward the door and lowering his voice confidentially, ÿe'll observe that the hair there grows in the shape of an arrow - pointing the way, ye ken, so as a poor ignorant man can find his way safe home.

Is it usual, what it is between us when I touch you?

For several days, I slept. Whether this was a necessary part of physical recovery, or a stubborn retreat from waking reality, I do not know, but I woke only reluctantly to take a little food, falling at once back into a stupor of oblivion, as though the small, warm weight of broth in my stomach were an anchor that pulled me after it, down through the murky fathoms of sleep.

And I looked, held prisoner, bound to him. Looked, as he dropped the last of his masks, and showed me the depths of himself, and the wounds of his soul. I would have wept for his hurt, and for mine, had I been able. But his eyes held mine, tearless and open, boundless as the salt sea. His body held mine captive, driving me before his strength, like the west wind in the sails of a bark. And I voyaged into him,as he into me...

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.

Ye lost your parents young, mo nighean donn, and wandered about the world, rootless. Ye loved Frank"—his mouth compressed for an instant, but I thought he was unconscious of it—"and of course ye love Brianna and Roger Mac and the weans Ã¢â'¬Â¦ but, Sassenach—I am the true home of your heart, and I know that.

Those small spaces of time, too soon gone, when everything seems to stand still, and existence is balanced on a perfect point, like the moment of change between the dark and the light, when both and neither surround you.

He wished to cover her with his body, possess her-for if he could do that, he could pretend to himself that she was safe. Covering her so...he might protect her. Or so he felt, even knowing how senseless the feeling was.

And if she had not come back to me...if you had not come...if I had known for sure that both of you were dead...Then I would still have lived...and done what must be done. So will you.

I have noticed," she said slowly, "that time does not really exist for mothers, with regard to their children. It does not matter greatly how old the child is—in the blink of an eye, the mother can see the child again as it was when it was born, when it learned to walk, as it was at any age—at any time, even when the child is fully grown and a parent itself.

But the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his face; It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints of his hips and wrists; It is in his walk, the carraige of his next, the flex of his waist and knees--dress does not hide him; The strong, sweet supple quality he has, strikes through the cotton and flannel; To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more; You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and shoulder-side.

I've said often enough, and the good Lord kens weel enough that boys were meant to be smacked, or he'd not ha' filled 'em sae full o' the de'il.

Deftly whipping a small tuning fork from his pocket, he struck it smartly against a pillar and held it next to Jamie's left ear. Jamie rolled his eyes heavenward, but shrugged and obligingly sang a note. The little man jerked back as though he'd been shot.

There were some chains you wore because you wanted to.

Could it be possible that he really did have enough imagination to be able to grasp the truth?

Reading is of course dry work, and further refreshment was called for and consumed.

Ian—is that by chance Ian Murray?" Grey asked, but then answered himself. "I suppose it must be; how many Mohawks can there be named Ian?

Yes. It doesn't matter what happens; no matter where a child goes - how far or how long. Even if it's forever. You never lose them. You can't.

There was a smell about the place, which I imagined as the smell of misery and fear, though I supposed it was no more than the niff of ancient squalor and an absence of drains.