Quotes from Diana Gabaldon

Claire. The name knifed across his heart with a pain that was more racking than anything his body had ever been called on to withstand.

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..

And found myself lying with my head in Jamie's lap. And heard him saying softly, to himself or to me, "For your sake, I will continue—though for mine alone Ã¢â'¬Â¦ I would not.

Actually, it's your kilt that makes me want to fling you to the floor and commit ravishment," I told him. "But you don't look at all bad in your breeks." [....]Take them off," he repeated firmly. He stepped back and tugged loose the lacing of his flies. "Ye can put them back on again after, Sassenach, but if there's flinging and ravishing to be done, it'll be me that does it, aye?

Don't cry, Sassenach, he said, so softly I could barely hear him.

Help us, O Lord, to remember how often men do wrong through want of thought, rather than from lack of love; and how cunning are the snares that trip our feet.

Fraser stood quite still for a moment, breathing slowly and regarding Woodbine as a tiger might regard a hedgehog: yes, he could eat it, but would the inconvenience of swallowing be worth it?

Black Jack. A common name for rogues and scoundrels in the eighteenth century. A staple of romantic fiction, the name conjured up charming highwaymen, dashing blades in plumed hats. The reality waled at my side.

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 that makes you yourself and not anyone else.

If I were a horse, I'd let him ride me anywhere.

And what's wrong wi' the way ye smell?' he said heatedly. 'At least ye smelt like a woman, not a damn flower garden. What d'ye think I am, a man or a bumblebee? Would ye wash yourself, Sassenach, so I can get within less than ten feet of ye?

You'd forgive me for Claire - but not for killing your . . . men. He glanced at the two Craddocks, spotty as a pair of raisin puddings and - Grey's look implied - likely no brighter.

You're the world I have," she murmured, and then her breathing changed, and she took him down with her into safety.

The mountains had their own time, and a wise man did not try to hurry them.

The past is gone—the future is not come. And we are here together, you and I.

And in the end, it does not matter. I am what God has made me, and must deal with the Times in which He has placed me.

Once I had thought I was whole -- had seemed to be able to love a man, to bear a child, to heal the sick--and know that all these things were natural parts of me, not the difficult, troubled fragments into which my life had now disintegrated. But that had been in the past, the man I had loved was Jamie, and for a time, I had been part of something greater than myself.

How many 'inventions' are really memories, of the things we once knew?

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

Not the historians. No, not them. Their greatest crime is that they presume to know what happened, how things come about, when they have only what the past chose to leave behind—for the most part, they think what they were meant to think, and it's a rare one that sees what really happened, behind the smokescreen of artifacts and paper.

I felt the tributaries of his veins, wished to enter into his bloodstream, travel there, dissolved and bodiless, to take refuge in the thick walled chambers of his heart.

Does it ever stop, Claire? The wanting?

Well, I suppose men can make all the laws they like, he said, but God made hope.

Will this be the end of it?' 'There is never an end to such things,' he said quietly. 'But we are alive. And that is good.