Quotes from Diana Gabaldon

I had realized many years before why "patients" are called that; it's because a sick person is generally incapacitated, and thus obliged to put up with any amount of harassment and annoyance from persons who are not sick.

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.

You must," I murmured to myself, and then my knees buckled. Lying on the floor, with the carved panels of the ceiling flickering dimly above, I found myself thinking that I had always heretofore assumed that the tendency of eighteenth-century ladies to swoon was due to tight stays; now I rather thought it might be due to the idiocy of eighteenth-century men.

We look in the mirror and see the shades of other faces looking back through the years; we see the shape of memory, standing solid in an empty doorway. By blood and by choice, we make our ghosts; we haunt ourselves. Each ghost comes unbidden from the misty grounds of dream and silence.

I've yet to see the auld woman believes in witches, nor the young one, neither. It's men think there must be ill-wishes and magic in women, when it's only the natural way of the creatures.

Pointless to spend too much time in planning, anyway, given the propensity of life to make sudden left-hand turns without warning.

Doom, or save. That I cannot do. For I have no power beyond that of knowledge, no ability to bend others to my will, no way to stop them doing what they will. There is only me.

He reached out and touched my lower lip, barely brushing the edge. "It starts out the same, but then, after a moment," he said, speaking softly, "suddenly it's as though I've a living flame in my arms." His touch grew firmer, outlining my lips and caressing the line of my jaw. "And I want only to throw myself into it and be consumed.

of Jamie. God, how could I do it? Leave him

I'd known that, consciously-and yet I had done it anyway, gone right on with my plans, pursuing my routines, as though life were still settled and predictable, as though nothing whatever might threaten the tenor of my days, As though acting might make it true.

Ye ken how to pick a good lass, MacKenzie? Start at the bottom and work your way up!

Everyone makes choices, and no one knows what may be the end of any of them. If my own was to blame for many things, it was not to blame for everything. Nor was harm all that had come of it.

Dear God," he said, still softly. "I couldna look at ye, Sassenach, and keep my hands from you, nor have ye near me, and not want ye.

I stood in front of him in nothing but my shoes and gartered rose-silk stockings.

I prayed all the way up that hill yesterday; not for you to stay; I didna think that would be right. I prayed I'd be strong enough to send ye away. I said, Lord, if I've ever had courage in my life before, let me have it now. Let me be brave enough and not fall to my knees and beg her to stay.

Fraser nodded casually toward Twelvetrees. "Is there anything ye want me to beat out of him?

I can hear. Hear them. It. Don't you hear?" It was a struggle to speak, to form coherent thoughts. The call here was different; not the beehive sound of Craigh na Dun, but a hum like the vibration of the air following the striking of a great bell. I could feel it ringing in the long bones of my arms, echoing through pectoral girdle and spine. Jamie

Now they think you're mad; then they thought you were a witch. Cultural mores

Sometimes our best actions result in things that are most regrettable.

In older, more primitive times (like these? asked another part of my mind), it was an act of trust to sleep in the presence of another person. If the trust was mutual, simple sleep could bring you closer together than the joining of bodies.

Roger wondered if this was the sort of way you felt after a battle; the sheer relief of finding yourself alive and unwounded made you want to laugh and arse about, just to prove you still could.

respect for your elders was one of the cornerstones of civilized behavior

Scots have long memories, and they're not the most forgiving of people. There's a clan stone out there with the name of MacKenzie carved on it, and a good many of my relatives under it. I don't feel quite so personal about it as some, but I haven't forgotten either. - Roger MacKenzie Wakefield

He still didn't know why the frog hadn't killed him.