Quotes from Diana Gabaldon

The pressure of events was increasing, day by day, and he could feel responsibility wrapped like a strangling vine about his spinal cord, reaching eager fingers into the base of his skull.

Mmphm," I said, sounding self-consciously Scottish.

Watch a good movie sometime without reference to what's happening but only with attention to how it was photographed; you'll see the change of focus—zoom in, pan out, close-up on face, fade to black, open from above—easily. You want to do that in what you write; it's one of the things that keep people's eyes on the page, though they're almost never conscious of it.

Wakefield's not my own name, see; the Reverend gave it me when he adopted me. He was my mother's uncle—when my parents were killed in the War, he took me to live with him. But my own name is MacKenzie.

There was a curious peace in this day, a sense of things working quietly in their proper courses, nothing minding the upsets and turmoils of human concerns. Perhaps it was the peace that one always finds outdoors, far enough away from buildings and clatter. Maybe it was the result of gardening, that quiet sense of pleasure in touching growing things, the satisfaction of helping them thrive.

And so he and Ian—who, it turned out, could also knit and was prostrated by mirth at my lack of knowledge—had taught me the simple basics of knit and purl, explaining, between snorts of derision over my efforts, that in the Highlands all boys were routinely taught to knit, that being a useful occupation well suited to the long idle hours of herding sheep or cattle on the shielings.

His most intimate keepsake was one that could not be lost or stolen, though. He flexed his left hand, where the thin white line of the letter "C"—carved a little crookedly, but still perfectly legible—showed on the mound at the base of his thumb. The "J" he had left on her would be likewise still visible, he supposed. He hoped.

Still, when had the right to live as one wished ever been considered trivial? Was a struggle to choose one's own destiny less worthwhile than the necessity to stop a great evil?

Next time I marry someone, I'll pick a lass who wakes up cheerful in the morning

Almost everybody understands that you have to have something at stake for a story to be good.

The phrase "Blessed are those who have not seen but have believed" floated through his head. It was maybe not the believing that was the blessing; it was the not having to look. Seeing, sometimes, was bloody awful.

I found the rooted silence, rushing stream, and rustling leaves balm to the spirit.

It hadn't occurred to him that if she had little else, it would be that much more important to Joan Findlay to cling to her one valuable possession-her pride.

Roger lay in the dust of the road, bruised, filthy, and starving, with a woman trembling and weeping against his chest, now and then giving him a small thump with her fist. He had never felt happier in his life.

To the last drop of my blood, mo duinne." "Mo duinne" I asked, a little disturbed by the intensity of this speech. (…) "It means 'my brown one.' " He raised a lock of hair to his lips and smiled, with a look in his eyes that started all the drops of my own blood chasing each other through my veins. "Mo duinne," he repeated, softly. "I have been longing to say that to you.

May God make safe to me each step, May God make open to me each pass, May God make clear to me each road, And may He take me in the clasp of His own two hands.

Well, of course he does, Sassenach," Jamie said, reaching for another slice of toast. "He left her his dog.

God kens well enough that boys need to be smacked, or he'd no fill them sae full o' the de'il.

When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long.

It was a hot summer—there wasn't any other kind in Boston

What Jack Randall had done to him had sunk into his soul as surely as the flails of the lash had sunk in his back, and had left scars every bit as permanent. I

Come to me. Cover me. Shelter me, a bhean, heal me. Burn with me, as I burn for you.

Besides," he added cynically, "a pair of ballocks may bring a man more sorrow than joy—though I havena met many who'd wish them gone, for all that.

Ci sono cose che io non posso dire a te, almeno non ancora. E non insisterò affinché tu mi riveli i tuoi segreti. Però ti chiedo questo: quando mi dici qualcosa, fa che sia la verità. E io ti prometto di fare lo stesso. Tra noi per ora non c'è nulla, tranne...il rispetto, forse. E penso che nel rispetto possa esserci spazio per i segreti, ma non per le bugie. Sei d'accordo?