Quotes from Diana Gabaldon

Ye've not said grace yet," he said severely, small face screwed into a frown. Obviously he considered me a conscienceless heathen, if not downright depraved.

This is why you use imagery when writing about sex; it's a means both of evoking immediacy and of distilling emotion.

Don't be afraid," he whispered into my hair. "There's the two of us now." I felt warm, soothed, and safe.

Bodies under the foundation, though—that's where a lot of the local ghosts come from.

writing novels was a cannibal's art, in which one often mixed small portions of one's friends and one's enemies together, seasoned them with imagination, and allowed the whole to stew together into a savory concoction.

On ne pense qu'à quoi ? – Tu sais très bien ce que je veux dire. – Pour ça, oui. Je me demandais simplement... c'est une insulte ou un compliment ? J'ouvris la bouche, puis la refermai, lui renvoyant son regard rêveur. – Si la chaussure sied à ton pied, enfile-la, déclarai-je.

admitting a dubious

Okay. This has to be a credible threat. Ergo, we have to have seen (and heard about) the real damage Randall has done to Jamie thus far; we have to be in no doubt whatever that he'd do real damage to Claire. We can't just say, "Oh, he's such a nasty person, you wouldn't believe…" We have to believe, and therefore appreciate, just what Jamie is doing when he trades what's left of his life for Claire's.

Some jobs in medicine require a certain ruthlessness to complete successfully; detachment is necessary to inflict pain in the process of effecting a healing

I had known her long enough, though, to realize that one of Jenny's greatest gifts was her ability to see something with utter clarity—and then to look straight through it, as though it wasn't there.

To some extent, emotions are universal and can be treated that way; no matter what the participants' orientation or preference, they have sex for the same reasons and can experience the same array of emotions in the process. But there are three important distinctions to be made: 1. The logistics of physiology 2. The basics of sexual attraction 3. Cultural impact on character and situation

satisfying to be able once again to relieve a pain, reset a joint, repair damage. To take responsibility for the welfare of others made me feel less

I was having trouble with the scale of things. A man killed with a musket was just as dead as one killed with a mortar. It was just that the mortar killed impersonally, destroying dozens of men, while the musket was fired by one man who could see the eyes of the one he killed. That made it murder, it seemed to me, not war. How many men to make a war? Enough, perhaps, so they didn't really have to see each other?

seemed a bit unsanitary to be burying people in the marketplace.

But just then, for that fraction of time, it seems as though all things are possible. You can look across the limitations of your own life, and see that they are really nothing. In that moment when time stops, it is as though you know you could undertake any venture, complete it and come back to yourself, to find the world unchanged, and everything just as you left it a moment before. And it's as though, knowing that everything is possible, suddenly nothing is necessary.

Her breath was warm on his cheek, smelling of fried egg.

Here we stopped, turning our horses over to the attention of a hostler, who moved so slowly as to seem ossified.

I thought of telling him that his own touch seared my skin and filled my veins with fire. But I was already alight and glowing like a brand. I closed my eyes and felt the kindling touch move to cheek and temple, ear and neck, and shuddered as his hands dropped to my waist and drew me close.

It occurred to me, listening to the chorus, that men in a hospital ward seldom really snore. Breathe heavily, yes. They gasp, groan occasionally, and sometimes sob or cry out in sleep. But there was no comparison to this healthy racket. Perhaps it was that sick or injured men could not sleep deeply enough to relax into that sort of din.

Only a raid, Sassenach. I've been doin' that since I was fourteen. It's only in fun, ye see; it's different when you're up against someone who really means to kill ye." "Fun," I said, a little faintly. "Yes, quite.

Castle Leoch. Well, at least now I knew where I was. When I had known it, Castle Leoch was a picturesque ruin, some thirty miles north of Bargrennan. It was considerably more picturesque now, what with the pigs rooting under the walls of the keep and the pervasive smell of raw sewage. I was beginning to accept the impossible idea that I was, most likely, somewhere in the eighteenth century.

Oh, they call me Rab the Ranter, and the lassies all go daft, When I blow up my chanter.

And if there was eternity, or even the idea of it, then perhaps Anselm was right; all things were possible.

To have ye with me again, to talk wi' you, to know I can say anything, not guard my words or hide my thoughts. God, Sassenach the Lord knows I am as lust-crazed as a lad, and I canna keep my hands from you, or anything else. But I would count that all well lost, had no more than the pleasure of havin' ye by me, and to tell ye all my heart.