Quotes About Sacrifice

Your mother said that Fraser sent her back to me, knowing that I would protect her--and you. ... And like him, perhaps I send you back, knowing---as he knew of me--that he will protect you with his life. I love you forever, Brianna. I know whose child you truly are. With all my love, Dad.

You should know, Bree--I don't regret it. In spite of everything, I don't regret it. You'll know something now, of how lonely I was for so long, without Jamie. It doesn't matter. If the price of that separation was your life, neither Jamie nor I can regret it. Bree, you are worth everything--and more. I've done a great many things in my life, so far, but the most important of them all was to love your father and you.

I'm a man, Sassenach," he said, very softly. "If I thought there was a choice Ã¢â'¬Â¦ then I maybe couldna do it. Ye dinna need to be so brave about things if ye ken ye canna help it, aye?" He looked at me then, with a faint smile. "Like a woman in childbirth, aye? Ye must do it, and it makes no difference if you're afraid—ye'll do it. It's only when ye ken ye can say no that it takes courage.

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.

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.

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

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.

In defense of King, country, and family, he would unhesitatingly have sacrificed his virtue to Nessie, had that been required. If it was a question of Olivia marrying a man with syphilis and half the British army being exterminated in battle, versus himself experiencing a personal interview with Richard Caswell, though, he rather thought Olivia and the King had best look to their own devices.

Then kiss me, Claire," he whispered. "And know that you are more to me than life, and I have no regret." I couldn't answer, but kissed him, first his hand, its crooked fingers warm and firm, and the brawny wrist of a sword-wielder, and then his mouth, haven and promise and anguish all mingled, and the salt of tears in the taste of him.

Claire," he said quietly. "Tomorrow I will die. This child Ã¢â'¬Â¦ is all that will be left of me—ever. I ask ye, Claire—I beg you—see it safe." I stood still, vision blurring, and in that moment, I heard my heart break. It was a small, clean sound, like the snapping of a flower's stem.

No, my Sassenach, he said softly. Open your eyes. Look at me. For that is your punishment, as it is mine. See what you have done to me, as I have done to you. Look at me.

When I'd lost him the first time, before Culloden, I'd remembered. Every moment of our last night together. Tiny things would come back to me through the years: the taste of salt on his temple and the curve of his skull as I cupped his head; the soft fine hair at the base of his neck, thick and damp in my fingers Ã¢â'¬Â¦ the sudden, magical well of his blood in dawning light when I'd cut his hand and marked him forever as my own. Those things had kept him by me.

I want to protect ye, Sassenach-spread myself over ye like a cloak and shield you and the child wi' my body.... I would do anything for ye...and yet...there's nothing I can do. It doesna matter how strong I am, or how willing; I canna go with you where ye must go...not even help ye at all. And to think of the things that might happen, and me helpless to stop them...aye, I'm afraid, Sassenach.

Jamie laid a hand on mine, and my fingers turned to intertwine with his. I could feel his pulse in my own fingertips, the solid bones of knuckle and phalanges. His right hand, battered and marked with the scars of sacrifice and labor. Marked also with the signs of my love, the crude repairs done in pain and desperation. Blood of my blood, bone of my bone Ã¢â'¬Â¦

If I die," he whispered in the dark, "dinna follow me. The bairns will need ye. Stay for them. I can wait.

I'm honest enough to say that I dinna care what the right and wrong of it may be, so long as you are here wi' me, Claire," he said softly. "If it was a sin for you to choose me Ã¢â'¬Â¦ then I would go to the Devil himself and bless him for tempting ye to it." He lifted my foot and gently kissed the tip of my big

It's not too late, you know," she said. She smiled, teasing a little tremulously. "You could still back out." "It's been too late for me since the day I saw you," he said gruffly.

If you find him," she whispered, "when you find my father—give him this." She bent and kissed me, fiercely, gently, then straightened and turned me toward the stone. "Go, Mama," she said, breathless. "I love you. Go!

To take responsibility for the welfare of others made me feel less victimized by the whims of whatever impossible fate had brought me here

the ancient savagery that men call motherhood, who mistake its tenderness for weakness.

You'd die for them, happily," Hal had said, in the long night watch when I'd kept him breathing. "Your family. But at the same time you think, Christ, I can't die! What might happen to them if I weren't here?

There comes a turning point in intense physical struggle where one abandons oneself to a profligate usage of strength and bodily resource, ignoring the costs until the struggle is over. Women find this point in childbirth; men in battle. Past that certain point, you lose all fear of pain or injury. Life becomes very simple at that point; you will do what you are trying to do, or die in the attempt, and it does not really matter much which.

Jamie was real, alright, more real than anything had ever been to me, even Frank and my life in 1945. Jamie, tender lover and perfidious blackguard.