Diana Gabaldon famous quotes

Hard to believe lightning can strike twice, but it surely did. The moment Caitriona Balfe came on screen, I sat up straight and said, ‘There she is!’ She and Sam Heughan absolutely lit up the screen with fireworks.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Believe #Lightning #Moments

I was crying for joy, my Sassenach,' he said softly. He reached out slowly and took my face between his hands. "And thanking God that I have two hands. That I have two hands to hold you with. To serve you with, to love you with. Thanking God that I am a whole man still, because of you.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Love You #Men #Hands

And I mean to hear ye groan like that again. And to moan and sob, even though you dinna wish to, for ye canna help it. I mean to make you sigh as though your heart would break, and scream with the wanting, and at last to cry out in my arms, and I shall know that I've served ye well.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Heart #Mean #Wish

Does it ever stop? The wanting you?" "Even when I've just left ye. I want you so much my chest feels tight and my fingers ache with wanting to touch ye again.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Doe #Want #Ache

I meant it, Claire,' he said quietly. 'My life is yours. And it's yours to decide what we shall do, where we go next. To France, to Italy, even back to Scotland. My heart has been yours since first I saw ye, and you've held my soul and body between your two hands here, and kept them safe. We shall go as ye say.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Heart #Hands #Scotland

At last I took one big, callused hand and slid forward so I knelt on the boards between his knees. I laid my head against his chest, and felt his breath stir my hair. I had no words, but I had made my choice. "'Whither thou goest,'" I said. "'I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried.' Be it Scottish hill or southern forest. You do what you have to; I'll be there.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Hands #Hair #People

I wept bitterly, surrendering momentarily to my fear and heartbroken confusion, but slowly I began to quiet a bit, as Jamie stroked my neck and back, offering me the comfort of his broad, warm chest. My sobs lessened and I began to calm myself, leaning tiredly into the curve of his shoulder. No wonder he was so good with horses, I thought blearily, feeling his fingers rubbing gently behind my ears, listening to the soothing, incomprehensible speech. If I were a horse, I'd let him ride me anywhere.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Heartbroken #Horse #Curves

For so many years, for so long, I have been so many things, so many different men. But here," he said, so softly I could barely hear him, "here in the dark, with you… I have no name.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Dark #Men #Years

Lord, ye gave me a rare woman, and God! I loved her well.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Lord #Wells

Sassenach, I've been stabbed, bitten, slapped, and whipped since supper - which I didna get to finish. I dinna like to scare children an I dinna like to flog men, and I've had to do both. I've two hundred English camped three miles away, and no idea what to do about them. I'm tired, I'm hungry, and I'm sore. If you've anything like womanly sympathy about ye, I could use a bit!
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Children #Tired #Men

You dinna need to understand me, Sassenach," he said quietly. "So long as you love me.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Long #Needs #Said

When you hold a child to your breast to nurse, the curve of the little head echoes exactly the curve of the breast it suckles, as though this new person truly mirrors the flesh from which it sprang.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Children #Echoes #Curves

It has always been forever, for me, Sassenach
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Forever

Do you really think we'll ever--" "I do," he said with certainty, not letting me finish. He leaned over and kissed my forehead. "I know it, Sassenach, and so do you. You were meant to be a mother, and I surely dinna intend to let anyone else father your children.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Mother #Children #Father

D'ye ken that the only time I am without pain is in your bed, Sassenach? When I take ye, when I lie in your arms-my wounds are healed, then, my scars forgotten.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Pain #Lying #Bed

I do know it, my own. Let me tell ye in your sleep how much I love you. For there's no so much I can be saying to ye while ye wake, but the same poor words, again and again. While ye sleep in my arms, I can say things to ye that would be daft and silly waking, and your dreams will know the truth of them. Go back to sleep, mo duinne.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Dream #Silly #Love You

How did you keep this by you?" Grey demanded abruptly. "You were searched to the skin when you were brought back." The wide mouth curved slightly in the first genuine smile Grey had seen. "I swallowed it," Fraser said. Grey's hand closed convulsively on the sapphire. He opened his hand and rather gingerly set the gleaming blue thing on the table by the chess piece. "I see," he said. "I'm sure you do, Major," said Fraser, with a gravity that merely made the glint of amusement in his eyes more pronounced. "A diet of rough parritch has its advantages, now and again.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Eye #Blue #Hands

I'll leave it to you, Sassenach," he said dryly, "to imagine what it feels like to arrive unexpectedly in the midst of a brothel, in possession of a verra large sausage.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Sausage #Imagine #Midst

Am I a man? To want you so badly that nothing else matters? To see you, and know I would sacrifice honor or family or life itself to lie wi' you, even though ye'd left me?
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Lying #Sacrifice #Men

Time does not really exist for mothers, with regard to their children. It does not matter greatly how old the child is-in the blink of an eye, a mother can see the child again as they were when they were born, when they learned how to walk, as they were at any age-at any time, even when the child is fully grown or a parent themselves.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Mother #Children #Eye

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.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Lying #Men #Thinking

Jamie," I said, "how, exactly, do you decide whether you're drunk?" Aroused by my voice, he swayed alarmingly to one side, but caught himself on the edge of the mantelpiece. His eyes drifted around the room, then fixed on my face. For an instant, they blazed clear and pellucid with intelligence. "och, easy, Sassenach, If ye can stand up, you're not drunk." He let go of the mantelpiece, took a step toward me, and crumpled slowly onto the hearth, eyes blank, and a wide, sweet smile on his dreaming face.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Letting Go #Dream #Sweet

D'ye think I don't know?" he asked softly. "It's me that has the easy part now. For if ye feel for me as I do for you-then I'm asking you to tear out your heart and live without it.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Heart #Thinking #Tears

I shook so that it was some time before I realized that he was shaking too, and for the same reason. I don't know how long we sat there on the dusty floor, crying in each others arms with the longing of twenty years spilling down our faces.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Years #Long #Twenties

That's not precisely what I had in mind." Jamie, I had found out by accident a few days previously, had never mastered the art of winking one eye. Instead, he blinked solemnly, like a large red owl.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Art #Eye #Owl

It wasn't a thing I had consciously missed, but having it now reminded me of the joy of it; that drowsy intimacy in which a man's body is accessible to you as your own, the strange shapes and textures of it like a sudden extension of your own limbs.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Men #Joy #Texture

Where did you learn to kiss like that?” I said, a little breathless. He grinned and pulled me close again. “I said I was a virgin, not a monk,” he said, kissing me again. “If I find I need guidance, I’ll ask.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Kissing #Littles #Needs

I will find you," he whispered in my ear. "I promise. If I must endure two hundred years of purgatory, two hundred years without you - then that is my punishment, which I have earned for my crimes. For I have lied, and killed, and stolen; betrayed and broken trust. But there is the one thing that shall lie in the balance. When I shall stand before God, I shall have one thing to say, to weigh against the rest." His voice dropped, nearly to a whisper, and his arms tightened around me. Lord, ye gave me a rare woman, and God! I loved her well.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Lying #Years #Punishment

An Englishman thinks a hundred miles is a long way; and American thinks a hundred years is a long time
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Thinking #Years #Long

I talk to you as I talk to my own soul," he said, turning me to face him. He reached up and cupped my cheek, fingers light on my temple. "And Sassenach," he whispered, "Your face is my heart.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Heart #Light #Soul

Torn between the impulse to stroke his head, and the urge to cave it in with a rock, I did neither.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Rocks #Caves #Torn

No wonder he was so good with horses, I thought blearily, feeling his fingers rubbing gently behind my ears, listening to the soothing, incomprehensible speech. If I were a horse, I’d let him ride me anywhere.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Horse #Feelings #Listening

Man's sense of Morality tends to decrease as his Power increases
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Men #Morality #Increase

Overall, the library held a hushed exultation, as though the cherished volumes were all singing soundlessly within their covers.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Singing #Library #Volume

Ye are Blood of my Blood, and Bone of my Bone, I give ye my Body, that we Two might be One. I give ye my Spirit, 'til our Life shall be Done.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Blood #Two #Giving

Ye werena the first lass I kissed," he said softly. "But I swear you'll be the last.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Lasts #Firsts #Said

The rest of the journey passed uneventfully, if you consider it uneventful to ride fifteen miles on horseback through rough country at night, frequently without benefit of roads, in company with kilted men armed to the teeth, and sharing a horse with a wounded man. At least we were not set upon by highwaymen, we encountered no wild beasts, and it didn't rain. By the standards I was becoming used to, it was quite dull.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Country #Horse #Rain

forgiveness is not a single act, but a matter of constant practice
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Forgiveness #Practice #Matter

I can bear pain myself, he said softly, but I couldna bear yours. That would take more strength than I have.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Pain #Bears #Said

Are some people destined for a great fate, or to do great things? Or is it only that they're born somehow with that great passion -- and if they find themselves in the right circumstances, then things happen? It's the sort of thing you wonder...
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Passion #Fate #People

Hodie mihi cras tibi, said the inscription. Sic transit gloria mundi. My turn today, yours tomorrow. And thus passes away the glory of the world.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Passing Away #Today #World

There is an oath upon her," he said to Arch, and I realized dimly that he was still speaking in Gaelic, though I understood him clearly. "She may not kill, save it is for mercy or her life. It is myself who kills for her.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Arches #May #Gaelic

Really rather fascinating, you know,' he confided, and I recognized, with an internal sigh, the song of the scholar, as identifying a sound as the terr-whit! of a thrush.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Song #Sound #Scholar

There was a feeling, not sudden, but complete, as though I had been given a small object to hold unseen in my hands. Precious as opal, smooth as jade, weighty as a river stone, more fragile than a bird's egg. Infinitely still, live as the root of Creation. Not a gift, but a trust. Fiercely to cherish, softly to guard. The words spoke themselves and disappeared into the groined shadows of the roof.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Hands #Eggs #Roots

I didn't say you shouldn't worry, do you think I don't worry? But no, you probably can't do anything about me.' 'Well, maybe no, Sassenach, and maybe so. But I've lived a long enough time now to think it maybe doesna matter so much-- so long as I can love you.' -Claire & Jamie Fraser
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Love You #Thinking #Long

Do ye dare to draw arms against the justice of God?" snapped the tubby little judge. Jamie drew the sword completely, with a flash of steel, then thrust it point-first into the ground, leaving the hilt quivering with the force of the blow. "I draw it in defense of this women, and the truth," he said "If any here be against those two they'll answer to me, and then God, in that order.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Blow #Two #Order

You'll lie wi' me now," he said quietly. "And I shall use ye as I must. And if you'll have your revenge for it, then take it and welcome, for my soul is yours, in all the black corners of it.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Revenge #Lying #Soul

Everyone can lie, young Roger, given cause enough. Even me. It's only that it's harder for those of us who live in glass faces; we have to think up our lies ahead of time.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Lying #Thinking #Glasses

All I want, is for you to love me. Not because of what I can do or what I look like, or because I love you - just because I am.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Love You #Looks #Want

She sounded as though love were an unfortunate but unavoidable condition.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Unfortunate

Do you know,' he said again softly, addressing his hands, 'what it is to love someone, and never - never! - be able to give them peace, or joy, or happiness?' He looked up then, eyes filled with pain. 'To know that you cannot give them happiness, not through any fault of yours or theirs, but only because you were not born the right person for them?
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Pain #Eye #Hands

Your face is my heart Sassenach, and the love of you is my soul
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Heart #Soul #Faces

Gentle he would be, denied he would not.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Would Be #Gentle

And when my body shall cease, my soul will still be yours, Claire? I swear by my hope of heaven, I will not be parted from you." The wind stirred the leaves of the chestnut trees nearby, and the scents of late summer rose up rich around us; pine and grass and strawberries, sun-warmed stone and cool water, and the sharp, musky smell of his body next to mine. "Nothing is lost, Sassenach; only changed." "That's the first law of thermodynamics," I said, wiping my nose. "No," he said. "That's faith.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Summer #Smell #Wind

This wife you have, Bird said at last, deeply contemplative, did you pay a great deal for her? She cost me almost everything I had, he said, with a wry tone that made the others laugh. But worth it.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Laughing #Wife #Bird

But we are here, all of us. And we're here because I love you, more than the life that was mine. Because I believed you loved me the same way...will you tell me that's not true? No, he said after a moment, so softly I could barely hear him. His hand tightened harder on mine. No, I willna tell ye that. Not ever, Claire.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#I Love You More #Hands #Way

Don't be afraid. There's the two of us now.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Two #Jamie Fraser

This was nonsense, he thought. The need of her was a physical thing, like the thirsty of a sailor becalmed for weeks on the sea. He'd felt the need before, often, often, in their years apart. But why now? She was safe; he knew where she was - was it only the exhaustion of the past weeks and days, or perhaps the weakness of creeping age that made his bones ache, as though she had in fact been torn from his body, as God had made Eve from Adam's rib?
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Past #Years #Sea

A cold supper, were you thinking? I asked dubiously. I was not, he said firmly, I mean to light a roaring fire in the kitchen hearth, fry up a dozen eggs in butter, and eat them all, then lay ye down on the hearth rug and roger ye 'till you - is that all right? he inquired, noticing my look. 'Til I what? I asked fascinated by his description of the evening's program. 'Til ye burst into flame and take me with ye, I suppose, he said, and stooping, swooped me up into his arms and carried me across the darkened threshold.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Mean #Thinking #Fire

Once you've chosen a man, don't try to change him', I wrote with more confidence. 'It can't be done. More important-don't let him try to change you.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Men #Important #Trying

He reached forward then took me in his arms, held me close for a moment, the breath of snow and ashes cold around us. Then he kissed me, released me, and I took a deep breath of cold air, harsh with the scent of burning.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Air #Snow #Ashes

I was born for you" -Claire Fraser, Outlander
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Claire #Born #Outlander

So long as my body lives, and yours -- we are one flesh," he whispered, "And when my body shall cease, my soul will still be yours. Claire -- I swear by my hope of heaven, I will not be parted from you.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Long #Heaven #Soul

It would ha' been a good deal easier, if ye'd only been a witch.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Witch #Easier #Outlander

If she was broken, she would slash him with her jagged edges, reckless as a drunkard with a shattered bottle.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Broken #Bottles #Reckless

He splayed a hand out over the photographs, trembling fingers not quite touching the shiny surface, and then he turned and leaned toward me, slowly, with the improbable grace of a tall tree falling. He buried his face in my shoulder and went very quietly and thoroughly to pieces.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Fall #Hands #Tree

It was in a way a comforting idea; if there was all the time in the world, then the happenings of a given moment became less important.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Ideas #Comforting #Important

I work on multiple projects at a time because it keeps me from getting writer's block.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Block #Projects #Multiple

I know why the Jews and Muslims have nine hundred names for God; one small word is not enough for love.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Names #Nine #Enough

Do ye want me?" he whispered. "Sassenach, will ye take me - and risk the man that I am, for the sake of the man ye knew?
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Men #Risk #Want

And Finally I put down the last and the best advice I knew, on growing older. 'Stand up straight and try not to get fat.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Advice #Trying #Growing

There aren't any answers, only choices
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Choices #Answers

The colors of living things begin to fade with the last breath, and the soft, springy skin and supple muscle rot within weeks. But the bones sometimes remain, faithful echoes of the shape, to bear some last faint witness to the glory of what was.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Echoes #Color #Faithful

It's a good country for myths. Things seem to take root here.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Country #Roots #Good Country

Highlanders make the truest friends-if only because they make the worst enemies.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Enemy #Highlander #Worst

Why d'ye talk to yourself?' 'It assures me of a good listener.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Good Listener

But a man is not forgotten, as long as there are two people left under the sky. One, to tell the story; the other, to hear it.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Men #Two #Sky

It was a beautiful bright autumn day, with air like cider and a sky so blue you could drown in it.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Beautiful #Autumn #Air

Catholics don't believe in divorce. We do believe in murder. There's always Confession, after all. --Brianna Fraser to Roger MacKenzie
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Believe #Divorce #Catholic

When you're reading, you're not where you are; you're in the book. By the same token, I can write anywhere.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Book #Reading #Writing

Well, I can't remember not being able to read. I was told I could read by myself very well at the age of three.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Age #Three #Able

I work late at night. I'm awake and nobody bothers me. It's quiet and things come and talk to me in the silence.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Night #Silence #Quiet

People assume that science is a very cold sort of profession, whereas writing novels is a warm and fuzzy intuitive thing. But in fact, they are not at all different.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Writing #People #Different

I don't plot the books out ahead of time, I don't plan them. I don't begin at the beginning and end at the end. I don't work with an outline and I don't work in a straight line.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Book #Beginnings And Ends #Plot

I read all the time. People ask, 'Do you read while you work?' And I say, 'I better.' I take two or three years to finish one of my enormous books, and I can't go that long without reading.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Book #Reading #Years

Conflict and character are the heart of good fiction, and good mystery has both of those in spades.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Heart #Character #Fiction

And if Time is anything akin to God, I suppose that Memory must be the Devil.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Memories #Devil

…but Sassenach—I am the true home of your heart, and I know that.” He lifted my hands to his mouth and kissed my upturned palms, one and then the other, his breath warm and his beard-stubble soft on my fingers. “I have loved others, and I do love many, Sassenach—but you alone hold all my heart, whole in your hands,” he said softly. “And you know that.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Home #Heart #Hands

He's a man...and that's no small thing to be.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Men #Small Things

I'll scream!" "Likely. If not before, certainly during. I expect they'll hear ye at the next farm; you've got good lungs.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Next #Scream #Claire Fraser

I want to hold you like a kitten in my shirt, and still I want to spread your thighs and plow ye like a rotting bull. I dinna understand myself.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Bulls #Rotting #Want

The overseer wouldna speak to me of Ian, but he told me other things that would curl your hair, if it wasna already curled up like sheep's wool." He glanced at me, and a half-smile lit his face, inspite of his obvious perturbation. "Judging by the state of your hair, Sassenach, I should say that it's going to rain verra soon now.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Rain #Sheep #Hair

Alright, all right," I said. "What if I tell you a story, instead?" Highlanders loved stories, and Jamie was no exception. "Oh, aye, " he said, sounding much happier. "What sort of story is it?
-- Diana Gabaldon

#What If #Stories #Highlander

I was crying and laughing, snuffing tears and blood, bumping at him with my bound hands, trying awkwardly to thrust them at him so that he could cut the rope. He quit grappling, and clutched me so hard against him that I yelped in pain as my face was pressed against his plaid. He was saying something else, urgently, but I couldn’t manage to translate it. Energy pulsed through him, hot and violent, like the current in a live wire, and I vaguely realized that he was still almost berserk; he had no English.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Pain #Cutting #Blood

Then kiss me, Claire," he whispered, "And know that you are more to me than life, and I have no regret.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Regret #Kissing #Kiss Me

Only you," he said, so softly I could barely hear him. "To worship ye with my body, give ye all the service of my hands. To give ye my name, and all my heart and soul with it. Only you. Because ye will not let me lie--and yet ye love me.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Lying #Heart #Hands

He gave you to me," she said, so low I could hardly hear her. "Now I have to give you back to him, Mama.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Giving #Mama #Lows

There were moments, of course. Those small spaces in time, too soon gone, when everything seems to stand still, and existence is balanced on a perfect point, like the moment of change between the dark and the light, and when both and neither surround you.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Dark #Space #Light

I have lived through war, and lost much. I know what's worth the fight, and what is not. Honor and courage are matters of the bone, and what a man will kill for, he will sometimes die for, too. And that, O kinsman, is why a woman has broad hips; that bony basin will harbor a man and his child alike. A man's life springs from his woman's bones, and in her blood is his honor christened. For the sake of love alone, I would walk through fire again.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Children #Spring #War

Sometimes,' he whispered at last, 'sometimes, I dream I am singing, and I wake from it with my throat aching.' He couldn't see her face, or the tears that prickled at the corners of her eyes. 'What do you sing?' she whispered back. She heard the shush of the linen pillow as he shook his head. 'No song I've ever heard, or know,' he said softly. 'But I know I'm singing it for you.
-- Diana Gabaldon

#Dream #Song #Eye