Diana Gabaldon Quotes

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“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.”

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

“Harmless as a setting dove," he agreed. "I'm too hungry to be a threat to anything but breakfast. Let a stray bannock come within reach, though, and I'll no answer for the consequences.”

“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.”

“… well, if women's work was never done, why trouble about how much of it wasn't being accomplished at any given moment?”

“Ye need not be scairt of me," he said softly. "Nor anyone here, so long as I'm with ye." - Jaime”

“You're mine, damn ye, Claire Fraser! Mine, and I wilna share ye, with a man or a memory, or anything whatever, so long as both shall live.”

“Sassenach." He had called me that from the first; the Gaelic word for outlander, a stranger. An Englishman. First in jest, then in affection.”

“I'll tell ye, Sassenach; if ever I feel the need to change my manner of employment, I dinna think I'll take up attacking women - it's a bloody hard way to make a living.”

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

“I loveI have loved ye from the moment I saw ye, I will love ye ’til time itself is done, and so long as you are by my side, I am well pleased wi’ the world.”

“No wonder men got impervious to superficial pain, I thought. It came from this habit of hammering each other incessantly.”

“Life among academics had taught me that a well-expressed opinion is usually better than a badly expressed fact, so far as professional advancement goes.”

“Lord that she might be safe. She and my children.”

“He [Brian Fraser] told me that a man must be responsible for any see he sows, for it's his duty to take care of a woman and protect her. And if I wasna prepared to do that, then I'd no right to burden a woman with the consequences of my own actions.”

“Home is the place where they have to take you in”

“Has he come armed, then?” she asked anxiously. “Has he brought a pistol or a sword?”

Ian shook his head, his dark hair lifting wildly in the wind.

“Oh, no, Mam!” he said. “It’s worse. He’s brought a lawyer!”

“What are you doing with the child?" I inquired cautiously.
"I'm teachin' young James here the fine art of not pissing on his feet," he explained.”

“Sassenach,” he said against my shoulder, a moment later. “Mm?” “Who in God’s name is John Wayne?” “You are,” I said. “Go to sleep.”

“My father liked me, when I wasna being an idiot. And he loved me, too -- enough to beat the daylights out of me when I was being an idiot. Jamie Fraser”

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

“Roger speaking to Brianna:
It's too important. You don't forget having a dad."
You do remember your father?"
No. I remember yours.”

“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?”

“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.”

“If ye loved him, he must ha' been a good man.'
'Yes, he… was.'
'Then I shall do my best to honor his spirit by serving his wife.”

“As though, knowing that everything is possible, suddenly nothing is necessary.”

“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.”

“Scots have long memories, and they're not the most forgiving of people.”

“And you, my Sassenach? What were you born for? To be lady of a manor, or to sleep in the fields like a gypsy? To be a healer, or a don's wife, or an outlaw's lady?"

"I was born for you," I said simply, and held out my arms to him.”

“I am a coward, damn you! I couldna tell ye, for fear ye would leave me, and unmanly thing that I am, I thought I couldna bear that!”

“A tall, straight-bodied, and by no means ill-favored young Highlander at close range is breath-taking.”

“It's only that ye looked so beautiful, wi' the fire on your face, and your hair waving in the wind. I wanted to remember it.”

“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.”

“Ye always carry your women wi ye into battle, Ian Og. They're the root of your strength, man.”

“Thy life’s journey lies along its own path, Ian,” she said, “and I cannot share thy journey—but I can walk beside thee. And I will.”

“When God closes a door, he opens a window. Yeah. The problem was that this particular window opened off the tenth story, and he wasn't so sure God supplied parachutes.”

“Well I am still not drunk" I straightened up against the pillows as best I could. "You told me once that if you could still stand up, you weren't drunk."
You aren't standing up." he point out.
You are.”

“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.”

“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. --Jamie”

“Are you alright?"
"No, I bumped my head." Rubbing the spot, I looked dazedly around the bare hallway.
"What did I bang it on?" I demanded ungrammatically.
"head." he said, rather grumpily, I thought.”

“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…”

“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.”

“What possessed ye, woman, to hit me in the heid wi' a fish whilst I was fighting for my life?”

“He was dead. However, his nose throbbed painfully, which he thought odd in the circumstances.”

“Why d'ye talk to yourself?'
'It assures me of a good listener.”

“I always wake when you do, Sassenach; I sleep ill without ye by my side.”

“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.”

“So remember it, lad. If your head thinks up mischief, your backside's going to pay for it. Brian Fraser to young Jamie”

“Jamie shook his head at me admiringly. “And here I thought I married you because ye had a fair face and a fine fat arse. To think you’ve a brain as well!” He neatly dodged the blow I aimed at his ear, and grinned at me.”