Diana Gabaldon Quotes

“I can bear pain, myself, but I couldna bear yours. That would take more strength than I have.”

“Ye werena the first lass I kissed,” he said softly. “But I swear you’ll be the last.” And he bent his head to my upturned face.

“My pride is hurt. And my pride is about all I’ve got left to me....You’re tearin’ my guts out, Claire.′

“Aye, I believe ye, Sassenach. But it would ha’ been a good deal easier if you’d only been a witch.”

“I canna tell whether ya mean to compliment my virility Sassenach, or insult my morals, but I dinna care much for either suggestion. Murtaugh told me women were unreasonable, but Jesus God.”

“No worry, lass. I’ve been hurt by much worse, and by people much less pretty.”

“Listen to me. If you ever raise a hand to me again, James Fraser, I will cut out your heart and eat it for breakfast, do you understand me?”

“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.”

“And if your life is a suitable exchange for my honor, why is my honor not a suitable exchange for your life?”

”And thanking God I have two hands. That I have two hands to hold you with. To serve you with, to love you with.”

“I wanted ye from the first I saw ye--but I loved ye when you wept in my arms and let me comfort you, that first time at Leoch.”

“I’m afraid if I start I shall never stop.”

“You are safe...You have my name and my family, my clan, and if necessary, the protection of my body as well. The man willna lay hands on ye agin while I live.”

“There are things that I canna tell you, at least not yet. And I’ll ask nothing of ye that ye canna give me. But what I would ask of ye—when you do tell me something, let it be the truth. And I’ll promise ye the same. We have nothing now between us, save—respect, perhaps. And I think that respect has maybe room for secrets, but not for lies. Do ye agree?”

“As to that, sir, I swore an oath before the altar of God to protect this woman. And if you’re tellin’ me that ye consider your own authority to be greater that that of the Almighty, then I must inform ye that I’m no of that opinion, myself.”

“For where all love is, the speaking is unnecessary. It is all. It is undying. And it is enough”

“Perhaps I am pretentious in saying so, but I would like to think that I am not “many men,” and that I dinna necessarily place my behavior at the lowest common denominator.”

“I had kissed my share of men, particularly during the war years, when flirtation and instant romance were the light-minded companions of death and uncertainty. Jamie, thought, was something different. His extreme gentleness was in no way tentative; rather it was a promise of power known and held in leash; a challenge and a provocation the more remarkable for its lack of demand. I am yours, it said. And if you will have me, then…”

“And once I got old enough for such a thing to be a possibility, he told me that a man must be responsible for any seed 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.”

“I had noticed before that to sleep, actually sleep with someone did give this sense of intimacy, as though your dreams had flowed out of you to mingle with theirs and fold you both in a blanket of unconscious knowing. A throwback of some kind, I thought… it was an act of trust to sleep in the presence of another person. If the trust was mutual, simple sleep could bring you closer together than the joining of bodies.”