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The Outlander Series 8-Book Bundle: Outlander, Dragonfly in Amber, Voyager, Drums of Autumn, The Fiery Cross, A Breath of Snow and Ashes, An Echo in the Bone, Written in My Own Heart's Blood

Book by Diana Gabaldon · 47 quotes · Said, Ifs, Outlander

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The Outlander Series 8-Book Bundle: Outlander, Dragonfly in Amber, Voyager, Drums of Autumn, The Fiery Cross, A Breath of Snow and Ashes, An Echo in the Bone, Written in My Own Heart's Blood Quotes

“Why, what's the matter wi' the poor child?" she demanded of Jamie. "Has she had an accident o' some sort?" "No, it's only she's married me," he said, "though if ye care to call it an accident, ye may.”

“You are safe," he said firmly. "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 again, while I live.”

“Oh, womanly sympathy, love AND food?" I said, laughing. "Don't want a lot, do you?”

“...sitting and waiting is one of the most miserable occupations known to man - not that it usually is known to men; women do it much more often.”

“I wasn't used to living crowded cheek by jowl with numbers of other people, as was customary here. People ate, slept, and frequently copulated, crammed into tiny, stifling cottages, lit and warmed by smoky peat fires. The only thing they didn't do together was bathe - largely because they didn't bathe.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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?”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“We have nothing now between us, save - respect, perhaps. And I think that respect has maybe room for secrets, but not for lies.”

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

“He shook his head, absorbed in one of his feats of memory, those brief periods of scholastic rapture where he lost touch with the world around him, absorbed completely in conjuring up knowledge from all its sources.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“She sounded as though love were an unfortunate but unavoidable condition.”

“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.”

“Tell him I hate him to his guts and the marrow of his bones!”

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

“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.”

“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?”

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

“Really love him, I mean," Geilie persisted. "Not just to bed him; I know you want that, and he does too. They all do. But do you love him?" Did I love him? Beyond the urges of the flesh? The hole had the dark anonymity of the confessional, and a soul on the verge of death had no time for lies. "Yes," I said, and laid my head back on my knees. It was silent in the hole for some time, and I hovered once more on the verge of sleep, when I heard her speak once more, as though to herself. "So it's possible," she said thoughtfully.”

“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 I was born does not matter, only what I will make of myself, only what I will become.”

“The past is gone-the future is not come. And we are here together, you and I.”

“It's a good country for myths. Things seem to take root here.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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?”

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

“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.”

“And if Time is anything akin to God, I suppose that Memory must be the Devil.”

“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.”