"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."
— Diana Gabaldon (Dragonfly in Amber)

"When the day shall come that we do part," he said softly, and turned to look at me, "if my last words are not 'I love you'-ye'll ken it was because I didna have time."
— Diana Gabaldon (The Fiery Cross)

"For where all love is, the speaking is unnecessary"
— Diana Gabaldon (Outlander)

"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 (Dragonfly in Amber)

"I can bear pain myself, he said softly, but I couldna bear yours. That would take more strength than I have."
— Diana Gabaldon (Outlander)

"Oh, Claire, ye do break my heart wi' loving you."
— Diana Gabaldon (Dragonfly in Amber)

"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 (Dragonfly in Amber)

"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 (Dragonfly in Amber)

"I prayed all the way up that hill yesterday, he said softly. Not for you to stay; I didna think that would be right. I prayed I'd be strong enough to send ye away. He shook his head, still gazing up the hill, a faraway look in his eyes.
I said 'Lord, if I've never had courage in my life before, let me have it now. Let me be brave enough not to fall on my knees and beg her to stay.' He pulled his eyes away from the cottage and smiled briefly at me.
Hardest thing I ever did, Sassenach."
— Diana Gabaldon

"You are mine, always, if ye will it or no, if ye want me or nay. Mine, and I willna let ye go"
— Diana Gabaldon (Dragonfly in Amber)

"A hedgehog? And just how does a hedgehog make love?" he demanded.

No, I thought. I won't. I will not. But I did. "Very carefully," I replied, giggling helplessly. So now we know just how old that one is, I thought. "
— Diana Gabaldon (Outlander)

"Do ye not understand?"he said, in near desparation. "I would lay the world at your feet, Claire-and I have nothing to give ye!"
He honestly thought it mattered."
— Diana Gabaldon (Voyager)

"Blood of my Blood," he whispered, "and bone of my bone. You carry me within ye, Claire, and ye canna leave me now, no matter what happens, You are mine, always, if ye will it or no, if ye want me or nay. Mine, and I wilna let ye go.
"
— Diana Gabaldon

"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 (Voyager)

"forgiveness is not a single act, but a matter of constant practice"
— Diana Gabaldon (Drums of Autumn)

"Oh, aye, Sassenach. I am your master . . . and you're mine. Seems I canna possess your soul without losing my own."
— Diana Gabaldon (Outlander)

"Babies are soft. Anyone looking at them can see the tender, fragile skin and know it for the rose-leaf softness that invites a finger's touch. But when you live with them and love them, you feel the softness going inward, the round-cheeked flesh wobbly as custard, the boneless splay of the tiny hands. Their joints are melted rubber, and even when you kiss them hard, in the passion of loving their existence, your lips sink down and seem never to find bone. Holding them against you, they melt and mold, as though they might at any moment flow back into your body.
But from the very start, there is that small streak of steel within each child. That thing that says "I am," and forms the core of personality.
In the second year, the bone hardens and the child stands upright, skull wide and solid, a helmet protecting the softness within. And "I am" grows, too. Looking at them, you can almost see it, sturdy as heartwood, glowing through the translucent flesh.
The bones of the face emerge at six, and the soul within is fixed at seven. The process of encapsulation goes on, to reach its peak in the glossy shell of adolescence, when all softness then is hidden under the nacreous layers of the multiple new personalities that teenagers try on to guard themselves.
In the next years, the hardening spreads from the center, as one finds and fixes the facets of the soul, until "I am" is set, delicate and detailed as an insect in amber."
— Diana Gabaldon (Dragonfly in Amber)

""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?" "
— Diana Gabaldon (Outlander)

"For I had come back, and I dreamed once more in the cool air of the Highlands. And the voice of my dream still echoed through ears and heart, repeated with the sound of Brianna's sleeping breath. "You are mine," it had said. "Mine. And I will not let you go."
— Diana Gabaldon (Dragonfly in Amber)

"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 (Outlander)

"I had one last try.
"Does it bother you that I'm not a virgin?"
He hesitated a moment before answering. "Well, no," he said slowly, "so long as it doesna bother you that I am."
He grinned at my drop-jawed expression, and backed toward the door. "Reckon one of us should know what they're doing," he said.
The door closed softly behind him; clearly the courtship was over. "
— Diana Gabaldon (Outlander)

"Time is a lot of the things people say that God is. There's always preexisting, and having no end. There's the notion of being all powerful-because nothing can stand against time, can it? Not mountains, not armies. And time is, of course, all-healing. Give anything enough time, and everything is taken care of: all pain encompassed, all hardship erased, all loss subsumed. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Remember, man, that thou art dust; and unto dust thou shalt return.

And if time is anything akin to God, I suppose that memory must be the devil."
— Diana Gabaldon (A Breath of Snow and Ashes)

""When the day shall come that we do part," he said softly, and turned to look at me, "if my last words are not 'I love you'-ye'll ken it was because I didna have time." "
— Diana Gabaldon

""You're tearin' my guts out, Claire.""
— Diana Gabaldon (Outlander)

"No wonder men got impervious to superficial pain, I thought. It came from this habit of hammering each other incessantly."
— Diana Gabaldon (Outlander)

""Murtagh was right about women. Sassenach, I risked my life for ye, committing theft, arson, assault, and murder into the bargain. In return for which ye call me names, insult my manhood, kick me in the ballocks and claw my face. Then I beat you half to death and tell ye all the most humiliating things have ever happened to me, and ye say ye love me." He laid his head on his knees and laughed some more. Finally he rose and held out a hand to me, wiping his eyes with the other.
"You're no verra sensible, Sassenach, but I like ye fine. Let's go.""
— Diana Gabaldon (Outlander)

""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 (Dragonfly in Amber)

"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 (Voyager)

"If it was a sin for you to choose me . . . then I would go to the Devil himself and bless him for tempting ye to it."
— Diana Gabaldon (Dragonfly in Amber)

"The dog would run a few steps toward the house, circle once or twice as though unable to decide what to do next, then run back into the wood, turn, and run again toward the house, all the while whining with agitation, tail low and wavering.
"Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ," I said. "Bloody Timmy's in the well!"
— Diana Gabaldon (A Breath of Snow and Ashes)

"Lord, ye gave me a rare woman, and God! I loved her well."
— Diana Gabaldon (Dragonfly in Amber)

" 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 (Outlander)

"While the Lord might insist that vengeance was His, no male Highlander of my acquaintance had ever thought it right that the Lord should be left to handle such things without assistance."
— Diana Gabaldon (The Fiery Cross)

""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." "
— Diana Gabaldon

"If I die," he whispered in the dark, "dinna follow me. The bairns will need ye. Stay for them. I can wait."
— Diana Gabaldon (The Fiery Cross)

"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 (Outlander)

" "I dinna know what's a sadist. And if I forgive you for this afternoon, I reckon you'll forgive me, too, as soon as ye can sit down again."
"As for my pleasure..." His lip twitched. "I said I would have to punish you. I did not say I wasna going to enjoy it." He crooked a finger at me.
"Come here." "
— Diana Gabaldon (Outlander)

"'Then the room relaxed in cheers and babbling, and she turned in his arms to kiss him hard and cling to him, and he thought perhaps it didn't matter that they faced in opposite directions - so long as they faced each other.'

Roger Wakefield {Drums Of Autumn}"
— Diana Gabaldon (Drums of Autumn)

""You're the best man I ever met," I said. "I only meant...it's such a strain, to try and live for two people. To try to make them fit your ideas of what's right...You do it for a child, of course, you have to, but even then, it's dreadfully hard work. I couldn't do it for you - it would be wrong even to try."
I'd taken him back more than a little. He sat for some moments, his face turned half away.
"Do ye really think me a good man?" he said at last. There was a queer note in his voice, that I couldn't quite decipher.
"Yes," I said, with no hesitation. Then added, half jokingly, "Don't you?"
After a long pause, he said, quite seriously, "No, I shouldna think so."
I looked at him speechless, no doubt with my mouth hanging open.
"I am a violent man, and I ken it well," he said quietly. He spread his hands out on his knees; big hands, which could wield a sword and dagger with ease, or choke the life from a man. " So do you - or ye should."
"You've never done anything you weren't forced to do!"
"No?"
"I don't think so." I said, but even as I spoke, a shadow of doubt clouded my words. Even when done from the most urgent necessity, did such things not leave a mark on the soul?

{Claire Fraser & Jamie Fraser. Drums of Autumn}"
— Diana Gabaldon (Drums of Autumn)

"Men go where they will, they do as they must; it is not a woman's part to bid them to stay, nor yet to reproach them for being what they are-or for not coming back."
— Diana Gabaldon (The Fiery Cross)

"It has always been forever, for me, Sassenach"
— Diana Gabaldon (Voyager)

"For where all love is, the speaking is unnecessary. It is all. It is undying. And it is enough."
— Diana Gabaldon (Outlander)

"...well, if women's work was never done, why trouble about how much of it wasn't being accomplished at any given moment?"
— Diana Gabaldon (The Fiery Cross)

"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 (Dragonfly in Amber)

""....And they do say that abstinence makes the heart grow firmer, no?"

"Absence," I said, dodging the spoon for a moment. "And fonder. If anything's growing firmer because of abstinence, it wouldn't be his heart.""
— Diana Gabaldon (Voyager)

"Murtagh was right about women. Sassenach, I risked my life for ye, committing theft, arson, assault, and murder into the bargain. In return for which ye call me names, insult my manhood, kick me in the ballocks and claw my face. Then I beat you half to death and tell ye all the most humiliating things that have ever happened to me, and ye say ye love me."

He laid his head on his knees and laughed some more. Finally he rose and held out a hand to me, wiping his eyes with the other. "You're no verra sensible, Sassenach, but I like ye fine." --Jamie, Outlander"
— Diana Gabaldon

""Aye, well, he'll be wed a long time," he said callously. "Do him no harm to keep his breeches on for one night. And they do say that abstinence makes the heart grow firmer, no?"
"Absence," I said, dodging the spoon for a moment. "AND fonder. If anything's growing firmer from abstinence, it wouldn't be his heart.""
— Diana Gabaldon (Voyager)

" "Good," I said, completely provoked. "You deserve it. Maybe that will teach you to go haring round the countryside kidnapping young women and k-killing people, and…" I felt myself ridiculously close to tears and stopped, fighting for control.
Dougal was growing impatient with this conversation. "Well, can ye keep one foot on each side of the horse, man?"
"He can't go anywhere!" I protested indignantly. "He ought to be in hospital! Certainly he can't---"
My protests, as usual, went completely ignored.
"Can ye ride?" Dougal repeated.
"Aye, if ye'll take the lassie off my chest and fetch me a clean shirt.""
— Diana Gabaldon (Outlander)

"Your face is my heart"
— Diana Gabaldon

"Catholics don't believe in divorce. We do believe in murder. There's always Confession, after all.
--Brianna Fraser to Roger MacKenzie (Echo in the Bone)"
— Diana Gabaldon