Written in My Own Heart's Blood (Outlander, #8)

by Diana Gabaldon

Your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions. But what is it that the old women see? We see necessity, and we do the things that must be done. Young women don’t see—they are, and the spring of life runs through them. Ours is the guarding of the spring, ours the shielding of the light we have lit, the flame that we are. What have I seen? You are the vision of my youth, the constant dream of all my ages.

God makes man in His image, we all return the favor.”

“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.”

That they can only be what they are because you and I are what we are?”

marriage is made not in ritual or in words but in the living of it.

God made hope. The stars willna burn out.” He turned and, cupping my chin, kissed me gently. “And nor will we.”

put back my head, looking up at the deep black sky swimming with hot stars. If you knew they were really balls of flaming gas, you could imagine them as van Gogh saw them, without difficulty … and looking into that illuminated void, you understood why people have always looked up into the sky when talking to God. You need to feel the immensity of something very much bigger than yourself, and there it is—immeasurably vast, and always near at hand. Covering you.