Top 500 Diana Gabaldon Quotes (2024 Update)
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201. “You are my courage, as I am your conscience,” he whispered. “You are my heart – and I your compassion. We are neither of us whole, alone. Do ye not know that, Sassenach?” “I do know that,” I said, and my voice shook. “That’s why I’m so afraid. I don’t want to be half a person again, I can’t bear it.”

— Diana Gabaldon

202. “BILIOUS HUMOURS.”

— Diana Gabaldon

203. “I had not slept with many men other than my husband, but I had noticed that before to sleep, actually sleep with someone did give this sense of intimacy, as though your dreams had flowed out of you to mingle with his and fold you both in a blanket of unconscious knowing.”

— Diana Gabaldon

204. “That’s what marriage is good for; it makes a sacrament out of things ye’d otherwise have to confess. Jamie Fraser.”

— Diana Gabaldon

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

— Diana Gabaldon

206. “I loved Frank... I loved him alot. But by that time, Jamie was my heart and the breath of my body. I couldn’t leave him. I couldn’t.”

— Diana Gabaldon

207. “And a long time,” he said. “I am a jealous man, but not a vengeful one. I would take you from him, my Sassenach – but I wouldna take him from you.”

— Diana Gabaldon

208. “Turd-eating son of a flying tortoise.”

— Diana Gabaldon

209. “The greatest burden lies in caring for those we cannot help.”

— Diana Gabaldon

210. “He touched the rough crucifix that lay against his chest and whispered to the moving air, “Lord, that she might be safe, she and my children.” Then turned his cheek to her reaching hand and touched her throught the veils of time.”

— Diana Gabaldon

211. “Scots have long memories, and they’re not the most forgiving of people. There’s a clan stone out there with the name of MacKenzie carved on it, and a good many of my relatives under it. I don’t feel quite so personal about it as some, but I haven’t forgotten either. – Roger MacKenzie Wakefield.”

— Diana Gabaldon

212. “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.”

— Diana Gabaldon

213. “I could feel his heart beating against my ribs, and wanted nothing more than to stay there forever, not moving, not making love, just breathing the same air.”

— Diana Gabaldon

214. “For the moment, everything had disappeared: the church, the battle, the screams and shouts and the rumble of limber wheels along the rutted road through Freehold. There wasn’t anything but her and him, and he opened his eyes to look on her face, to fix it in his mind forever.”

— Diana Gabaldon

215. “Please,” she said, “don’t mention Jamie Fraser to my daughter.”

— Diana Gabaldon

216. “It’s a rare plant,” he said, touching the sprig in my open hand. “Flowers, fruit and leaves all together at the one time. The white flowers are for honor, and red fruit for courage – and the green leaves are for constancy.”

— Diana Gabaldon

217. “My parents would take my sister and me out for dinner now and then, and while waiting for the food to be served, would point out the oldest, most harried looking waitress in the place, saying sternly, “Be sure you get a good education, so you don’t have to do that when you’re fifty!”

— Diana Gabaldon

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

— Diana Gabaldon

219. “The man that takes her in unholy embrace will have his privates blasted like a frostbitten apple,” he said, with relish, “and his soul will burn forever in hell.” He bared his teeth at his grandfather, and drew back his hand. “Like this.” The beechwood teeth landed in the midst of the fire with a plop, and at once began to sizzle.”

— Diana Gabaldon

220. “Well, my mother told me I’d be some lassie’s choice one fine day.” He reached down a hand and helped me up. “I told her,” he continued, “that I thought it was the man’s part to choose.” “And what did she say to that?” I asked. “She rolled her eyes and said ‘You’ll find out, my fine wee cockerel, you’ll find out.’ ” He laughed. “And so I have.”

— Diana Gabaldon

221. “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.”

— Diana Gabaldon

222. “Mmphm,” I said, sounding self-consciously Scottish.”

— Diana Gabaldon

223. “It was not Monsieur Arouet, but a colleague of his – a lady novelist – who remarked to me once that writing novels was a cannibal’s art, in which one often mixed small portions of one’s friends and one’s enemies together, seasoned them with imagination, and allowed the whole to stew together into a savory concoction.”

— Diana Gabaldon

224. “In bed,” she said calmly. “I want you to come to bed with me.”

— Diana Gabaldon

225. “Often the best tool is the most dangerous. One doesn’t hesitate to use it on that account; one merely makes sure to take adequate precautions.”

— Diana Gabaldon

226. “I felt deeply betrayed that the man I depended on as friend, protector, and lover intended to do such a thing to me. And my sense of self-preservation was quietly terrified at the thought of submitting myself to the mercies of someone who handled a fifteen-pound claymore as though it were a flywhisk.”

— Diana Gabaldon

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

— Diana Gabaldon

228. “Stones of protection; amethyst, emerald, turquoise, lapis lazuli, and a male ruby.”

— Diana Gabaldon

229. “While Fergus was possessed of dark good looks and a dashing manner that might well win a young girl’s heart, he lacked a few of the things that might appeal somewhat more to conservative Scottish parents, such as property, income, a left hand, and a last name.”

— Diana Gabaldon

230. “To have ye with me again, to talk wi’ you, to know I can say anything, not guard my words or hide my thoughts. God, Sassenach the Lord knows I am as lust-crazed as a lad, and I canna keep my hands from you, or anything else. But I would count that all well lost, had no more than the pleasure of havin’ ye by me, and to tell ye all my heart.”

— Diana Gabaldon

231. “Do ye want me to be a horse, a bear, or a dog?” “A hedgehog.” “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

232. “Men hate things to change,” her mother had once casually told her. “Unless it’s their idea, of course. But you can make them think it is their idea, sometimes.”

— Diana Gabaldon

233. “A conclusion is simply the point at which you give up thinking. He gave up, and as he rose stiffly to his feet, found that a conclusion had indeed formed itself in his mind, much as a pearl forms inside an oyster.”

— Diana Gabaldon

234. “I am a Highlander,” Jamie said bleakly. He glanced once more at the far bank, where occasional glimpses of tartan showed through the mist, and then back. The shouting echoed from the fog. “And I am the sire of Americans.”

— Diana Gabaldon

235. “I read all the time. People ask, ‘Do you read while you work?’ And I say, ‘I better.’ I take two or three years to finish one of my enormous books, and I can’t go that long without reading.”

— Diana Gabaldon

236. “It’s like a little fortress, where the most private part of you lives – maybe it’s your soul, maybe just that bit that makes you yourself and not anyone else.”

— Diana Gabaldon

237. “Frank made a face; an Englishman to the bone, he would rather lap water out of the toilet than drink tea made from teabags. The Lipton’s had been left by Mrs. Grossman, the weekly cleaning woman, who thought tea made from loose leaves messy and disgusting.”

— Diana Gabaldon

238. “To stand against a crowd would take something more than ordinary courage; something that went beyond human instinct.”

— Diana Gabaldon

239. “For if you feel for me as i do for you – then I am asking you to tear out your heart and live without it.”

— Diana Gabaldon

240. “You’re real,” he whispered. I had thought him pale already. Now all vestiges of color drained from his face.”

— Diana Gabaldon

241. “A sadist with a sense of humor was particularly dangerous.”

— Diana Gabaldon

242. “I relaxed my grip on the knife; she could hardly attack me with a lapful of goat.”

— Diana Gabaldon

243. “People assume that science is a very cold sort of profession, whereas writing novels is a warm and fuzzy intuitive thing. But in fact, they are not at all different.”

— Diana Gabaldon

244. “Owls are keepers of the dead, but not just the dead. They’re messengers between worlds.”

— Diana Gabaldon

245. “I knelt at Ellen’s feet, as I kneel now by yours, And I swore to her by the name o’ the threefold God, that I would follow ye always, to do your bidding, and guard your back, when ye became a man grown, and needing such service. Aye, lad. I do cherish ye as the son of my own loins.”

— Diana Gabaldon

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

— Diana Gabaldon

247. “It’s always better if they see. Then they don’t imagine things. So I didn’t imagine, I remembered.”

— Diana Gabaldon

248. “To stand against a crowd would take something more than ordinary courage; something that went beyond human instinct. And I feared I did not have it, and fearing, was ashamed.”

— Diana Gabaldon

249. “I’ve yet to see the auld woman believes in witches, nor the young one, neither. It’s men think there must be ill-wishes and magic in women, when it’s only the natural way of the creatures.”

— Diana Gabaldon

250. “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.”

— Diana Gabaldon