Top 500 Diana Gabaldon Quotes (2024 Update)
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351. “He went on loving her,” she whispered, as much to herself as to anyone else. “He didn’t forget her.” “Of course he didna forget her.” She opened her eyes to see Ian’s long face and kind brown eyes six inches away. A broad work-worn hand rested on hers, warm and hard, a hand even larger than her own. “Neither did we,” he said.”

— Diana Gabaldon

352. “An unaccustomed weed of jealousy sprang up in Jamie’s heart, stinging like nettles. He stamped firmly on it; he was fortunate indeed to know that his son enjoyed a loving relationship with his stepfather. There, that was the weed stamped out. The stamping, though, seemed to have left a small bruised spot on his heart; he could feel it when he breathed.”

— Diana Gabaldon

353. “Intimacy and romance are not synonymous.”

— Diana Gabaldon

354. “Even when I’ve just left ye, I want you so much my chest feels tight and my fingers ache with wanting to touch ye again.”

— Diana Gabaldon

355. “But then, I didn’t think I’d tell them you were here.” “What makes you think they don’t know?” I asked, beginning to feel rather hollow, despite my earlier resolve to brazen it out. I cast a quick glance at the window, but.”

— Diana Gabaldon

356. “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.”

— Diana Gabaldon

357. “Ye must always give money for a new blade,” he explained, half smiling. “So it kens ye for its owner, and willna turn on ye.”

— Diana Gabaldon

358. “Yes, but – ” I began. “So” – he said authoritatively, holding up a finger to hush me – “if you have been deprived of your earlier life, perhaps it is only that God has seen fit to bless you with another, that may be richer and fuller.”

— Diana Gabaldon

359. “The ninth Earl of Ellesmere had his chin thrust out as far as it would go, but the defiant look in his eye was tempered with a certain doubt as he intercepted Jamie’s cold blue gaze. Jamie set the horse’s hoof down slowly, just as slowly stood up, and drawing himself to his full height of six feet four, put his hands on his hips, looked down at the Earl, three feet six, and said, very softly, “No.”

— Diana Gabaldon

360. “It’s not what’s happened or what’s about to happen; what’s important is the sense of emotional uncertainty between the characters and the delicacy of the mutual trust being established.”

— Diana Gabaldon

361. “I felt at once horribly vulnerable and yet completely safe.”

— Diana Gabaldon

362. “My love,” he whispered. “Oh, my love. I do want ye so.”

— Diana Gabaldon

363. “Jealousy had nothing to do with logic.”

— Diana Gabaldon

364. “Boldness in battle is nothing out of the way... but to face down fear in cold blood is rare in any man.”

— Diana Gabaldon

365. “Any piece of good music is in essence a love song.”

— Diana Gabaldon

366. “For a moment, I saw him as he had looked the morning I married him. Duine uasal was what he looked, a man of worth. But the bold face above the lace was the same, older now, but wiser with it – yet the tilt of his shining head and the set of the wide, firm mouth, the slanted clear cat-eyes that looked into my own, were just the same. Here was a man who had always known his worth.”

— Diana Gabaldon

367. “Was a struggle to choose one’s own destiny less worthwhile than the necessity to stop a great evil?”

— Diana Gabaldon

368. “How was yer first time, Jamie? Did ye bleed?” shouted Rupert.”

— Diana Gabaldon

369. “And the light was gone, and the air failed them. And so they lay down in the dark to die.”

— Diana Gabaldon

370. “And I think that respect has maybe room for secrets, but not for lies.”

— Diana Gabaldon

371. “It was what you did when someone died; turned toward God and at least acknowledge the fact.”

— Diana Gabaldon

372. “Roger lay in the dust of the road, bruised, filthy, and starving, with a woman trembling and weeping against his chest, now and then giving him a small thump with her fist. He had never felt happier in his life.”

— Diana Gabaldon

373. “He was generally aware that he had been blessed in her beauty; even in her usual homespun, knee-deep in mud from her garden, or stained and fierce with the blood of her calling, the curve of her bones spoke to his own marrow, and those whisky eyes could make him drunk with a glance. Besides, the mad collieshangie of her hair made him laugh.”

— Diana Gabaldon

374. “I can hear. Hear them. It. Don’t you hear?” It was a struggle to speak, to form coherent thoughts. The call here was different; not the beehive sound of Craigh na Dun, but a hum like the vibration of the air following the striking of a great bell. I could feel it ringing in the long bones of my arms, echoing through pectoral girdle and spine. Jamie.”

— Diana Gabaldon

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

— Diana Gabaldon

376. “I didna say I wanted an apology, did I? If I recall aright, what I said was ‘Bite me again.”

— Diana Gabaldon

377. “Well, of course he does, Sassenach,” Jamie said, reaching for another slice of toast. “He left her his dog.”

— Diana Gabaldon

378. “Pleasure?” Her voice rose behind me, incredulous. “Ye mean some women like it?”

— Diana Gabaldon

379. “Mm. You’d forgotten how to say anything except ‘I love you,’ but you said that a lot.”

— Diana Gabaldon

380. “We come and go from mystery and, in between, we try to forget.”

— Diana Gabaldon

381. “I could know ye all my life, I think, and always love you.”

— Diana Gabaldon

382. “Dr. Stern told me that the wilderness of Carolina is alive wi’ fierce creatures – bears and wildcats and wicked panthers – and a great foul thing the Indians call a skunk!”

— Diana Gabaldon

383. “Ye ken that, don’t ye? That they can only be what they are because you and I are what we are?”

— Diana Gabaldon

384. “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

385. “He came through the front door just as I barreled into the hallway, and grabbed me round the waist, kissing me with sun-dusty enthusiasm and sandpaper whiskers.”

— Diana Gabaldon

386. “It doesna matter how many things ye do on a farm, there’s always more than ye can do. A wonder the place doesna rise up about my ears and swallow me, like Jonah and the whale.”

— Diana Gabaldon

387. “Twilight was coming on, and so was a storm. In the eerie light beneath the clouds, even the thoroughly modern houses along the road looked as ancient and as sinister as the weathered Pictish stone that stood a hundred feet away, guarding the crossroads it had marked for a thousand years. It seemed a good night to be inside with the shutters fastened.”

— Diana Gabaldon

388. “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

389. “Conflict and character are the heart of good fiction, and good mystery has both of those in spades.”

— Diana Gabaldon

390. “I, ah, I wasn’t expecting – ” I said idiotically. Brianna gave me a grin to match her father’s, eyes bright as stars and damp with happiness. “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!” “What?” said Jamie blankly.”

— Diana Gabaldon

391. “Damn ye, woman! Will ye never do as you’re told?” “Probably not,” I said meekly.”

— Diana Gabaldon

392. “Hello,” I said softly, one hand over the butterfly wings that beat inside me.”

— Diana Gabaldon

393. “I stood in front of him in nothing but my shoes and gartered rose-silk stockings.”

— Diana Gabaldon

394. “The tooth had belonged to a gentleman named Murphy from Ellis Ward, the one we lived in. I say “had belonged” because I had the badly broken and infected bicuspid out of Mr. Murphy’s head before he could have said Jack Robinson, though he was in such pain that he could barely recall his own name, let alone Jack’s. Mr.”

— Diana Gabaldon

395. “He pressed me firmly to him, and I could feel that he was more than ready to get on with the business at hand. With some surprise, I realized that I was ready too. In fact, whether it was the result of the late hour, the wine, his own attractiveness, or simple deprivation, I wanted him quite badly.”

— Diana Gabaldon

396. “Often people who are very ill, but are near their birthday, seem to wait until it’s passed before dying. I.”

— Diana Gabaldon

397. “His heart was beating very erratically; perhaps it would conveniently stop. He waited for a moment to allow it to do this if it liked, but it went on cheerfully thumping away.”

— Diana Gabaldon

398. “It’s only a moment, but ye feel as though it will last forever. Strange, is it no?” he said thoughtfully. “Ye can almost see the light go as ye watch – and yet there’s no time ye can look and say ‘Now! Now it’s night.”

— Diana Gabaldon

399. “Open your eyes and tell me yourself, Sassenash,” said a deep urgent voice somewhere close.”

— Diana Gabaldon

400. “You underestimate your own merits, John – as always. Of course, nothing becomes manly virtue more than simple modesty.”

— Diana Gabaldon