Top 500 Diana Gabaldon Quotes (2024 Update)
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401. “Oh, foisted, is it?” cried Mr. Ormiston in righteous indignation. “Such a word! And if it means what I think it does, young man, you should get down on your knees and thank God for such foistingness!”

— Diana Gabaldon

402. “I’ve spent more than twenty years looking for answers, Roger, and I can tell you only one thing: There aren’t any answers, only choices. I’ve made a number of them myself, and no one can tell me whether they were right or wrong.”

— Diana Gabaldon

403. “Cows?” he asked, “Was it really cows, or was I dreaming?”

— Diana Gabaldon

404. “If you find him,” she whispered, “when you find my father – give him this.” She bent and kissed me, fiercely, gently, then straightened and turned me toward the stone. “Go, Mama,” she said, breathless. “I love you. Go!”

— Diana Gabaldon

405. “Gave me terrible cramps, and I had wind for days.”

— Diana Gabaldon

406. “It was a hot summer – there wasn’t any other kind in Boston.”

— Diana Gabaldon

407. “Mm, you’re nice to croodle wi’,” he murmured, doing what I assumed was croodling.”

— Diana Gabaldon

408. “There was a rustle near his ear, and he turned his head to see the crow. It stood on the grass a foot away, a blotch of wind-ruffled black feathers, regarding him with a bead-bright eye. Deciding that he posed no threat, it swiveled its neck with casual ease and jabbed its thick sharp bill into Jack Randall’s eye.”

— Diana Gabaldon

409. “His mouth tightened up and he says, ‘I thought this was the young man who only a week past was shouting that he wasn’t afraid to die. Surely a man who’s not afraid to die isn’t afraid of a few lashes?’ and he gives Jamie a poke in the belly wi’ the handle of the whip. “Jamie met Randall’s eye straight on then, and said, ‘No, but I’m afraid I’ll freeze stiff before ye’re done talking.”

— Diana Gabaldon

410. “Doom, or save. That I cannot do. For I have no power beyond that of knowledge, no ability to bend others to my will, no way to stop them doing what they will. There is only me.”

— Diana Gabaldon

411. “Knowing from experience how difficult it was to distract Frank’s attention from this sort of discussion, I simply picked up his hand, wrapped his fingers about the stem of the glass and left him to his own devices.”

— Diana Gabaldon

412. “There are things ye maybe canna tell me, he had said. I willna ask ye, or force ye. But when ye do tell me something, let it be the truth. There is nothing between us now but respect, and respect has room for secrets, I think – but not for lies.”

— Diana Gabaldon

413. “My first coherent thought was, “It’s raining. This must be Scotland.”

— Diana Gabaldon

414. “Some were in Gaelic and some in English, used apparently according to which language best fitted the rhythm of the words, for all of them had a beauty to the speaking, beyond the content of the tale itself.”

— Diana Gabaldon

415. “Still, when had the right to live as one wished ever been considered trivial? Was a struggle to choose one’s own destiny less worthwhile than the necessity to stop a great evil?”

— Diana Gabaldon

416. “The Bible says, “Seek, and ye shall find,” he thought. And said aloud to the vibrant air, “But there’s no guarantee about what you’ll find, is there?”

— Diana Gabaldon

417. “I felt at once horribly vulnerable and yet completely safe. But then – I had always felt that way with Jamie Fraser.”

— Diana Gabaldon

418. “Through eons of living in a land so poor there was little to eat but oats, they had as usual converted necessity into a virtue, and insisted that they liked the stuff.”

— Diana Gabaldon

419. “A party at which the guests are all of the beautiful persuasion tends to be dull indeed, as they have no conversation that does not pertain to themselves. A successful gathering requires a number of the ill-favored but clever. The beautiful are but ornaments – desirable, but dispensable.”

— Diana Gabaldon

420. “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

421. “A general cry of “What book? What book? Let us see this famous book!”

— Diana Gabaldon

422. “It was a blur,” people say. What they really mean is the impossibility of anyone truly entering such an experience from outside, the futility of explanation.”

— Diana Gabaldon

423. “But just then, for that fraction of time, it seems as though all things are possible. You can look across the limitations of your own life, and see that they are really nothing. In that moment when time stops, it is as though you know you could undertake any venture, complete it and come back to yourself, to find the world unchanged, and everything just as you left it a moment before. And it’s as though knowing that everything is possible, suddenly nothing is necessary.”

— Diana Gabaldon

424. “They’re girls,” she replied briefly. “They were born in danger and will live their lives in that condition, regardless of circumstance.”

— Diana Gabaldon

425. “I kept havin’ terrible lewd dreams about ye, all the night long,” he explained, twitching his breeks into better adjustment. “Every time I rolled over, I’d lie on my cock and wake up. It was awful.” I burst out laughing, and he affected to look injured, though I could see reluctant amusement behind it. “Well, you can laugh, Sassenach,” he said. “Ye havena got one to trouble ye.” “Yes, and a great relief it is, too,” I assured him.”

— Diana Gabaldon

426. “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!”

— Diana Gabaldon

427. “I mean to take my time about it, aye?”

— Diana Gabaldon

428. “There was nothing frightening about the dead man; there never is. No matter how ugly the manner in which a man dies, it’s only the presence of a suffering human soul that is horrifying; once gone, what is left is only an object.”

— Diana Gabaldon

429. “Father to son. And with that thought, all the disconnected, fragmentary, scattered fancies in his brain dropped suddenly into a single, vivid image: Jamie Fraser, seen from the back, looking over the horses in the paddock at Helwater. And beside him, standing on a rail and clinging to a higher one, William, Earl of Ellesmere. The alert cock of their heads, the set of their shoulders, the wide stance – just the same.”

— Diana Gabaldon

430. “I’m not entirely sure the Scots realize they lost that one,” I interrupted, sitting up and trying to subdue my hair. “I distinctly heard the barman at that pub last night refer to us as Sassenachs.” “Well, why not?” said Frank equably. “It only means ‘Englishman,’ after all, or at worst, ‘outlander,’ and we’re all of that.”

— Diana Gabaldon

431. “I felt simultaneously wonderful and wretched, and didn’t know from moment to moment which feeling was uppermost.”

— Diana Gabaldon

432. “Because, Sassenach,” he said, very dryly indeed, “when ye’re a man, a good bit of what ye have to do is to draw up lines and fight other folk who come over them. Your enemies, your tenants, your children – your wife. Ye canna always just strike them or take a strap to them, but when ye can, at least it’s clear to everyone who’s in charge.”

— Diana Gabaldon

433. “A forced oath canna bind a man, though, or keep him from his knowledge of right.”

— Diana Gabaldon

434. “It’s strange,” he said, “when he was alive, I didna pay him much heed. But once he was dead, the things he’d told me had a good deal more influence.”

— Diana Gabaldon

435. “It wasn’t that Friends thought that the Lord spoke only to them; it was only that they weren’t sure other folk listened very often.”

— Diana Gabaldon

436. “All over the clearing, the same thing was happening; the women gave not an inch, but their men stepped out before them. Anyone coming into the clearing would think that the women had melted into invisibility, leaving an implacable phalanx of Scotsmen staring down the glen.”

— Diana Gabaldon

437. “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.”

— Diana Gabaldon

438. “Be careful, Sassenach,” he said, still grinning. “Ye dinna want to knock off any more pieces; ye’ll only have to stick them back on, aye?”

— Diana Gabaldon

439. “Feel my heart,” he said. His voice sounded thick to his own ears. “Tell me if it stops.”

— Diana Gabaldon

440. “So ye’ve come back to him,” he said happily. “God, that’s romantic!”

— Diana Gabaldon

441. “But as spring blooms, the birds grow drunk with love and the bushes riot with their songs. Far, far into the night, darkness mutes but does not silence them, and small melodious conversations break out at all hours, invisible and strangely intimate in the dead of night, as though one overheard the lovemaking of strangers in the room next door.”

— Diana Gabaldon

442. “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

443. “He looked like Bree, didn’t he? He was like her?” “Yes.” He breathed heavily, almost a snort. “I could see it in your face – when you’d look at her, I could see you thinking of him. Damn you, Claire Beauchamp,” he said, very softly.”

— Diana Gabaldon

444. “Its appearance was greeted with cries of rapture, and following a brief struggle over possesion of the volume, William rescued it before it should be torn to pieces, but allowed himself to be induced to read some of the passages aloud, his dramatic rendering being greeted by wolflike howls of enthusiasim and hails of live pits.”

— Diana Gabaldon

445. “Doom, or save. That I cannot do. For I have no power beyond that of knowledge, no ability to bend others to my will, no way to stop them doing what they will. There is only me. I shook the snow from the folds of my cloak, and turned to follow Maisri down the path, sharing her bitter knowledge that there was only me. And I was not enough.”

— Diana Gabaldon

446. “Seeing them, Jamie reached for a remnant of bread, and tossed it with considerable accuracy into the middle of the flock, which exploded like shrapnel, all fleeing the sudden intrusion.”

— Diana Gabaldon

447. “Just as my grandmother taught me, and her grandmother before her.”

— Diana Gabaldon

448. “Well, I say it is the place of science only to observe,” he said. “To seek cause where it may be found, but to realize that there are many things in the world for which no cause shall be found; not because it does not exist, but because we know too little to find it. It is not the place of science to insist on explanation – but only to observe, in hopes that explanation will manifest itself.”

— Diana Gabaldon

449. “No,” I agreed dryly. “I don’t suppose he’d have been pleased, no matter what you said.” “He wasn’t. He backhanded me across the mouth, to shut me up.”

— Diana Gabaldon

450. “God kens well enough that boys need to be smacked, or he’d no fill them sae full o’ the de’il.”

— Diana Gabaldon