Diana Gabaldon’s “Outlander” Quotes (29 Quotes)


    No wonder men got impervious to superficial pain, I thought. It came from this habit of hammering each other incessantly.



    Oh, aye, Sassenach. I am your master . . . and you're mine. Seems I canna possess your soul without losing my own.

    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.


    Overall, the library held a hushed exultation, as though the cherished volumes were all singing soundlessly within their covers.

    And if your life is a suitable exchange for my honor, why is my honor not a suitable exchange for your life?

    So remember it, lad. If your head thinks up mischief, your backside's going to pay for it. Brian Fraser to young Jamie

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


    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.

    That's for calling your father a fool. It may be true, but it's disrespectful. Brian Fraser to teenage Jamie


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


    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.

    For where all love is, the speaking is unnecessary. It is all. It is undying. And it is enough.

    The woman crosses the room, and it is only when she is directly in front of us that I am certain about who she is. She is dressed in a pelisse fashionable among women half her age, and the feather in her hat is an extraordinary shade of blue. Outside, a young man is waiting at her coach. Passersby will suspect that he is her son, but anyone who has ever been acquainted with her will know better.


    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?

    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.

    There was a feeling, not sudden, but complete, as though I had been given a small object to hold unseen in my hands. Precious as opal, smooth as jade, weighty as a river stone, more fragile than a bird's egg. Infinitely still, live as the root of Creation. Not a gift, but a trust. Fiercely to cherish, softly to guard. The words spoke themselves and disappeared into the groined shadows of the roof.

    I can bear pain myself, he said softly, but I couldna bear yours. That would take more strength than I have.

    There was a smell about the place, which I imagined as the smell of misery and fear, though I supposed it was no more than the niff of ancient squalor and an absence of drains.

    I gave you justice, it said, as I was taught it. And I gave you mercy , too, so far as I could. While I could not spare you pain and humiliation, I make you a gift of my own pains and humiliations, that yours might be easier to bear.

    There were moments, of course. Those small spaces in time, too soon gone, when everything seems to stand still, and existence is balanced on a perfect point, like the moment of change between the dark and the light, and when both and neither surround you.

    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.

    We have nothing now between us, save - respect, perhaps. And I think that respect has maybe room for secrets, but not for lies.

    My father liked me, when I wasna being an idiot. And he loved me, too -- enough to beat the daylights out of me when I was being an idiot. Jamie Fraser


    More Diana Gabaldon Quotations (Based on Topics)


    Time - Man - Faces - Love - Life - Memory - World - Place - Truth - People - Charity - Secrets - War & Peace - Body - Lies & Deceit - Imagination & Visualization - Romantic Love - Thought & Thinking - Respect - View All Diana Gabaldon Quotations

    More Diana Gabaldon Quotations (By Book Titles)


    - A Breath of Snow and Ashes
    - Dragonfly in Amber
    - Drums of Autumn
    - Outlander
    - The Fiery Cross
    - Voyager

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