01c. 1952 ADIt was one of those strange moments that came to him rarely, but never left. A moment that stamped itself on heart and brain, instantly recallable in every detail, for all of his life. There was no telling what made these moments different from any other, though he knew them when they came. He had seen sights more gruesome and more beautiful by far, and been left with no more than a fleeting muddle of their memory. But these-- the still moments, as he called them to himself-- they came with no warning, to print a random image of the most common things inside his brain, indelible.Diana Gabaldon / quote ↗
02c. 1952 ADStill, he was pleased to know that he could recall so much of the play and passed the rest of the journey pleasantly in reciting lines to himself, being careful not to snort.Diana Gabaldon / quote ↗
03c. 1952 ADThe colors of living things begin to fade with the last breath, and the soft, springy skin and supple muscle rot within weeks. But the bones sometimes remain, faithful echoes of the shape, to bear some last faint witness to the glory of what was.Diana Gabaldon / quote ↗
04c. 1952 ADI've seen women-and men too, sometimes-as canna bear the sound of their own thoughts, and they maybe dinna make such good matches with those who can.Diana Gabaldon / quote ↗
05c. 1952 ADTrue, the body's easily maimed, and the spirit can be crippled - yet there's that in a man that is never destroyed.Diana Gabaldon / quote ↗
06c. 1952 ADYou forget the life you had before, after awhile. Things you cherish and hold dear are like pearls on a string. Cut the knot and they scatter across the floor, rolling into dark corners never to be found again. So you move on, and eventually you forget what the pearls even looked like. At least, you try.Diana Gabaldon / quote ↗
07c. 1952 ADNo 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 / quote ↗
08c. 1952 ADHe has cat blood, I reflected sourly, no doubt that was how he managed to sneak up on me in the darkness.Diana Gabaldon / quote ↗
09c. 1952 ADThe law's a necessary evil--we canna be doing without it--but do ye not think it a poor substitute for conscience?Diana Gabaldon / quote ↗
10c. 1952 ADWould he ever come back? He wondered. The water filled his ears with its own rush, and he was comforted by the realization that, in fact, he never left.Diana Gabaldon / quote ↗
11c. 1952 ADAnd I have wondered often, was I master in my soul, or did I become the slave of my own blade?Diana Gabaldon / quote ↗
12c. 1952 ADI had kissed my share of men, particularly during the war years, when flirtation and instant romance were the light-minded companions of death and uncertainty. Jamie, thought, was something different. His extreme gentleness was in no way tentative; rather it was a promise of power known and held in leash; a challenge and a provocation the more remarkable for its lack of demand. I am yours, it said. And if you will have me, then..Diana Gabaldon / quote ↗
13c. 1952 ADMy 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 FraserDiana Gabaldon / quote ↗
14c. 1952 ADFor so many years, for so long, I have been so many things, so many different men. But here," he said, so softly I could barely hear him, "here in the dark, with you… I have no name.Diana Gabaldon / quote ↗
15c. 1952 ADNay, he needs a woman, not a girl. And Laoghaire will be a girl when she’s fifty.Diana Gabaldon / quote ↗
16c. 1952 ADThere 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.Diana Gabaldon / quote ↗
17c. 1952 ADAlive, and one. We are one, and while we love, death will never touch us. 'The grave's a fine and private place/ but none, I think, do there embrace.Diana Gabaldon / quote ↗
18c. 1952 ADMo Nighean donn," he whispered," mo chridhe. My brown lass, my heart."Come to me. Cover me. Shelter me. a bhean, heal me. Burn with me, as I burn for you.Diana Gabaldon / quote ↗
19c. 1952 ADI want to hold you like a kitten in my shirt, and still I want to spread your thighs and plow ye like a rotting bull. I dinna understand myself.Diana Gabaldon / quote ↗
20c. 1952 ADI 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.Diana Gabaldon / quote ↗
21c. 1952 ADBrave' covers everything from complete insanity and bloody disregard of other people's lives - generals tend to go in for that sort - to drunkenness, foolhardiness, and outright idiocy - to the sort of thing that will make a man sweat and tremble and throw up . . . and go and do what he thinks he has to do anyway.Diana Gabaldon / quote ↗
22c. 1952 ADDespair dragged at me like an anchor, pulling me down. I closed my eyes and retreated to some dim place within, where there was nothing but an aching grey blankness…Diana Gabaldon / quote ↗
23c. 1952 AD...knowing what o'clock it is gives ye the illusion that ye have some control over your circumstances.Diana Gabaldon / quote ↗
24c. 1952 ADA 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 / quote ↗
