Diana Gabaldon
One of the great perks of being a writer is that you can work when you're mentally capable of it, not when someone else thinks you should.
It's important to remember that the Jacobite Risings of the 18th century constituted a religious civil war, not a nationalistic movement.
Three of the principal cast members of 'Outlander' have come out publically for 'Yes': Sam Heughan, Graham MacTavish and Grant O'Rourke. And the 'Yes' proponents are on fire: idealistic, hopeful, inspired by the idea of change and of democratic self-determination.
I will literally read anything, regardless of genre, fiction or non-fiction, as long as it's well written.
Reading 'The Last Days of Magic' is like playing a well-constructed video game.
Now I've got a fairly good grasp of the 18th century on what was common and what people thought. But I don't write in order. I write bits and pieces and sort of glue them.
Whenever anything bubbles up, I have to put it down. I have bits and pieces all over my hard drive.
From the late '70s to the early '90s, I wrote anything anybody would pay me for. This ranged from articles on how to clean a longhorn cow's skull for living-room decoration to manuals on elementary math instruction on the Apple II... to a slew of software reviews and application articles done for the computer press.
Part of my purpose in my books has been to tell the complete story of a relationship and a marriage, not just to end with 'happily ever after,' leaving the protagonists at the altar or in bed... I wanted to show some of the complicated business of actually living a successful marriage.
I particularly like the bookshops at National Parks and battlefields; they often have very unusual and helpful things.
Back in the day, when I was a university professor, I used to teach a class in Human Anatomy and Physiology. This class was popular with the football players, who all took it under the tragic misapprehension that it would be easy.
The Internet has improved a lot in the last few years, but still, you wouldn't want to depend on Web sources for historical analysis. There's just something hard to beat about a book.
There's not a lot of pictorial evidence from the Highlands, because only the very wealthy had their portraits painted - but there is one well-known painting of the two sons of the Duke of Argyll, wearing tartan.
'The Exile' covers approximately the first third of 'Outlander'.
Hard to believe lightning can strike twice, but it surely did. The moment Caitriona Balfe came on screen, I sat up straight and said, ‘There she is!’ She and Sam Heughan absolutely lit up the screen with fireworks.Collection: Believe
I was crying for joy, my Sassenach,' he said softly. He reached out slowly and took my face between his hands. "And thanking God that I have two hands. That I have two hands to hold you with. To serve you with, to love you with. Thanking God that I am a whole man still, because of you.Collection: Love You
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.Collection: Heart
Man's sense of Morality tends to decrease as his Power increasesCollection: Men
Does it ever stop? The wanting you?" "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.Collection: Doe
There aren't any answers, only choicesCollection: Choices
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.Collection: Heartbroken
I meant it, Claire,' he said quietly. 'My life is yours. And it's yours to decide what we shall do, where we go next. To France, to Italy, even back to Scotland. My heart has been yours since first I saw ye, and you've held my soul and body between your two hands here, and kept them safe. We shall go as ye say.Collection: Heart
At last I took one big, callused hand and slid forward so I knelt on the boards between his knees. I laid my head against his chest, and felt his breath stir my hair. I had no words, but I had made my choice. "'Whither thou goest,'" I said. "'I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried.' Be it Scottish hill or southern forest. You do what you have to; I'll be there.Collection: Hair
forgiveness is not a single act, but a matter of constant practiceCollection: Forgiveness
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.Collection: Dark
When the day shall come that we do part," he said softly, and turned to look at me, "if my last words are not 'I love you'-ye'll ken it was because I didna have time.Collection: Love You
For 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.Collection: Dark
Time does not really exist for mothers, with regard to their children. It does not matter greatly how old the child is-in the blink of an eye, a mother can see the child again as they were when they were born, when they learned how to walk, as they were at any age-at any time, even when the child is fully grown or a parent themselves.Collection: Mother
Lord, ye gave me a rare woman, and God! I loved her well.Collection: Lord
You dinna need to understand me, Sassenach," he said quietly. "So long as you love me.Collection: Long
Overall, the library held a hushed exultation, as though the cherished volumes were all singing soundlessly within their covers.Collection: Singing
...well, if women's work was never done, why trouble about how much of it wasn't being accomplished at any given moment?Collection: Done
Ye are Blood of my Blood, and Bone of my Bone, I give ye my Body, that we Two might be One. I give ye my Spirit, 'til our Life shall be Done.Collection: Blood
I do know it, my own. Let me tell ye in your sleep how much I love you. For there's no so much I can be saying to ye while ye wake, but the same poor words, again and again. While ye sleep in my arms, I can say things to ye that would be daft and silly waking, and your dreams will know the truth of them. Go back to sleep, mo duinne.Collection: Dream
Knowing that everything is possible suddenly nothing is necessary.Collection: Knowing
Lord that she might be safe. She and my children.Collection: Children
The past is gone-the future is not come. And we are here together, you and I.Collection: Past
If I die before I say 'I love you' it's because I didn't have the time.Collection: Love You
I will find you," he whispered in my ear. "I promise. If I must endure two hundred years of purgatory, two hundred years without you - then that is my punishment, which I have earned for my crimes. For I have lied, and killed, and stolen; betrayed and broken trust. But there is the one thing that shall lie in the balance. When I shall stand before God, I shall have one thing to say, to weigh against the rest." His voice dropped, nearly to a whisper, and his arms tightened around me. Lord, ye gave me a rare woman, and God! I loved her well.Collection: Lying
That's not precisely what I had in mind." Jamie, I had found out by accident a few days previously, had never mastered the art of winking one eye. Instead, he blinked solemnly, like a large red owl.Collection: Art
Character, I think, is the single most important thing in fiction. You might read a book once for its interesting plot—but not twice.Collection: Book
It has always been forever, for me, SassenachCollection: Forever
Sassenach, I've been stabbed, bitten, slapped, and whipped since supper - which I didna get to finish. I dinna like to scare children an I dinna like to flog men, and I've had to do both. I've two hundred English camped three miles away, and no idea what to do about them. I'm tired, I'm hungry, and I'm sore. If you've anything like womanly sympathy about ye, I could use a bit!Collection: Children
Do you really think we'll ever--" "I do," he said with certainty, not letting me finish. He leaned over and kissed my forehead. "I know it, Sassenach, and so do you. You were meant to be a mother, and I surely dinna intend to let anyone else father your children.Collection: Mother
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.Collection: Children
D'ye ken that the only time I am without pain is in your bed, Sassenach? When I take ye, when I lie in your arms-my wounds are healed, then, my scars forgotten.Collection: Pain
It wasn't a thing I had consciously missed, but having it now reminded me of the joy of it; that drowsy intimacy in which a man's body is accessible to you as your own, the strange shapes and textures of it like a sudden extension of your own limbs.Collection: Men
I'll leave it to you, Sassenach," he said dryly, "to imagine what it feels like to arrive unexpectedly in the midst of a brothel, in possession of a verra large sausage.Collection: Sausage
How did you keep this by you?" Grey demanded abruptly. "You were searched to the skin when you were brought back." The wide mouth curved slightly in the first genuine smile Grey had seen. "I swallowed it," Fraser said. Grey's hand closed convulsively on the sapphire. He opened his hand and rather gingerly set the gleaming blue thing on the table by the chess piece. "I see," he said. "I'm sure you do, Major," said Fraser, with a gravity that merely made the glint of amusement in his eyes more pronounced. "A diet of rough parritch has its advantages, now and again.Collection: Eye