Quotes by Book: Outlander | Dragonfly in Amber | Voyager | Drums of Autumn | The Fiery Cross | A Breath of Snow and Ashes | Echo in the Bone | Lord John Books

The Fiery Cross

‘If I lend ye my sons, will ye promise me,then,to send them safe home?’ He braced himself not to look away.’So far as it lies in my power,ma’am- I will see them safe.’

—

‘Madam ,’ he said, speaking very softly into her face. ‘ I do not want your money, My wife does not want it. And MY Son will not have it. Cram it up your hole, aye?’

—

“Then look happy, damn you!” I hissed. He exhaled once more, and assumed an expression of benevolence one degree short of outright imbecility.

—

Jamie reached across and took my right hand in his, his fingers linking with mine, and the silver of my ring shone red in the glow of the flames. I looked up into his face and saw the promise spoken in his eyes, as it was in mine.

“As long as we both shall live.”

—

‘Be a shield for my family- and for yours, son of my house.’

—

“He laid a hand on the strings to silence them briefly, and as she slid the arisaid from her shoulders, began again, this time in English. A special song, too – one for the two of them alone. He didn’t know whether anyone else might hear, but it made no difference if they did. She stood and slid the shift from her shoulders as his fingers touched the quiet opening of the Beatles’ ‘Yesterday’.”

—

“He was not afraid to die with her, by fire or any other way- only to live without her.”

—

“May your guts twine upon themselves like serpents and your bowels explode through the walls of your belly! May the curse of the crows be upon you, misbegotten spawn of a lineage of dung flies!”

—

‘Oh, you’re entirely honest,’ I assured him. ‘Too honest for your own good, in fact. You’re just not very law-abiding.’

—

“Hiram, whether from male pride or goat stubborness- always assuming these to be different things- kept trying to stand up, broken leg notwithstanding.”

—

“Mrs. Chisolm had the advantage in weight, height, and reach, but Brianna personally would put her money on Mrs. Bug, in terms of guile and treachery.”

—

“The bonnie wee laddie’s caught six mice in here in the past two days.” She beamed fondly at Adso, who had leaped down and was lapping broth as fast as his tiny pink tongue could move. “Yon cheetie’s welcome to anything he likes from my hearth.”

—

“He danced with all the skill of the warrior he had been and still was.But I thought he danced now only for the sake of memory, that those watching might not forget ; danced, with the sweat flying from his brow as he worked, and a look of unutterable distance in his eyes.”

—

“‘Wherever did you think babies came from?’ I demanded, after a certain amount of enlightenment regarding eggs, sperms, zygotes, and the like, which left Jamie distinctly squiggle-eyed. He gave me a rather cold look.

‘And me a farmer all my life? I ken precisely where they come from,’ he informed me. ‘I just didna ken that… er… that all of this daffery was going on. I thought… well, I thought that a man plants his seed into a woman’s belly, and it … well … grows.’ ”

—

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.

—

” ‘When I am a hundred and one, and you’re ninety-six, I’ll invite you to my bed- and we’ll see who rises to the occasion, hmm?’

He looked at me thoughtfully, a glint in the dark blue of his eyes.

‘I’ve a mind to take ye where ye stand, Sassenach,’ he said. ‘Payment on account, hmm?’

‘I’ve a mind to take you up on it,’ I said. ”

—

“Behaving as though your spinal column’s been removed is a fair indication of male satisfaction. No very gentle-man-like, maybe, but honest.”

—

“You are the most pigheaded man I have ever met, ‘ I said crossly.
‘Thank you,’ he said, with a small bow.
‘That was not a compliment!’
‘Aye, it was.’And with another bow, he turned on his heel and strode off on his errand.

—

“A belted plaid, though, could hide a multitude of sins- or at the very least, a dirk and pistol- let alone a random c*ckstand.”
—

“A Dhia, Jamie thought, blackmail and butter, all in the first sentence. Was it only that North Carolina was a backwater, and not worth the time of a more competent intriguer? He smiled politely, with a murmer of modest dismissal, and waited to see what the blockheid wanted.”

—

“Away to hell with pizza and loo-paper, he thought; at the moment, he’d trade all prospects of indoor plumbing for a rubber condom.”

—

One big hand was gripping the back of my neck, warm and hard on my skin, and I thought of a stallion’s teeth closing on the neck of the mare he mounts, and shivered from scalp to sole.

—

“He might be a quack, he might be ignorant, arrogant, and intemperate- but he had come at once when called, and had fought for his patient to the best of his ability. That made him a physician, in my book, and deserving of sympathy.”

—

“As though summoned by my thought, the door opened and he smiled in at me. Shaved, combed, freshly dressed, and clear-eyed, he seemed to have erased all traces of the night before – bar the expression on his face when he looked at me. Frowsy and ill-kempt as I was by contrast with his own neat appearance, the look of tenderness in his eyes warmed me, in spite of the lingering chill in the room.”

—

Monstrously irritated with the pair of them, I stepped forward and upended the coffee jug. It wasn’t boiling, but hot enough. There were simultaneous yelps of surprise, and the two men rolled apart, scrambling and shaking themselves. I thought I heard Roger laugh behind me, but when I whirled on him, he had assumed a look of straight-faced interest. He raised his eyebrows at men, and crammed another chunk of cake into his mouth.

—

“This is a morning my father never saw,” Jamie said, still so softly that I heard it as much through the walls of his chest, as with my ears. “The world and each day in it is a gift, mo chridhe–no matter what tomorrow may be.”

I sighed deeply and turned my head, to rest my cheek against his chest. He reached over gently and wiped my nose with a fold of his shirt.

“And as for taking stock,” he added practically, “I’ve all my teeth, none of my parts are missing, and my c*ck still stands up by itself in the morning. It could be worse.”

—

“Good luck will do,” he said, and his hand tightened on mine…. “I love ye does much better.”
He touched my hand, lifted his own and touched my hair, my face, looking into my eyes as though to capture my image in this moment- just in case it should be his last glimpse of me.
“There may come a day when you and I shall part again,” he said softly, at last, and his fingers brushed my lips, light as the touch of a falling leaf. He smiled faintly. “But it willna be today.”

—

A flash of panic lit Tryon’s eyes, and he jerked backward, gorget flashing in the light. “You dare to lay hands on me, sir!” The panic subsided at once, replaced by fury. “Oh, I do, aye. As ye laid hands on my son.”

—

“I don’t imagine it was much of a contest,” I murmured, helping him to peel off the dusty coat. “William Tryon’s not even Scots, let alone a Fraser.”

—

“Egg-sucking son of a porcupine!”

—

“…I understood very well just then, why it is that men measure time. They wish to fix a moment, in the vain hope that so doing will keep it from departing.”

—

“Yes,” she said, “Jamie’s part of me. So are you.” She touched Bree’s face, quick and light, then turned half away, reaching to take down a tied bundle of marjoram from the array of hanging herbs on the beam above the hearth. “But neither of you is all of me,” she said softly, back turned. “I am… what I am. Doctor, nurse, healer, witch – whatever folk call it, the name doesn’t matter. I was born to be that; I
will be that ’til I die. If I should lose you – or Jamie – I wouldn’t be quite a whole person any longer, but I would still have that left.

—

“For the most part, I managed to put aside the knowledge that we lived in the wilderness. Now and then some tangible evidence would shove the fact under my nose; nocturnal visits by foxes, possums, and raccoons, or the occasional unnerving screams of panthers, with their uncanny resemblance to the crying of women or the shrieks of small children. It was quiet now, where we were. But there was no way of standing in the center of those mountain at night, submerged in the absolute black at their feet, listening to the secret murmurs of the the great trees overhead, and pretending that one was anywhere but in the grip of the forest primeval – or of doubting that the wilderness could swallow us in one gulp, if it cared to, leaving not a clue behind of our existence.”

—

“You are beautiful,” he whispered to me.

“If you say so.”

“Do ye not believe me? Have I ever lied to you?

“That’s not what I mean. I mean – if you say it, then it’s true. You make it true.”

—

“You’re beautiful to me, Jamie,” I said softly, at last. So beautiful, you break my heart.”

—

“Dirty fighting is the only kind there is, Fraser had told him, panting, as they knelt at the stream and splashed cold water over sweating faces. Anything else is no but exhibition.”

—

“Roger stood still, panting, His whole body was pulsing with every heartbeat, hot with the fighting. He wanted to go on, he wanted to laugh, he wanted to hit something. He wanted to get Brianna up against the nearest wall, and now.”

—

“Sassenach… I love ye now, and I will love ye always. Whether I am dead – or you – whether we are together or apart. You know it is true, he said quietly, and touched my face. “I know it of you, and ye know it of me as well.”

—

“Does it not occur to ye, Sassenach, that perhaps it’s yourself that’s impossible when I’m ill? If ye’re not feeding me some disgusting substance made of ground beetles and hoof-shavings, you’re poking my belly and making intimate inquiries into the state of my bowels.”

—

“Go potty?” Roger said, this curious locution pushing the remnants of the verse from his mind. “What do you mean, go potty?” It was his personal opinion, based on current experience as a father, that small children were born potty, and improved very slowly thereafter.

—

“Claire?” Jamie said. I saw his fingers curl tight round the oars, and heard the note of strain in his voice. I sighed and drew the pistol out from under the coat across my lap.

“Right,” I said. “Which one shall I shoot?”

—

“There’s a difference between cruelty and neccessity.”

“Aye,” Jamie said, half under his breath. “And a thin line, maybe, between a monster and a hero.”

—

“Jamie was a Highlander. While the Lord might insist that vengeance was His, no male Highlander of my acquaintance had ever thought it right that the Lord should be left to handle such things without assistance. ”

—

“She braced the pistol with both hands, drew aim at his crotch and fired.”

—

Besides, once set down on paper, the dreams became a separate thing from her, herself. Much like the drawings that she made; a reflection of one facet of her mind, a brief glimpse of something once seen, once thought, once felt – but not the same thing as the mind or heart that made them. Not quite.

—

“I couldn’t teach her to be a doctor. But evidently I had, without meaning to, somehow taught her to be a mother.”

—

“When the day shall come, that we do part …if my last words are not ‘I love you’ – ye’ll ken it was because I didna have time.”