For details on the #OutlanderInvadesLA event, see the Outlander Ambassador blog.

 

I’m working (slowly) on creating picture quotes for as many of these as I can, having just discovered the Instaquote app.  I will be posting them to this Yogile album as I make them. Please feel free to upload your own efforts there as well. You can also email them to outlanderquoteart@yogile.com to add them automatically.

 

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #enchantment

Some say the hill is enchanted, others say it is cursed. Both are right.

—Claire in Dragonfly in Amber, Prologue

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #Strength

He will let you go because he thinks you are helpless. I know you are not.

—Jamie in Outlander, Chapter 35

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #Passion

“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.”

—Jamie in Outlander, Chapter 41

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #GoodAdvice

It had been a long trip from Newmarket, and God knew what might happen over dinner. An empty bladder and clean hands were as much preparation as it lay within his power to make.

—Jamie in Scottish Prisoner, Chapter 11

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #RhetoricalQuestions

“What kind of flapdoodle is that?”

Grey thought briefly of inquiring whether there was more than one sort of flapdoodle and, if so, what the categories might be, but thought better of it and ignored the question as rhetorical.

—Lord John in Scottish Prisoner, Chapter 28

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #Beauty

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

—Claire in The Fiery Cross, Chapter 85

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #EenyMeanieMineyMoe

“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?”

—Jamie & Claire in The Fiery Cross, Chapter 100

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #ScarierThanPistols

‘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!’

—Young Ian & Jenny in Voyager, Chapter 38

Category: Lawyers

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #DependingOnWhereYouAim

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

—Brianna in The Fiery Cross, Chapter 103

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #Fatherhood

“But when the nurse had taken Brianna from her bassinet and handed her to Frank, with the words ‘Here’s Daddy’s little girl,’ his face had grown blank, and then- looking down at the tiny face, perfect as a rosebud- gone soft with wonder. Within a week, he had been hers, body and soul.”

—Frank in Voyager, Chapter 3

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #Lesson1 #HowNotToAskAdvice

“I dinna like ye, and I reckon ye ken that, but Da says you’re a wisewoman, and I think you’re maybe an honest woman, even if you are a whore, so you’ll maybe tell me.”

—Marsali in Voyager, Chapter 46

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #dogs

Bouton lay still as the dogs beneath the feet of the kings carved on the lids of their tombs at St. Denis, his warmth denying the marble chill of my feet, his presence an improvement on either solitude or the company of humans, as he required nothing of me. Nothing was precisely what I felt, and all I had to give.

—Claire in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 25

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #unconditionalLove

“All I want,” she said softly to the dark, “is for you to love me. Not because of what I can do or what I look like, or because I love you – just because I am.”

“Perfect, unconditional love?” he said just as softly. “Some would tell ye only God can love that way – but I can try.”

“Oh, I have faith in you,” she said, and felt the glow of him reach her own heart.

—Brianna & Roger in A Breath of Snow and Ashes, Chapter 52

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #FullTimeJob

“You think I haven’t got anything better to do with my life than trot around after you, sticking pieces back on?”

—Claire in An Echo in the Bone, Chapter 62

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #PureDecadence #ContextIsEverything

“Sugar in your chocolate? That’s the most decadent thing I’ve ever heard of,” he said severely. “Even worse than the arse-wiping paper, aye?” She saw the teasing glint in his eye, though, and merely snorted, nibbling the last shreds of orange yam flesh from the blackened skin.

“Someday I’ll get hold of some chocolate, Ian,” she said, discarding the limp peel and licking her fingers like a cat. “I’ll put sugar in it and feed it to you, and see what you think then!”

—Brianna & Ian in A Breath of Snow and Ashes, Chapter 70

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #Anguish

“Don’t hide,” I said softly. I held his eyes with mine, keeping him from raising his mask. “Trust me.”

He did look away then, but only to gather himself; he didn’t hide. When he glanced back at me, it was all still there in his eyes–confusion, embarrassment, humiliation, and the vestiges of a pain long suppressed.

—Jamie & Claire in An Echo in the Bone, Chapter 19

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #BetrothalByCanine

“You do mean it, then,” I said. “You feel… er… betrothed to her?”

“Well, of course he does, Sassenach,” Jamie said, reaching for another slice of toast. “He left her his dog.”

—Jamie & Claire in An Echo in the Bone, Chapter 74

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #ExpectantFather

“I want to pretect ye, Sassenach-spread myself over ye like a cloak and shield you and the child wi’ my body.” His voice was soft and husky, with a slight catch in it. “I would do anything for ye…and yet…there’s nothing I can do. It doesna matter how strong I am, or how willing; I canna go with you where ye must go…nor even help ye at all. And to think of the things that might happen, and me helpless to stop them…aye, I’m afraid, Sassenach.”

“And yet”-he turned me toward him, hand closing gently over one breast-“yet when I think of you wi’ my child at your breast…then I feel as though I’ve gone hollow as a soap bubble, and perhaps I shall burst with joy.”

—Jamie in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 6

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #royalty

“But both Phillip of Spain and Louis are James’s cousins; it’s the obligation of Bourbon blood he calls on there.” He smiled wryly at me, sidelong. “And from the things I’ve seen, I can tell ye that Royal blood runs damn thin when it comes to money, Sassenach.”

—Jamie in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 7

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #kilts

A Highlander in full regalia is an impressive sight-any Highlander, no matter how old, ill-favored, or crabbed in appearance. A tall, straight-bodied, and by no means ill-favored young Highlander at close range is breath-taking.

—Claire in Outlander, Chapter 14

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #Weapons

“I still say the only good weapon for a woman is poison.”

—Murtagh in Outlander, Chapter 18

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #MusingsOfAnOldNun

“Do you know, I believe that is the first time I’ve found myself in a young man’s arms? Quite a pleasant experience; perhaps if I’d had it earlier, I should not have been a nun.”

—Sister Eudoxia in Scottish Prisoner, Chapter 14

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #NotToday

“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.”

—Jamie & Claire in The Fiery Cross, Chapter 64

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #Motherhood

“I have noticed,” she said slowly, “that 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, the mother can see the child again as it was when it was born, when it learned to walk, as it was at any age — at any time, even when the child is fully grown and a parent itself.”

—Mother Hildegarde in Voyager, Chapter 40

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #choices

The price of Frank’s life was Jamie’s soul, and how was I to choose between them?

—Claire in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 21

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #StubbornnessAbounds

“Agreeable as he might be, though, Ian was as capable as Jamie of pursuing a chosen course, come hell, high water, or reasonable suggestions.”

—Claire in An Echo in the Bone, Chapter 87

Category: Stubbornness

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #freedom #andSacrifice

“This world of yours, this America,” he said finally, matter-of-factly. “The freedom that ye go to. There will be a fearful price to be paid. Will it be worth it, do ye think?”

It was her turn then to be silent and think. At last she put her hand on his arm–solid, warm, steady as iron.

“Almost nothing would be worth losing you,” she whispered. “But maybe that comes close.”

—Jamie & Brianna in A Breath of Snow and Ashes, Chapter 119

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #respect

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

—Jamie in Outlander, Chapter 15

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #regrets

“Sometimes our best actions result in things that are most regrettable. And yet you could not have acted otherwise.”

—Father Anselm in Outlander, Chapter 40

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #AFallingOut #PossibleUnderstatement

“I would not piss on him was he burning in the flames of hell,” Gray said politely.

One of Hal’s brows flicked upward, but only momentarily.

“Just so,” he said dryly. “The question, though, is whether Fraser might be inclined to perform a similar service for you.”

Grey placed his cup carefully in the center of the desk. “Only if he thought I might drown,” he said, and went out.

—Lord John & Hal in Scottish Prisoner, Chapter 2

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #ScienceSimplified

“So what ye’ve got there is broth that the mold has pissed in, is that right?”

—Jamie in The Fiery Cross, Chapter 36

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #killing

“You kill when ye must, and ye live with it after. I remember the face of every man I’ve killed, and always will. But the fact remains, I am alive and they are not, and that is my only justification, whether it be right or no.”

—Jamie in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 22

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #NoChoice

“I know you dinna wish to hurt me. But you’ve no more choice about it than I have, and there’s no need for more than one of us to suffer for it. You do what’s needed, and I’ll scream if I have to.”

—Jamie in Outlander, Chapter 36

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #SelfAwarenessIsSoImportant

Captain Roarke, who was in fact a misbegotten son of a poxed whore, as he cheerfully admitted himself, sat down with me for a time and accepted a bottle of beer.

—Claire in A Breath of Snow and Ashes, Chapter 106

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #politeInquiries

‘Have you quite lost your mind, Stephan?’ he inquired politely.

Von Namtzen appeared to consider the question, inhaling the aroma of his brandy.

‘No,’ he said mildly, exhaling. ‘Why do you ask?’

—Lord John & Stephan in Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade, Chapter 26

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #AVeryReasonableQuestion

“Would you care to explain to me exactly which aspects of plant inspection require a penis?”

—Brianna in An Echo in the Bone, Chapter 16

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #FirstKiss

The kiss was brief and gentle, scarcely more than the formality that concludes a wedding, yet as striking in its impact as though they had this minute plighted a troth.

—Brianna & Roger in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 5

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #weddingDresses

“She knows nothing of his character, nor of the real nature of marriage, and if she is truly in love with anything at the moment, it is with her wedding dress.”

—Benedicta in Lord John and the Private Matter, Chapter 11

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #EquineEnvy

“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.”

—Claire in Outlander, Chapter 4

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #dancing

“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.”

—Claire in The Fiery Cross, Chapter 35

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #CluckCluck

“I am thinking that you are verra beautiful, Sassenach,” he said softly.

“Maybe if one has a taste for goosefelsh on a large scale”, I said tartly, stepping out of the tub and reaching for the cup.

He grinned suddenly at me, teeth flashing white in the dimness of the cellar. “Oh, aye,” he said “Well, you’re speaking to the only man in Scotland who has a terrible cockstand at sight of a plucked chicken.”

—Jamie & Claire in Voyager, Chapter 26

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #creativeUsesForFish

“‘To hell with the Red Flower, ‘ I muttered.  I seized one of the trout by the tail, ran forward, and belted the bear across the nose with it as hard as I could.”

—Claire in Drums of Autumn, Chapter 15

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #ContraryScots

“If you’ve had much to do wi’ Highland Scots,” Jamie said dryly, handing across a copy of the order, “then ye’ll know that it’s a rare to find two of them in agreement on anything much beyond the color of the sky-and even that is open to question from time to time.”

—Jamie in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 8

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #sins

“Murtagh said that you are an accomplished physician yourself.”

“I am,” I said bluntly.

This provoked a real smile. “I see that you do not suffer from the sin of false modesty,” he observed.

“I have others,” I said, smiling back.

—Claire & Abbot Alexander in Outlander, Chapter 38

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #NoFunBeingSick

“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.”

—Jamie in The Fiery Cross, Chapter 95

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #Superstitions

“There’s no place on earth with more of the old superstitions and magic mixed into its daily life than the Scottish Highlands. Church or no church, Mrs. Baird believes in the Old Folk, and so do all the neighbors.”

—Frank in Outlander, Chapter 1

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #WhatAreYouDoingHere?

“Mr. Stapleton, alias Neil the Cunt, gave a short, jerky bow and moved away, eyes flickering to and from Grey with the air of one who has just seen an apparition but hopes it will have the good manners to disappear before the next glance.”

—Lord John in Lord John and the Private Matter, Chapter 12

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #choicesMade

“I’m honest enough to say that I dinna care what the right and wrong of it may be, so long as you are here wi’ me, Claire,” he said softly. “If it was a sin for you to choose me… then I would go to the Devil himself and bless him for tempting ye to it.”

—Jamie in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 22

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #KiltedMen

I dropped peacefully into sleep, to dream of kilted Highland men, and the sound of soft-spoken Scots, burring round a fire like the sound of bees in the heather.

—Claire in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 3

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #Alcohol

“The one thing Roger had not envisioned about the making of history was the sheer amount of alcohol involved.”

—Roger in A Breath of Snow and Ashes, Chapter 83

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #Sigh #OhYesTheyDo

“Flies around a honeypot would be nothin’ to it, lad! Penniless and nameless as ye are now, the lasses still sigh after ye-I’ve seen ’em!” More snorting. “Even this Sassenach wench can no keep away from ye, and her a new widow!”

—Old Alec in Outlander, Chapter 7

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #IMentionedKiltsRight

“Come out, Simms!” he echoed. “What kind of man takes shelter beneath a Scotsman’s skirt, eh?”

Jameson’s voice was loud enough that everyone heard that, and most laughed- including Jamie.

“A wise one!” Jamie shouted back, and shook the end of his plaid at Jameson. “This tartan’s sheltered many a poor lad in its time!”

“And many a lassie, too, I’ll wager!” shouted some ribald soul in the crowd.

—Jamie in A Breath of Snow and Ashes, Chapter 56

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #scheming

One thing to be said for Dougal MacKenzie was that an encounter with him stimulated the mental processes, out of the sheer necessity of trying to figure out what he was actually up to at any given moment.

—Dougal in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 21

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #faith

‘Nothing is lost, Sassenach; only changed.’

‘That’s the first law of thermodynamics,’ I said, wiping my nose.

‘No,’ he said.  ‘That’s faith’

—Jamie & Claire in Drums of Autumn, Chapter 16

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #EverydayOccurrences

“The rest of the journey passes 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.”

—Claire in Outlander, Chapter 4

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #pickpockets

“We havna got a pickpocket, though. Or rather we hadn’t; we have, now.”

I drew in a breath and blew it out again slowly.

“I see. I suppose it would be dense of me to ask exactly why we need to add a pickpocket to the household?”

—Jamie & Claire in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 12

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #JamieOfAllTrades

“Fraser was described to me variously as a wine merchant, a Jacobite, a Loyalist, a traitor, a spy, an aristocrat, a farmer, an importer- or a smuggler; the terms are interchangeable- with connections reaching from a convent to the Royal court.”

—Percy in An Echo in the Bone, Chapter 18

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #Duty

But there is war coming, and – for my sins-” he grimaced slightly, “I am a chief.”  He shook his head slightly, in resignation.  “God has made me what I am.  He has given me the duty- and I must do it, whatever the cost.”

—Jamie in The Fiery Cross, Chapter 93

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #cruelty

…the man I had seen at Fort William was a cat by nature. He could no more resist the chance to play with this particular mouse than he could alter his height or the color of his eyes.

—Claire in Outlander, Chapter 35

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #MakeItSo

“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.”

—Jamie & Claire in The Fiery Cross, Chapter 85

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #MoralAmbiguity

I didn’t know that the Comte was guilty. I didn’t know that Raymond was innocent. I didn’t know whether the pursuit of an honorable cause justified the use of dishonorable means. I didn’t know what one life was worth- or a thousand. I didn’t know the true cost of revenge.

I did know that the cup I held in my hands was death.

—Claire in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 27

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #SteelBums

“Hearts of oak are our men,” Roger intoned, “stainless steel are their bums. It builds the national character.”

—Roger in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 2

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #conviction

But in the speaking of the ancient words, he found the conviction he thought he pretended- and was stricken by the thought that he did indeed go to fight for something more than the welfare of his own people.

—Jamie in A Breath of Snow and Ashes, Chapter 112

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #brothels

“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 the possession of a verra large sausage.”

—Jamie in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 11

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #Witches

“I’ve yet to see the auld woman believes in witches, nor the young one, neither. It’s men think there must be ill-wishes and magic in women, when it’s only the natural way of the creatures.”

—Murtagh in Outlander, Chapter 31

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #Curses

Without the slightest notion as to what moved me to do it, I dropped the rock, ran the fingers of my right hand across the cut, and in one swift motion, reached out and drew them down the thin man’s cheek. I repeated the nasty laugh.

“Curse, is it?” I said. “How’s this? Touch me again, and you’ll die within twenty-four hours.”

—Claire in A Breath of Snow and Ashes, Chapter 27

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #Vengeance

“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. “

—Claire in The Fiery Cross, Chapter 103

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #DoOrDie

Past that certain point, you lose all fear of pain or injury. Life becomes very simple at that point; you will do what you are trying to do, or die in the attempt, and it does not really matter much which.

—Claire in Outlander, Chapter 35

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #HealingTouch

“What a man most often does, when he’s soul-sick wi’ killing, is to find a woman, Sassenach,” he answered softly.  “His own, if he can; another, if he must.  For she can do what he cannot – and heal him.”

—Jamie in Voyager, Chapter 28

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #ImprovesOnMisquotation

“They do say abstinence makes the heart grow firmer, no?”

“Absence” I said, dodging the spoon for a moment. “And fonder. If anything’s grower firmer from abstinence it wouldn’t be his heart.”

—Jamie & Claire in Voyager, Chapter 56

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #Romance

“Ye werena the first lass I kissed,” he said softly.  “But I swear you’ll be the last.”  And he bent his head to my upturned face.

—Jamie in Outlander, Chapter 28

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #stubbornness

“Weel, Jamie’s as stubborn as the rest of his family-like rocks, the lot of them, and he’s the worst.” But there was a definite tone of respect in his voice, grudging though it was.

—Dougal in Outlander, Chapter 13

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #Justice

“Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice, for they shall be satisfied? I hunger, John,” he whispered. “And you thirst. You won’t fail me.” The fingers of Charlie’s secret moved on his skin, a plea, a caress.

—Charlie Carruthers in Lord John and the Custom of the Army

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #mourning

“Misshapen flakes fell slow and scattered, spiraled through gray air and brushed his face, tiny cold touches so fleeting as not even to leave a sense of wetness in their wake. Dry tears, he thought. Appropriate to his sense of distant mourning.”

—Lord John in Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade, Chapter 4

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #solitude

“Claire knew the flavor of solitude. It was cold as spring water, and not all could drink it; for some it was not refreshment, but mortal chill.”

—Jamie in Drums of Autumn, Chapter 42

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #action

He sprang from the floor to the table, grasped the banister railing and vaulted over it, onto the stairway, a few feet in advance of the General. It was such an acrobatic feat that one or two ladies gasped, little cries of admiration intermingled with their exclamations of horror.

—Claire in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 18

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #hardToKill

I regarded him gently over my own bowl of stew. He was very large, solid, and beautifully formed. And if he was a bit battered by circumstance, that merely added to his charm.

‘You’re a very hard person to kill, I think,’ I said. ‘That’s a great comfort to me.’

He smiled, reluctant, but then reached out and lifted his glass in salute, touching it first to his own lips, then to mine.

‘We’ll drink to that, Sassenach, shall we?’

—Jamie & Claire in A Breath of Snow and Ashes, Chapter 13

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #tightpants

“The breeches, which were borrowed, were substantially too tight, and did nothing whatever to detract from the general effect- an effect enhanced by the fact that he himself was totally ignorant of it. ‘You’re a walking inducement to harlots,’ I said. ‘Stick by me; I’ll protect you.’ “

—Claire in Drums of Autumn, Chapter 1

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #AFineLine

“I am completely insane.”

“You’ve a kind heart, me lord,” Tom Byrd said reprovingly. “Not the same thing at all.”

“Oh, I am reasonably sure that it is- at least in this instance. Kind of you to give me the benefit of the doubt, though, Tom.”

—Lord John & Tom Byrd in Lord John and the Haunted Soldier

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #WoundsOfTheSoul

“No, my Sassenach,” he said softly. “Open your eyes. Look at me. For that is your punishment, as it is mine. See what you have done to me, as I know what I have done to you. Look at me.”

And I looked, held prisoner, bound to him. Looked, as he dropped the last of his masks, and showed me the depths of himself, and the wounds of his soul. I would have wept for his hurt, and for mine, had I been able. But his eyes held mine, tearless and open, boundless as the salt sea. His body held mine captive, driving me before his strength, like the west wind in the sails of a bark.

—Jamie & Claire in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 29

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #Whisky

“This is Scotland. Of course not liking whisky is a crime.”

“Oh, aye?” said Brianna sweetly, in a perfect imitation of his own slight Scots burr. “Well, we’ll hope it’s no a capital offense like murrderrr, shall we?”

—Brianna & Roger in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 2

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #marriage

He wanted to ask whether she were insane, but had been married long enough to know the price of injudicious rhetorical questions.

—Brianna & Roger in A Breath of Snow and Ashes, Chapter 12

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #unflaggingJoy

As yet too hungry and too clumsy for tenderness, still he made love with a sort of unflagging joy that made me think that male virginity might be a highly underrated commodity.

—Jamie & Claire in Outlander, Chapter 14

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #Touchy

“You are without doubt the touchiest son of a bitch I have ever encountered,” Grey said, his face flushed. “And I include in that roster such men as my brother and the King of Prussia. Can you not behave like a civil being for more than ten minutes together?”

—Lord John in Scottish Prisoner, Chapter 14

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #forgiveness

You asked me once whether it was right to kill in revenge of the great Wrong done you.  I tell you  that you must not.  For the sake of your Soul, for the sake of your own Life, you must find the grace of forgiveness.  Freedom is hard won, but it is not the fruit of Murder.

—Jamie in Drums of Autumn, Chapter 62

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #change

“He felt things shift and stir, unseen, and had the odd feeling that nothing would ever again be the same. This was nonsense, of course; it never was.”

—Lord John in Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade, Chapter 1

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #courage

His hand hovered over mine, close enough that I felt the warmth of his skin. I felt other things as well: the grief that he held tight under rein, the anger and the fear that choked him, and the courage that made him speak in spite of it. I gathered my own courage around me, a flimsy substitute for the thick gray shroud. Then I took his hand and lifted my head, and looked full into the face of the sun.

—Jamie & Claire in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 28

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #BuildupToWar

“It was as though the tremors of unrest jarred loose those who were not firmly attached to a place by love of land or family, and the swirling currents of dissension bore them onward, the first preliminary fragments of a slow-motion explosion that would shatter everything.”

—Claire in A Breath of Snow and Ashes, Chapter 71

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #treason

“I thought ye had no Gaelic.”

“I haven’t,” I said shortly. “But I’ve the sense I was born with, and two ears in good working order. And whatever ‘King George’s health’ may be in Gaelic, I doubt very much that it sounds like ‘Bragh Stuart'”

—Claire & Dougal in Outlander, Chapter 11

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #WhiskyAndScots

Uncle Lamb had a book of famous British poets. There was a bit from Burns in there, too, I recall-he’s a Scot,” I explained. “He said, ‘Freedom and Whisky gang tegither.’ “

Jamie snorted. “I canna say if he’s a poet, but he’s a Scot at least.”

—Jamie & Claire in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 24

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #FolliesOfYouth

“I seem to recall,” I said, “a certain abbey in France.  And a very stubborn young man in ill health.  And his friend Murtagh – who took his clothes in order to prevent his getting up and wandering off before he was fit.”

Silence.  I opened one eye.  He was standing stock still, the fading light from the window striking sparks in his hair.

“Whereupon,” I said conversationally, “if memory serves, you promptly climbed out a window and decamped.  Naked.  In the middle of winter.”

The stiff fingers of his right hand tapped twice against his left. “I was four-and-twenty,” he said at last, sounding gruff.  “I wasna meant to have any sense.”

—Jamie & Claire in A Breath of Snow and Ashes, Chapter 66

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #history

It was 1773. And on the 18th of April, in Seventy-five… the shot heard round the world was already being loaded. The room was warm, but I shuddered convulsively. What in the name of God did I think I could shield them from? Any of them.

—Claire in A Breath of Snow and Ashes, Chapter 30

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #Highlands

But under everything was the deep silence of a Highland night. I sat very still reaching for it. It had been twenty years since I last felt it, but the soothing power of the dark was still there, cradled between the mountains.

—Claire in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 1

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #guts

“But why you?” I asked. He looked as though he thought this an odd question.

“Why not me?” he said.

Why not? I wanted to say. Because you didn’t know her, she was nothing to you. Because you were already hurt. Because it takes something rather special in the way of guts to stand up in front of a crowd and let someone hit you in the face, no matter what your motive.

—Jamie & Claire in Outlander, Chapter 6

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #poetry

“Nothing is sacred to a man who would rhyme ‘sanguineous’ and ‘cunnilingus,’ I assure you.”

—Lord John in Scottish Prisoner, Chapter 9

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #birthdays

“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 cock still stands up by itself in the morning. It could be worse.”

—Jamie & Claire in The Fiery Cross, Chapter 58

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #surprises

“I trust you won’t take this the wrong way,” I said, sinking slowly back onto the wicker sofa, “but why aren’t you dead?”

—Claire in Voyager, Chapter 60

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #seasickness

“Congratulations,” I said to Jamie an hour or two later, pushing dank wisps away from my cheeks and forehead. “I believe you’re going to make medical history by being the only documented person ever actually to die of seasickness.”

—Claire in Outlander, Chapter 37

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #PracticalParenting

With a certain amount of forethought, Mrs. Bug, Brianna, Marsali, Lizzie, and I had made up an enormous quantity of molasses toffee, which we had distributed as a Christmas treat to all the children within earshot.  Whatever it might do to their teeth, it had the beneficial effect of gluing their mouths shut for long periods, and in consequence, the adults had enjoyed a peaceful Christmas.

—Claire in The Fiery Cross, Chapter 34

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #Stubbornness

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

—Claire in The Fiery Cross, Chapter 29

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #vows

‘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.’

—Jamie & Claire in Outlander, Chapter 14

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #HoldingOn

…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.

—Claire in The Fiery Cross, Chapter 77

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #LongTermPlanning

‘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.

—Jamie & Claire in The Fiery Cross, Chapter 40

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #MatingCalls

There were frogs in the ditches, in the bogs that lay beyond the scrim of trees. They called, high and low, shrill and bass, cascading over one another in a vast, pulsating chorus. At a distance, sitting on a lawn with that chorus as background, watching the stars come out, the sound might be no more than a pastoral, the song of spring.

This close, it was still the song of spring, but that song was revealed to be what the pagans had always known it to be—the blind urge to seize, to mate, to spill blood and seed heedlessly into the earth, wallow in crushed flowers, writhe in the juices of grass and mud. Those bloody frogs were shrieking their passion, raw-throated and triumphant. Hundreds of them. The racket was deafening.

—Lord John in Scottish Prisoner, Chapter 28

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #brawls

“I had noticed that I often could tell what was being said from the attitude of the speaker, whether I understood the words or not.”

“Get up and say that again,” looks the same said in any schoolyard, pub, or alley in the world.

So does “Right you are, mate,” and “Get him, lads!”

—Claire in Outlander, Chapter 11

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #DrunkenJamie

“Och, easy, Sassenach. If ye can stand up, you’re not drunk.” He let go of the mantlepiece, took a step toward me, and crumpled slowly onto the hearth, eyes blank, and a wide, sweet smile on his dreaming face.

—Jamie in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 6

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #History

The paper was fresh and clean, and the ink crisply black. Legible or not, the date at the top of the page sprang out at me as though written in letters of fire: 20 April, 1743.

—Claire in Outlander, Chapter 5

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #insanity

The fact that the idea was patently insane did not bother him particularly; he was a long way past worrying over such things as the state of his own mind.

—Lord John in Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade, Chapter 32

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #piracy

“So now I’ve gone from stealing His Highness’s mail to bank robbery and piracy on the high seas, and it seems there’s nay help for it.”

He was silent for a moment, looking down at his hands, clenched together on the desk. Then he turned his head to me and smiled.

“I always wanted to be a pirate, when I was a bairn,” he said. “Pity I canna wear a cutlass.”

—Jamie in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 23

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #NotAfraid

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

—Jamie in The Fiery Cross, Chapter 17

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #fire

I took one of Bree’s matches from its box and lit it, thrilling in the tiny leap of instant flame …. Candles and hearth fire, that lovely leaping paradox, that destruction contained but never tamed, held at a safe distance to warm and enchant but always, still, with that small sense of danger.

—Claire in A Breath of Snow and Ashes, Chapter 38

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #ModernDayKnights

No, he thought, if he were being honest with himself, he wanted to tackle Claire Randall’s project because he wanted to go round to Mrs. Thomas’s guesthouse and lay his results at the feet of Brianna Randall, as knights were supposed to have done with the heads of dragons.

—Roger in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 1

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #GreatFriendsWillHelpYouBuryTheBody

“What did you do to the lawyer?” he asked Jamie in German. “You didn’t kill him, did you?” It was pouring outside; he hoped he wouldn’t have to go and hide Wilberforce’s body.

—Lord John in Scottish Prisoner, Chapter 41

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #wolves

Strangely enough, I was not at all frightened now, though I had been terrified watching the wolf stalk me. There was room in my mind for only one thought: I would kill this animal, or it would kill me. Therefore, I was going to kill it.

—Claire in Outlander, Chapter 35

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #WomanAndMen

“He’s as good as he is only because of Jenny. She…keeps him whole.” He smiled sheepishly at me. “As ye did for me. I canna think why women bother.”

“Well,” I said softly, “women like to do that.”

He laughed quietly and drew me close. “Aye. God knows why.”

—Jamie & Claire in Outlander, Chapter 41

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #Innocence #NotSoMuch

Harry, belatedly realizing what he’d given away, looked as innocent as it was possible for a thirty-eight-year old colonel of expansive habit, lecherous appetite, and considerable experience to look.

—Lord John in Scottish Prisoner, Chapter 9

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #Perversion #HesOKwithThat

” ‘You filthy, disgusting, outrageous…pervert!’

The Duke seemed bored by this, and nodded negligently. ‘Yes, yes, my dear. All that, I’m sure, and  more.’ “

—Claire & Duke of Sandringham in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 44

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #CreativeCursing

“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!”

—Jamie in The Fiery Cross, Chapter 19

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #Sacrifice

“Well, the church does teach that self-abuse is a sin, but my father said he thought if it came to a choice between abusin’ yourslf or some poor woman, a decent man might choose to make the sacrifice.”

—Jamie in Outlander, Chapter 28

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #pleasuregardens

Christ, was he going to die in public, in a pleasure garden, in the company of a sodomite spy dressed like a rooster? He could only hope that Tom was nearby and would remove the body before anybody noticed.

—Lord John in Lord John and the Haunted Soldier

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #SnakesInThePrivy

‘Well, I dinna ken,uncle Jamie,’he said dubiously. ‘If Ye want to let your balls hang over a pit wi a deadly viper, in it that’s your concern, but the notion makes my flesh creep a bit’.

—Young Ian in Drums of Autumn, Chapter 25

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #ghosts

“I thought that was perhaps how some ghosts were made; where a will and a purpose had survived, heedless of the frail flesh that fell by the wayside, unable to sustain life long enough.”

—Claire in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 45

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #swordplay

“Grey was entirely aware that more than one appetite had been stimulated by the recent exercise. The art of swordsmanship obliged one to pay the closest attention to the body of one’s opponent, reading intent in the shift of weight, the narrowing of an eye, looking for a weakness that might be taken advantage of. He’d been attuned to every breath Percy Wainwright had taken for the last hour, and he knew damned well where Percy’s weakness was- and his own.”

—Lord John in Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade, Chapter 10

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #18thCenturyMen

” ‘You must,’ I murmured to myself, and then my knees buckled. Lying on the floor, with the carved panels of the ceiling flickering dimly above, I found myself thinking that I had always heretofore assumed that the tendency of eighteenth century ladies to swoon was due to tight stays; now I rather thought it might be due to the idiocy of eighteenth-century men. “

—Claire in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 24

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #BannocksBeware!

“I’m too hungry to be a threat to anything but breakfast. Let a stray bannock come within reach, though, and I’ll no answer for the consequences.”

—Jamie in Outlander, Chapter 4

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #TheFuture

“I came back to the still-warm bed, holding in my mind the picture of the laird of Lallybroch, half-naked in the moonlight, pouring out his heart to an unknown future, holding in his lap the promise of his blood.”

—Claire in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 35

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #UnrequitedLove

“Do you know,” he said again, softly, addressing his hands, “what it is to love someone, and never- never!-be able to give them peace, or joy, or happiness.”

He looked up then, eyes filled with pain. “To know that you cannot give them happiness, not through any fault of yours or theirs, but only because you were not born the right person for them?”

—Lord John in Voyager, Chapter 59

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #BattleRush

“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.”

—Roger in The Fiery Cross, Chapter 87

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #Courage

” ‘Ye wouldna speak to save your own life, but ye would do it to save a lady’s honor. The honor of my own lady,’ Fraser said softly. ‘That doesna seem like cowardice to me.’ “

—Jamie in Voyager, Chapter 11

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #siblingLove

“And if your life is a suitable exchange for my honor, tell me why my honor is not a suitable exchange for your life?” The brows drew together in a scowl, the twin of the one adorning her brother’s face. “Or are you telling me that I may not love you as much as you love me? Because if ye are, Jamie Fraser, I’ll tell ye right now, it’s not true!”

—Jenny in Outlander, Chapter 26

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #inquisitions

The trouble with an inquisition was that it seldom went hungry to bed.

—Lord John in Lord John and the Haunted Soldier

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #OnlyMe

“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.”

—Claire in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 41

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #HereCatch

“It was a leap of faith- to throw one’s heart across a gulf and trust another to catch it.”

—Roger in Drums of Autumn, Chapter 37

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #weakness

“Aye,” he whispered, as though to himself, “I’m a big chap. Big and strong. I can stand a lot. Yes, I can stand it.” He whirled on me, shouting.

“I can stand a lot! But just because I can, does that mean I must? Do I have to bear everyone’s weakness? Can I not have my own?”

—Jamie in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 21

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #depression

It was not melancholy. That abyss was still visible to him, but he resolutely looked away from it, back turned to its beckoning verge.

—Lord John in Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade, Chapter 31

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #fatherhood

“His ferocious, autocratic, dictatorial brother- Colonel of his own regiment, terror of both his own troops and his enemies- had fallen in love with his daughter. The regiment would leave for its new posting within a month’s time. Hal simply couldn’t bear to have her out of his sight.”

—Lord John in Lord John and the Custom of the Army

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #truth

“The truth is always of use, madonna,” he answered, eyes fixed on the slender stream. “It has the value of rarity, you know.”

—Master Raymond in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 20

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #Executions

“Still, I felt uneasy and upset. What I did mind about, I realized, were Ian and Fergus. And Jamie. The fact was, killing someone in the heat of battle is quite a different thing from executing a man, and I knew that. Did they?”

—Claire in A Breath of Snow and Ashes, Chapter 30

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #Ferocity   

He was entirely still. Still as a lion is still, part of the grass of the plain, its stare hot and unblinking as the sun that burns the veldt. And I saw something move in the depths of his eyes. The telltale twitch of the stalking cat, the tiny jerk of the tuft at the end of the tail, precursor to carnage.

—Jamie in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 9

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #OddPickupLines

“You be careful, Englishman,” he said in a voice with a noticeable French accent, and reaching out, ran his fingers quite casually through Grey’s loose hair. “Your scalp would look good on a Huron’s belt.”

—Manoke in Lord John and the Custom of the Army

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #FearOfDying

“Well, there’s the hell of a lot of unpleasant ways to die, Sassenach. And if one of them should fall to my lot, I wouldna like it much. But the question is: Am I scairt enough of the possibility that I would stop what I’m doing to avoid it?”

…

“Aye, I’m afraid. But if I would not turn back for the chance of home and freedom, I shallna do it for fear. No, mo duinne. It’s too late.”

—Jamie in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 23

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #MaleSatisfaction

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

—Roger in Drums of Autumn, Chapter 40

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #parentalsex

He experienced that peculiar crawling of the flesh that attends any child’s sudden realization that a parent must not only have engaged at some comfortably primeval date in the theoretical carnal act that resulted in his own existence – but was capable of doing it again in the all-too-physical present.

—Lord John in Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade, Chapter 17

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #shatteredglass

The window was made up of thousands of tiny colored panes, held in place by strips of melted lead. Though the entire window, a mythological scene of the Judgement of Paris, shuddered in its frame, the leading held most of the panes intact; in spite of the crash and tinkle, only a jagged hole at the feet of Aphrodite let in the soft spring air.

—Claire in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 21

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #CanISurrenderNext?

The brief and undignified struggle that followed- filled with muffled accusations of insubordination, high-handedness, disobedience, arrogance, contumacy, despotism, mutiny, and tyranny- ended in a truce that left the respective parties on the floor, breathless, flushed, disheveled, panting, and entirely satisfied with the negotiated terms of surrender.

—Lord John in Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade, Chapter 21

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #AffectionateSnakes

‘That snake likes you, sah,’ he said, glancing curiously from the snake to Grey’s face, as though trying to distinguish a reason for such odd particularity.

—Lord John in Lord John and the Plague of Zombies

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #terror

If I had wanted to discompose him, that urge was now fully gratified. No Hamlet on the stage had ever reacted to the appearance of a ghost with more convincing terror than I saw stamped on that aristocratic face.

—Claire in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 21

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #Brutality

“It’s a damn thin line between justice and brutality, Sassenach. I only hope I’ve come down on the right side of it.”

—Jamie in Outlander, Chapter 31

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #prophecy

Being a prophet was a very uncomfortable occupation, I thought, not for the first time. I felt considerable sympathy with Jeremiah and his Lamentations. I also realized exactly why Cassandra was so unpopular. Still there was no help for it. On the crest of a Scottish hill, the night wind of an autumn storm whipping my hair and skirts like the sheets of a banshee, I turned my face to the shadowed skies and prepared to prophesy.

—Claire in Outlander, Chapter 33

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #threats

“I am called Lord Broch Tuarach for formality’s sake,” the soft Scottish voice above me said.  “And beyond the requirements of formality, you will never speak to me again — until you beg for your life at the point of my sword.  Then, you may use my name, for it will be the last word you ever speak.”

—Jamie in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 21

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #time

Hell was filled with clocks, he was sure of it. There was no torment, after all, that could not be exacerbated by the contemplation of time passing.

—Lord John in Lord John and the Haunted Soldier

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #YayForIrresonsibility

His mind appeared to have taken French leave for the moment; no matter; it would be back shortly. Meanwhile, though, its abdication had left his body in charge- not at all a responsible course of action.

—Lord John in Lord John and the Plague of Zombies

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #MoralHighGround

“Besides, it doesna become me to be takin’ a high moral stand about other people’s behavior. Stealing letters and spying and trying generally to subvert a man my family holds as King? I shouldna like to have someone judging me on the grounds of the things I’m doing, Sassenach.”

—Jamie in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 13

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #politics

Just in time, Grey recalled his mother mentioning that Edgar himself had stood for Parliament in the last by-election, and refrained from saying that personally, he would prefer to be shot outright than to have anything to do with politics.

—Lord John in Lord John and the Haunted Soldier

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #justice

Damn little choice about it, I thought. Life was paramount; justice would have to wait its turn.

—Claire in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 21

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #Courage

“To stand against a crowd would take something more than ordinary courage; something that went beyond human instinct. And I feared I did not have it, and fearing, was ashamed.”

—Claire in Outlander, Chapter 9

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #SomethingToLose

“I havena been afraid for a verra long time, Sassenach,” he whispered. “But now I think I am. For there is something to be lost, now.”

—Jamie in Voyager, Chapter 26

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #LifesWork

“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.

—Claire in The Fiery Cross, Chapter 78

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #GoodDecisions

‘The most important thing I’ve learned about women, Sassenach, is which one to choose.’

—Jamie in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 11

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #CompetingDesires

“I always thought it would be a simple matter to lie wi’ a woman,” he said softly. “And yet… I want to fall on my face at your feet and worship you”-he dropped the towel, and reached out, taking me by the shoulders-“and still I want to force you to your knees before me, and hold ye there wi’ my hands tangled in your hair, and your mouth at my service… and I want both things at the same time, Sassenach.” He ran his hands up under my hair and gripped my face between them, hard.

“I dinna understand myself at all, Sassenach! Or maybe I do.”

—Jamie in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 17

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #YeahThat

… such slow and tender use as Percy put him to was nonetheless thorough- and lasted a very long time.  It brought him to the edge again, held him trembling there, gasping and whimpering, and finally dropped him over the side of a sheer precipice he had never suspected was there. He came to himself bathed in sweat and so shattered his eyes barely focused, only to find that Percy still held him…

—Lord John in Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade, Chapter 19

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #UnconventionalFlirtation

“No worry, lass. I’ve been hurt much worse, and by people much less pretty.”

—Jamie in Outlander, Chapter 4

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #AppropriateDinnerConversation

He eyed the piece of pastry I was holding out to him.

“If ye think ye can keep from telling me about gangrenous toenails long enough for a bite to make it from my gullet to my stomach, then yes.”

—Jamie & Claire in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 12

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #siblings

Filial respect caused Grey to hesitate in passing ex post facto opinions on his mother’s judgment, but after half an hour in the company of either Paul or Edgar, he could not escape a lurking suspicion that a just Providence, seeing the DeVanes so well endowed with physical beauty, had determined that there was no reason to spoil the work by adding intelligence to the mix.

—Lord John in Lord John and the Haunted Soldier

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #Drinking

“And the drink may be a very boon companion, but it’s no a verra good adviser as to suitable behavior, when a small sweet lass comes on ye alone in the dark.”

—Jamie in Outlander, Chapter 10

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #priorities

“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.”

—Roger in The Fiery Cross, Chapter 47

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #Poetry

“The rest of the house was quiet, everyone safely in bed, and there was no sound but the hissing of the fire, the sigh of the wind, and the scratch of Ellen’s rosebush at the window, insistent as the demands of love.”

—Claire in Voyager, Chapter 37

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #Music #orNot

Patient as ever, Jamie listened carefully to the “A” of the fork, and sang again, producing a sound wedged somewhere between E-flat and D-sharp.

“Not possible,” said the little man, looking thoroughly disillusioned. “No one could be that dissonant even on purpose.”

—Herr Gerstmann in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 11

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #gentleness

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…

—Claire in Outlander, Chapter 14

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #oaths

“I swore ye my oath, Jamie Fraser, when ye were no more than a week old, and a bonny lad at your mother’s breast.”

I could feel the tiny start of astonishment as Jamie’s eyes opened wide.

“I knelt at Ellen’s feet, as I kneel now by yours,” the little clansman went on, narrow chin held high. “And I swore to her by the name o’ the threefold God, that I would follow ye always, to do your bidding, and guard your back, when ye became a man grown, and needing such service.”

—Murtagh in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 19

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #death

Dougal and I leaned close together over the struggling body, murmuring and comforting, sharing the messy, heartrending, and necessary task of helping a man to die.

—Claire & Dougal in Outlander, Chapter 10

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #AndWouldntYouLikeToKnow

“What in hell was Charles Stuart doing running about the rooftops with monkeys?”

—Claire in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 11

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #Together

“Don’t be afraid,” he whispered into my hair. “There’s the two of us now.”

—Jamie in Outlander, Chapter 14

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #anguish

He’d once seen Minnie’s cook take a sharpened spoon and cut the flesh of a melon out in little balls. He felt as though each of Bowles’s words had been a jab of that spoon, slicing out neat chunks of his heart and bowels, one at a time, scraping him to the rind.

—Lord John in Scottish Prisoner, Chapter 35

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #intrigue

“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 murmur of modest dismissal, and waited to see what the blockheid wanted.”

—Jamie in The Fiery Cross, Chapter 46

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #TreacherousScots

Apparently dealing with business rivals who settled contentions by assassination was all in a day’s work to this merchant. And why not? I thought cynically. He was a bloody Scot, after all.

—Claire in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 6

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #witches

“They say I’m a witch,” she said, widening her brilliant eyes in feigned astonishment. She grinned. “But my husband’s the procurator fiscal for the district, so they don’t say it too loud.”

—Geillis Duncan in Outlander, Chapter 9

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #biting

“I didna say I wanted an apology, did I? If I recall aright, what I said was ‘Bite me again.’ “

—Jamie in Outlander, Chapter 23

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza As @OutlanderVirgin would say #kiltboner

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

—Jamie in The Fiery Cross, Chapter 46

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #Inexperience

“Lacking experience or the pretense of it, Jamie simply gave me all of himself, without reservation.  And the depth of my response to that unsettled me completely.”

—Claire in Outlander, Chapter 16

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #Connection

” ‘But I talk to you as I talk to my own soul,’ he said, turning me to face him.”

—Jamie in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 11

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #Motherhood

The impulse to touch a sleeping child never fades, no matter that the child is a good deal larger than her mother, and a woman-if a young one-in her own right.

—Claire in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 1

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #Compliment?

“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.

—Jamie & Claire in The Fiery Cross, Chapter 45

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #parritch

If Scotsmen were stubborn about anything-and, in fact, they tended to be stubborn about quite  number of things, truth be known- it was the virtues of oatmeal parritch for breakfast. 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.

—Claire in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 7

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #courage

“Boldness in battle is nothing out of the way for a Scotsman, ye ken, but to face down fear in cold blood is rare in any man. He was but nineteen at the time,” Dougal added as an afterthought.

—Dougal in Outlander, Chapter 13

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #vengeance

“I charge ye, then, by your oath to me and your word to my mother- find the men. Hunt them, and when they be found, I do charge ye wi’ the vengeance due my wife’s honor- and the blood of Mary Hawkins’s innocence.”

—Jamie in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 19

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #viginity

“Does is bother you that I’m not a virgin?” He hesitated a moment before answering.

“Well, no,” he said slowly, “so long as it doesna bother you that I am.” He grinned at my drop-jawed expression, and backed toward the door.

“Reckon one of us should know what they’re doing,” he said.

—Jamie & Claire in Outlander, Chapter 13

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #UnstoppableForce #MeetImmovableObject

“Do you forbid me?” The tension crackled between us. I wanted to blink, but wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of breaking off my own steely gaze. What would I do if he forbade me to go? Alternatives raced through my mind, everything from planting the ivory letter-opener between his ribs to burning down the house with him in it. The only idea I rejected absolutely was that of giving in.

—Claire in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 11

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #Honesty

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

—Claire in The Fiery Cross, Chapter 27

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #danger

“What if”-my mouth was dry and I had to stop and lick my lips-“what if we can’t do it?”

Murtaugh’s expression was the same as always: grim-mouthed and dour, narrow chin receding into the grimy neck of his shirt. It didn’t alter as he turned to me.

“Then Dougal will bury us wi’ him, one on either side,” he answered. “Come on, there’s work to be done.”

—Claire & Murtagh in Outlander, Chapter 34

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #DrunkenGroping

“Well, I’m still not drunk.”  I straightened up against the pillows as best I could “You told me once that if you could still stand up, you weren’t drunk.”

“You aren’t standing up,” he pointed out.

“You are.  And I could if I wanted to. Stop trying to change the subject. We were talking about your firmness.”

“Well, ye can just stop talking about it, because –”  He broke off with a small yelp, as I made a fortunate grab with my left hand.

“Clumsy, am I?” I said, with considerable satisfaction.  “Oh, my.  Heavens, you do have a problem don’t you?”

—Jamie & Claire in Voyager, Chapter 56

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #jealousy

“Well, I’ll no say I’m not wicked jealous of the man,” he said ruefully, “because I am. But I can hardly grudge him your dreams. Or your tears.”

—Jamie in Dragonfly in Amber, Chapter 10

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #wanting

“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.”

—Jamie in Outlander, Chapter 17

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #UndyingLove

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

—Claire in Outlander, Chapter 38

———

#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #practicaladvice

“But whatever you are to do, you will require strength for it. So take one last bit of advice: when in doubt, eat.”

—Father Anselm in Outlander, Chapter 40

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #LastWords

“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.”

—Jamie in The Fiery Cross, Chapter 111

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #AintThatTheTruth

“No, I think it is true that some stories simply require a greater space in which to be told.”

—Jamie in Voyager, Chapter 11

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#OutlanderInvadesLA #Quotestravaganza #AWordOrSeveralFromTheAuthorHerself #Friends

 “… someone asked me what I’d call my fans. After much thought (about 30 secs), I said, “Friends.”

I’ve often said that writers don’t have secrets–everything you know how to do is right there on the page.  That was mostly said with respect to the craft of writing, but to a large extent, it’s true of the writer, too.

It’s not–at all–that a writer is necessarily writing autobiographically. It _is_ that a writer who’s working even halfway honestly is infusing the work with a great deal of his/her own perspective, persona, and ethos. And that comes through clearly to the reader, even if nothing in the story is “about” the writer. It’s _all_ about the writer.

There are a few writers who–having read their books–I would be reluctant to meet over dinner, let alone in a dark alley. And (luckily) many more whose books I close with a sense of warm regard and the conviction that I’d get along well with the author. (Louise Penny, for instance. We’ve never met, but I’ve read all her books and I _know_ I’ll like her tremendously when/if we do meet.)

What do they say? The best way to make friends is to be one. So if you’ve read my books and feel well-disposed toward me…you’re my friends. And glad to have you. “

– Posted on Twitter by Diana Gabaldon

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