110+ Diana Gabaldon Quotes On Writing, Education And Books

Diana Gabaldon is an American author of science fiction, fantasy, mystery, and romance novels. She is best known for her series of novels, Outlander, which have been adapted into a television series. Her books are often set in Scotland and feature strong female protagonists. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Diana Gabaldon on love, writing, education.

Top 10 Diana Gabaldon Quotes

1. 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.
2. It was a beautiful bright autumn day, with air like cider and a sky so blue you could drown in it.
3. I stood still, vision blurring, and in that moment, I heard my heart break. It was a small, clean sound, like the snapping of a flower's stem.
4. 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.
5. One dictum I had learned on the battlefields of France in a far distant war: You cannot save the world, but you might save the man in front of you, if you work fast enough.
6. Lord, ye gave me a rare woman, and God! I loved her well.
7. You dinna need to understand me, Sassenach," he said quietly. "So long as you love me.
8. 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.
9. 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.
10. You are safe," he said firmly. "You have my name and my family, my clan, and if necessary, the protection of my body as well. The man willna lay hands on ye again, while I live.

Diana Gabaldon Short Quotes

• Highlanders make the truest friends-if only because they make the worst enemies.
• Knowing that everything is possible suddenly nothing is necessary.
• If I find I need guidance, I’ll ask.
• Home is the place where they have to take you in
• Healing comes from the healed; not from the physician.
• Man's sense of Morality tends to decrease as his Power increases
• You're tearin' my guts out, Claire.
• And if Time is anything akin to God, I suppose that Memory must be the Devil.
• Conflict and character are the heart of good fiction, and good mystery has both of those in spades.
• Sometimes our best action result in things that are most regrettable.

Diana Gabaldon Quotes About Love

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. — Diana Gabaldon

For where all love is, the speaking is unnecessary — Diana Gabaldon

A hedgehog? And just how does a hedgehog make love?" he demanded. No, I thought. I won't. I will not. But I did. "Very carefully," I replied, giggling helplessly. So now we know just how old that one is, I thought. — Diana Gabaldon

Your face is my heart Sassenach, and the love of you is my soul — Diana Gabaldon

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. — Diana Gabaldon

I didn't say you shouldn't worry, do you think I don't worry? But no, you probably can't do anything about me.' 'Well, maybe no, Sassenach, and maybe so. But I've lived a long enough time now to think it maybe doesna matter so much-- so long as I can love you.' -Claire & Jamie Fraser — Diana Gabaldon

Only you," he said, so softly I could barely hear him. "To worship ye with my body, give ye all the service of my hands. To give ye my name, and all my heart and soul with it. Only you. Because ye will not let me lie--and yet ye love me. — Diana Gabaldon

All I want, 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. — Diana Gabaldon

She sounded as though love were an unfortunate but unavoidable condition. — Diana Gabaldon

Alright, all right," I said. "What if I tell you a story, instead?" Highlanders loved stories, and Jamie was no exception. "Oh, aye, " he said, sounding much happier. "What sort of story is it? — Diana Gabaldon

Diana Gabaldon Quotes About Writing

When you're reading, you're not where you are; you're in the book. By the same token, I can write anywhere. — Diana Gabaldon

People assume that science is a very cold sort of profession, whereas writing novels is a warm and fuzzy intuitive thing. But in fact, they are not at all different. — Diana Gabaldon

As usual, the note occupied less than a page and included neither salutation nor closing, Uncle Hal's opinion being that since the letter had a direction upon it, the intended recipient was obvious, the seal indicated plainly who had written it, and he did not waste his time in writing to fools. — Diana Gabaldon

Diana Gabaldon Quotes About Books

Character, I think, is the single most important thing in fiction. You might read a book once for its interesting plot—but not twice. — Diana Gabaldon

A general cry of "What book? What book? Let us see this famous book! — Diana Gabaldon

I read all the time. People ask, 'Do you read while you work?' And I say, 'I better.' I take two or three years to finish one of my enormous books, and I can't go that long without reading. — Diana Gabaldon

I don't plot the books out ahead of time, I don't plan them. I don't begin at the beginning and end at the end. I don't work with an outline and I don't work in a straight line. — Diana Gabaldon

Diana Gabaldon Quotes About Outlander

Where did you learn to kiss like that?” I said, a little breathless. He grinned and pulled me close again. “I said I was a virgin, not a monk,” he said, kissing me again. “If I find I need guidance, I’ll ask. — Diana Gabaldon

I swore an oath before the altar of God to protect this woman. And if you're tellin' me that ye consider your own authority to be greater than that of the Almighty, then I must inform ye that I'm not of that opinion, myself. — Diana Gabaldon

Harmless as a setting dove," he agreed. "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. — Diana Gabaldon

"Sassenach." He had called me that from the first; the Gaelic word for outlander, a stranger. An Englishman. First in jest, then in affection. — Diana Gabaldon

I dinna know what's a sadist. And if I forgive you for this afternoon, I reckon you'll forgive me, too, as soon as ye can sit down again." "As for my pleasure..." His lip twitched. "I said I would have to punish you. I did not say I wasna going to enjoy it." He crooked a finger at me. "Come here. — Diana Gabaldon

Don't be afraid. There's the two of us now. — Diana Gabaldon

Ye werena the first lass I kissed," he said softly. "But I swear you'll be the last. — Diana Gabaldon

I was born for you" -Claire Fraser, Outlander — Diana Gabaldon

He leaned close, rubbing his bearded cheek against my ear. 'And how about a sweet kiss, now, for the brave lads of the clan MacKenzie? Tulach Ard!' Erin go bragh,' I said rudely, and pushed with all my strength. — Diana Gabaldon

It would ha' been a good deal easier, if ye'd only been a witch. — Diana Gabaldon

Diana Gabaldon Quotes About Romance

Not for the first time, I reflected that intimacy and romance are not synonymous. — Diana Gabaldon

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

Blood of my Blood," he whispered, "and bone of my bone. You carry me within ye, Claire, and ye canna leave me now, no matter what happens, You are mine, always, if ye will it or no, if ye want me or nay. Mine, and I wilna let ye go. — Diana Gabaldon

Diana Gabaldon Quotes About Dark

If I die, he whispered in the dark, dinna follow me. The bairns will need ye. Stay for them. I can wait. — Diana Gabaldon

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! — Diana Gabaldon

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. — Diana Gabaldon

Diana Gabaldon Quotes About Dinna

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. — Diana Gabaldon

I want to hold you like a kitten in my shirt, and still I want to spread your thighs and plow ye like a rotting bull. I dinna understand myself. — Diana Gabaldon

...still I dinna expect anything to happen to me. But if it should...If it does, then I want there to be a place for you; I want someone for you to go to if I am...not there to care for you. If it canna be me, then I would have it be a man who loves you. — Diana Gabaldon

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. — Diana Gabaldon

Diana Gabaldon Famous Quotes And Sayings

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. — Diana Gabaldon

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. — Diana Gabaldon

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. — Diana Gabaldon

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. — Diana Gabaldon

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. — Diana Gabaldon

You are my courage, as I am your conscience," he whispered. "You are my heart---and I your compassion. We are neither of us whole, alone. Do ye not know that, Sassenach? — Diana Gabaldon

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. — Diana Gabaldon

So long as my body lives, and yours -- we are one flesh," he whispered, "And when my body shall cease, my soul will still be yours. Claire -- I swear by my hope of heaven, I will not be parted from you. — Diana Gabaldon

Aye, well, he'll be wed a long time," he said callously. "Do him no harm to keep his breeches on for one night. And they do say that abstinence makes the heart grow firmer, no?" "Absence," I said, dodging the spoon for a moment. "AND fonder. If anything's growing firmer from abstinence, it wouldn't be his heart. — Diana Gabaldon

Are some people destined for a great fate, or to do great things? Or is it only that they're born somehow with that great passion - and if they find themselves in the right circumstances, then things happen? It's the sort of thing you wonder. — Diana Gabaldon

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. — Diana Gabaldon

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

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. — Diana Gabaldon

He splayed a hand out over the photographs, trembling fingers not quite touching the shiny surface, and then he turned and leaned toward me, slowly, with the improbable grace of a tall tree falling. He buried his face in my shoulder and went very quietly and thoroughly to pieces. — Diana Gabaldon

Everyone can lie, young Roger, given cause enough. Even me. It's only that it's harder for those of us who live in glass faces; we have to think up our lies ahead of time. — Diana Gabaldon

With that height, plus a face of an ugliness so transcendant as to be grotesquely beautiful, it was obvious why she had embraced a religious life--Christ was the only man from whom she might expect embrace in return. — Diana Gabaldon

It isn't necessarily easier if you know what it is you're meant to do-- but at least you don't waste time in questioning or doubting. If you're honest--well, that isn't necessarily easier, either. Though I suppose if you're honest with yourself and know what you are, at least you're less likely to feel that you've wasted your life, doing the wrong thing. — Diana Gabaldon

Well I am 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 point out. You are. — Diana Gabaldon

It has always been forever, for me, Sassenach — Diana Gabaldon

Your face is my heart — Diana Gabaldon

An Englishman thinks a hundred miles is a long way; and American thinks a hundred years is a long time — Diana Gabaldon

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

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 ye to your knees before me, and hold ye there wi' me hands tangled in your hair, and your mouth at my service...and I want both things at the same time, Sassenach. — Diana Gabaldon

What a mystery blood was -- how did a tiny gesture, a tome of voice, endure through generations like the harder verities of flesh? He had seen it again and again, watching his nieces and nephews grow, and accepted without thought the ehoes of parent and grandparent that appeared for brief moments. the shadow of a face looking back through the years -- that vanished again into the face that was now. — Diana Gabaldon

...well, if women's work was never done, why trouble about how much of it wasn't being accomplished at any given moment? — Diana Gabaldon

When I asked my da how ye knew which was the right woman, he told me when the time came, I'd have no doubt. And I didn't. When I woke in the dark under that tree on the road to Leoch, with you sitting on my chest, cursing me for bleeding to death, I said to myself 'Jamie Fraser, for all ye canna see what she looks like, and for all she weights as much as a good draft horse, this is the woman. — Diana Gabaldon

This is our time. Until that time stops - for one of us, for both – it is our time. Now. Will you waste it, because you are afraid? — Diana Gabaldon

Could I but lay my head in your lap, lass. Feel your hand on me, and sleep wi' the scent of you in my bed. Christ, Sassenach. I need ye. — Diana Gabaldon

The past is gone-the future is not come. And we are here together, you and I. — Diana Gabaldon

forgiveness is not a single act, but a matter of constant practice — Diana Gabaldon

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

But a man is not forgotten, as long as there are two people left under the sky. One, to tell the story; the other, to hear it. — Diana Gabaldon

It's a good country for myths. Things seem to take root here. — Diana Gabaldon

The rest of the journey passed uneventfully, if you consider it uneventful to ride fifteen miles on horseback through rough country at night, frequently without benefit of roads, in company with kilted men armed to the teeth, and sharing a horse with a wounded man. At least we were not set upon by highwaymen, we encountered no wild beasts, and it didn't rain. By the standards I was becoming used to, it was quite dull. — Diana Gabaldon

…but Sassenach—I am the true home of your heart, and I know that.” He lifted my hands to his mouth and kissed my upturned palms, one and then the other, his breath warm and his beard-stubble soft on my fingers. “I have loved others, and I do love many, Sassenach—but you alone hold all my heart, whole in your hands,” he said softly. “And you know that. — Diana Gabaldon

I have lived through war, and lost much. I know what's worth the fight, and what is not. Honor and courage are matters of the bone, and what a man will kill for, he will sometimes die for, too. And that, O kinsman, is why a woman has broad hips; that bony basin will harbor a man and his child alike. A man's life springs from his woman's bones, and in her blood is his honor christened. For the sake of love alone, I would walk through fire again. — Diana Gabaldon

And Finally I put down the last and the best advice I knew, on growing older. 'Stand up straight and try not to get fat. — Diana Gabaldon

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

For I had come back, and I dreamed once more in the cool air of the Highlands. And the voice of my dream still echoed through ears and heart, repeated with the sound of Brianna's sleeping breath. "You are mine," it had said. "Mine. And I will not let you go. — Diana Gabaldon

He [Brian Fraser] told me that a man must be responsible for any see he sows, for it's his duty to take care of a woman and protect her. And if I wasna prepared to do that, then I'd no right to burden a woman with the consequences of my own actions. — Diana Gabaldon

We are bound, you and I, and nothing on this earth shall part me from you. — Diana Gabaldon

I felt the tributaries of his veins, wished to enter into his bloodstream, travel there, dissolved and bodiless, to take refuge in the thick walled chambers of his heart. — Diana Gabaldon

Lord that she might be safe. She and my children. — Diana Gabaldon

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

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. — Diana Gabaldon

...sitting and waiting is one of the most miserable occupations known to man - not that it usually is known to men; women do it much more often. — Diana Gabaldon

Men go where they will, they do as they must; it is not a woman's part to bid them to stay, nor yet to reproach them for being what they are-or for not coming back. — Diana Gabaldon

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

I'll scream!" "Likely. If not before, certainly during. I expect they'll hear ye at the next farm; you've got good lungs. — Diana Gabaldon

Sometimes,' he whispered at last, 'sometimes, I dream I am singing, and I wake from it with my throat aching.' He couldn't see her face, or the tears that prickled at the corners of her eyes. 'What do you sing?' she whispered back. She heard the shush of the linen pillow as he shook his head. 'No song I've ever heard, or know,' he said softly. 'But I know I'm singing it for you. — Diana Gabaldon

He was dead. However, his nose throbbed painfully, which he thought odd in the circumstances. — Diana Gabaldon

Gentle he would be, denied he would not. — Diana Gabaldon

Tell him I hate him to his guts and the marrow of his bones! — Diana Gabaldon

But we are here, all of us. And we're here because I love you, more than the life that was mine. Because I believed you loved me the same way...will you tell me that's not true? No, he said after a moment, so softly I could barely hear him. His hand tightened harder on mine. No, I willna tell ye that. Not ever, Claire. — Diana Gabaldon

Deftly whipping a small tuning fork from his pocket, he struck it smartly against a pillar and held it next to Jamie's left ear. Jamie rolled his eyes heavenward, but shrugged and obligingly sang a note. The little man jerked back as though he'd been shot. — Diana Gabaldon

Why d'ye talk to yourself?' 'It assures me of a good listener. — Diana Gabaldon

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

He gave you to me," she said, so low I could hardly hear her. "Now I have to give you back to him, Mama. — Diana Gabaldon

I wouldna cross the road to see a scrawny woman if she was stark naked and dripping wet. ~Jamie Fraser — Diana Gabaldon

There aren't any answers, only choices — Diana Gabaldon

Any piece of good music is in essence a love song. — Diana Gabaldon

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. — Diana Gabaldon

You are mine, always, if ye will it or no, if ye want me or nay. Mine, and I willna let ye go — Diana Gabaldon

Catholics don't believe in divorce. We do believe in murder. There's always Confession, after all. --Brianna Fraser to Roger MacKenzie — Diana Gabaldon

I shook so that it was some time before I realized that he was shaking too, and for the same reason. I don't know how long we sat there on the dusty floor, crying in each others arms with the longing of twenty years spilling down our faces. — Diana Gabaldon

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

It was in a way a comforting idea; if there was all the time in the world, then the happenings of a given moment became less important. — Diana Gabaldon

There are things that I canna tell you, at least not yet. And I'll ask nothing of ye that ye canna give me. But what I would ask of ye---when you do tell me something, let it be the truth. And I'll promise ye the same. We have nothing now between us, save---respect, perhaps. And I think that respect has maybe room for secrets, but not for lies. Do ye agree? — Diana Gabaldon

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. — Diana Gabaldon

It's only that ye looked so beautiful, wi' the fire on your face, and your hair waving in the wind. I wanted to remember it. — Diana Gabaldon

He shook his head, absorbed in one of his feats of memory, those brief periods of scholastic rapture where he lost touch with the world around him, absorbed completely in conjuring up knowledge from all its sources. — Diana Gabaldon

Life Lessons by Diana Gabaldon

1. Diana Gabaldon's work teaches us the importance of perseverance and dedication to our passions. She wrote her first novel, Outlander, at the age of 40, after years of writing short stories and working in other fields.
2. It also demonstrates that it is never too late to pursue a dream and that success can come at any age.
3. Finally, it highlights the power of storytelling and how it can be used to create meaningful and lasting connections with readers.