I have yearned always,” he said softly, “for love given and returned; have spent my life in the attempt to give my love to those who were not worthy of it. Allow me this: to give my life for the sake of one who is.
Then open your legs for me, there’s a good lass no, a bit wider, aye?” He.
Aye, verra good. Now then, if ye’ll just put your hands above your head and seize the bedstead –.
Like forgiveness, it was not a thing once learned and then comfortably put aside but a matter of constant practice – to accept the notion of one’s own mortality, and yet live fully, was a paradox worthy of Socrates.
The words were before him, and yet I thought he wasn’t reading them from the paper, but from the pages of his memory, from the open book of his heart.
Go down,” she said, “and tell them the MacKenzies are here.
It was a hound of some sort, black and disproportionately long-bodied, with lets so stumpy that they appeared to have been amputated. With large, liquid eyes and a sturdy long tail in constant motion, it resembled nothing so much as and exceedingly amiable sausage.
Lord, that she might be safe, he prayed. She and the child.
I had no need to ask or to wonder whether he would keep his word. He had freed me once from Wentworth, because he had given his word to do so. His word, once given, was his bond. Jack Randall was a gentleman.
Ye ken that, don’t ye? That they can only be what they are because you and I are what we are?
Please,” she said, “don’t mention Jamie Fraser to my daughter.
Stephan’s hand left his breast, and reached out. Grey took it, and felt love flow between them. He thought that heart and body must be entirely melted – if only for that moment. Then they parted, each drawing back, each seeing the flash of desolation in the other’s face, both smiling ruefully to see it.
He wasn’t going to pretend it hadn’t hurt to hear it, but he wouldn’t let himself be angry; that would help neither of them.
But you are not God, and there are limits to what you can expect of yourself.
There is an oath upon her,” he said to Arch, and I realized dimly that he was still speaking in Gaelic, though I understood him clearly. “She may not kill, save it is for mercy or her life. It is myself who kills for her.” “And I,” said a tall figure behind him, softly. Ian. Arch.
Feelings aren’t truth.
My father wasna always gentle, but he was usually fair,” Jamie said imperturbably. “He said the truth is the truth, and people should take responsibility for their own actions, which is right.
We’re going home, Sassenach. To Lallybroch.
Would you go down there, Roger?” she asked softly. “Jump overboard, dive in, go on down through that dark until your lungs were bursting, not knowing whether there are things with teeth and great heavy bodies waiting?
There is a great difference between those phenomena which are accepted on faith, and those which are proved by objective determination, though the cause of both may be equally ‘rational’ once known. And the chief difference is this: that people will treat with disdain such phenomena as are proved by the evidence of the senses, and commonly experienced – while they will defend to the death the reality of a phenomenon which they have neither seen nor experienced.