OUTLANDER quotes to keep you warm

As many of you know, much of the US is enduring bitter cold this week. Santa is apparently bringing the weather with him from the North Pole! So I thought it would be appropriate to repost this collection of quotes from the OUTLANDER books, in an attempt to warm you up a little. Hope it helps!



1) On the Cape Fear River, Jamie and Claire cope with the heat and humidity of their first summer in North Carolina:

“I have heard of melting with passion,” I said, gasping slightly, “but this is ridiculous.”

He lifted his head from my breast with a faint sticky sound as his cheek came away. He laughed and slid slowly sideways.“God, it’s hot!” he said. He pushed back the sweat-soaked hair from his forehead and blew out his breath, chest still heaving from exertion. “How do folk do that when it’s like this?”

“The same way we just did,” I pointed out. I was breathing heavily myself.

“They can’t,” he said with certainty. “Not all the time; they’d die.”

“Well, maybe they do it slower,” I said. “Or underwater. Or wait until the autumn.”

“Autumn?” he said. “Perhaps I dinna want to live in the south, after all. Is it hot in Boston?”

“It is at this time of year,” I assured him. “And beastly cold in the winter. I’m sure you’ll get used to the heat. And the bugs.”

He brushed a questing mosquito off his shoulder and glanced from me to the nearby creek.

"Maybe so," he said, "and maybe no, but for now..." He wrapped his arms firmly around me, and rolled. With the ponderous grace of a rolling log, we fell off the edge of the rocky shelf, and into the water.

(From DRUMS OF AUTUMN by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 2, "In Which We Meet a Ghost". Copyright© 1997 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

2) Claire's secret to getting through cold winter nights in Paris: a nice warm bed with a very warm-blooded Scotsman in it! <g> (The bed pictured here is from the Château de Fontainebleau)

It was still sleeting, and tiny particles of frozen rain rattled against the windows and hissed into the fire when the night wind turned to drive them down the flue. The wind was high, and it moaned and grumbled among the chimneys, making the bedroom seem all the cozier by contrast. The bed itself was an oasis of warmth and comfort, equipped with goose-down quilts, huge fluffy pillows, and Jamie, faithfully putting out British Thermal Units like an electric storage heater.

(From DRAGONFLY IN AMBER by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 11, "Useful Occupations". Copyright© 1992 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

3) The barbeque at River Run in honor of Flora MacDonald (pictured above, circa 1744) took place in the hottest part of the summer:

The Major was watching Flora MacDonald now with a proprietary eye, noting with approval the way in which people clustered round her.

“She has most graciously agreed to speak today,” he told me, rocking back a little on his bootheels. “Where would be the best place, do you think, mum? From the terrace, as being the point of highest elevation? Or perhaps near the statue on the lawn, as being more central and allowing the crowd to surround her, thus increasing the chance of everyone hearing her remarks?”

“I think she’ll have a sunstroke, if you put her out on the lawn in this weather,” I said, tilting my own broad-brimmed straw hat to shade my nose. It was easily in the nineties, in terms both of temperature and humidity, and my thin petticoats clung soddenly to my lower limbs.

(From A BREATH OF SNOW AND ASHES by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 54, "Flora MacDonald's Barbecue". Copyright© 2005 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

4) William collapses from heatstroke in the middle of the Battle of Monmouth (June 1778). Thank God Ian found him in time to save him!

William was still alive; his face twitched under the feet of a half-dozen black flies feeding on his drying blood. Ian put a hand under his jaw, the way Auntie Claire did, but, with no idea how to find a pulse or what a good one should feel like, took it away again. William was lying in the shadow of a big sycamore, but his skin was still warm--it couldn’t help but be, Ian thought, even if he was dead, on a day like this.

He’d risen to his feet, thinking rapidly. He’d need to get the bugger onto the horse, but maybe best undress him? Take off the telltale coat, at least? But what if he were to take him back toward the British lines, find someone there to take charge of him, get him to a surgeon? That was closer.

Still need to take the coat off, or the man might die of the heat before he got anywhere. So resolved, he knelt again, and thus saved his own life. The tomahawk chunked into the sycamore’s trunk just where his head had been a moment before.

(From WRITTEN IN MY OWN HEART'S BLOOD by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 78, "In The Wrong Place at the Wrong Time". Copyright© 2014 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

5) What better way to keep warm on a cold night than snuggling under a buffalo robe? I have always thought it was a real shame that Jamie and Claire didn't actually get a chance to try it out, together.

“I brought ye a present, Sassenach,” Jamie said, grinning and wiping sweat from his jaw.

“A … present,” I said faintly, looking at the enormous heap of … what?… he had dropped on the ground at my feet. Then the smell reached me.

“A buffalo robe!” I exclaimed. “Oh, Jamie! A real buffalo robe?”

Not much doubt of that. It was not--thank God--a fresh one, but the scent of its original owner was still perceptible, even in the cold. I fell to my knees, running my hands over it. It was well-cured, flexible, and relatively clean, the wool of it rough under my hands but free of mud, burrs, clumps of dung, and the other impedimenta that normally attended live buffalo. It was enormous. And warm. Wonderfully warm.

I sank my freezing hands into the depths of it, which still held Jamie’s body heat.

[....]

“This is marvelous, Jamie! It’s huge!” It was. A good eight feet long, and wide enough that two people could lie cradled in its warmth--provided they didn’t mind sleeping close. The thought of crawling into that enveloping shelter, warm and cozy, after so many nights shivering under threadbare blankets...

Jamie appeared to have been thinking along similar lines.

“Big enough for the two of us,” he said, and touched my breast, very delicately.

(From AN ECHO IN THE BONE by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 68, "Despoiler". Copyright© 2009 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

6) Jamie and Claire return home to the Big House after it failed to burn down as predicted on January 21, 1776.

The house loomed before us, its quiet bulk somehow welcoming, in spite of the darkened windows. Snow was swirling across the porch in little eddies, piling in drifts on the sills.

"I suppose it would be harder for a fire to start if it's snowing--wouldn't you think?"

Jamie bent to unlock the front door.

"I dinna much mind if the place bursts into flame by spontaneous combustion, Sassenach, provided I have my supper first."

"A cold supper, were you thinking?" I asked dubiously.

"I was not," he said firmly. "I mean to light a roaring fire in the kitchen hearth, fry up a dozen eggs in butter, and eat them all, then lay ye down on the hearth rug and roger ye 'til you--is that all right?" he inquired, noticing my look.

"'Til I what?" I asked, fascinated by his description of the evening's program.

"'Til ye burst into flame and take me with ye, I suppose," he said, and stooping, swooped me up into his arms and carried me across the darkened threshold.

(From A BREATH OF SNOW AND ASHES by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 111, "January Twenty-First". Copyright© 2005 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

Hope this helped distract you from the cold, at least for a little while. Stay warm!

P.S. to those of you in the Southern Hemisphere: No, I haven't forgotten about you! Here's a collection of OUTLANDER Quotes to Cool You Off.