Valentine's Day quotes from the OUTLANDER books

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!

Here's a new quote collection from Diana Gabaldon's books. I hope you enjoy it!

1) The moment when Jamie and Claire openly declare their love for one another at last:

“I wanted ye from the first I saw ye--but I loved ye when you wept in my arms and let me comfort you, that first time at Leoch.” The sun sank below the line of black pines, and the first stars of the evening came out. It was mid-November, and the evening air was cold, though the days still kept fine. Standing on the opposite side of the fence, Jamie bent his head, putting his forehead against mine.

“You first.”

“No, you.”

“Why?”

“I’m afraid.”

“Of what, my Sassenach?” The darkness was rolling in over the fields, filling the land and rising up to meet the night. The light of the new crescent moon marked the ridges of brow and nose, crossing his face with light.

“I’m afraid if I start I shall never stop.”

He cast a glance at the horizon, where the sickle moon hung low and rising. “It’s nearly winter, and the nights are long, mo duinne.” He leaned across the fence, reaching, and I stepped into his arms, feeling the heat of his body and the beat of his heart.

“I love you.”

(From OUTLANDER by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 27, "The Last Reason". Copyright © 1991 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

2) Ian, describing how he came to marry Jenny:

“How did ye come to wed anyway, given your scruples?” he asked, one side of his mouth curling up.

“Gracious, man,” Ian protested, “ye think I had any choice in the matter? Up against a Fraser?” He shook his head, grinning at his friend.

“She came up to me out in the field one day, while I was tryin’ to mend a wagon that sprang its wheel. I crawled out, all covered wi’ muck, and found her standin’ there looking like a bush covered wi’ butterflies. She looks me up and down and she says--” He paused and scratched his head. “Weel, I don’t know exactly what she said, but it ended with her kissing me, muck notwithstanding, and saying, ‘Fine, then, we’ll be married on St. Martin’s Day.’ ” He spread his hands in comic resignation. “I was still explaining why we couldna do any such thing, when I found myself in front of a priest, saying, ‘I take thee, Janet’…and swearing to a lot of verra improbable statements.”

(From OUTLANDER by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 29, "More Honesty". Copyright © 1991 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

3) This next quote comes from DRUMS, after Roger's return to Fraser's Ridge. This is the moment when Roger finally finds the words to convince Brianna that he still loves her, in spite of all they've been through:

“Did Frank Randall not love you as his own? Take you as the child of his heart, knowing you were the blood of another man, and one he’d good reason to hate?”

He took her other shoulder and gave her a little shake.

“Did that redheaded bastard not love your mother more than life? And love you enough to sacrifice even that love to save you?”

She made a small, choked noise, and a pang went through him at the sound, but he would not release her.

“If you believe it of them,” he said, his voice little more than a whisper, “then by God you must believe it of me. For I am a man like them, and by all I hold holy, I do love you.”

(From DRUMS OF AUTUMN by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 67, "The Toss of a Coin". Copyright © 1997 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

4) Marsali was determined to wed Fergus despite her youth and Jamie's objections. And in the end, she got what she wanted.

“We--I--did ask the lady Laoghaire for the honor of her daughter’s hand, milord,” Fergus put in. “Last month, when I came to Lallybroch.”

“Aye. Well, ye needna tell me what she said,” Jamie said dryly, seeing the sudden flush on Fergus’s cheeks. “Since I gather the general answer was no.”

“She said he was a bastard!” Marsali burst out indignantly. “And a criminal, and--and--”

“He is a bastard and a criminal,” Jamie pointed out. “And a cripple wi’ no property, either, as I’m sure your mother noticed.”

“I dinna care!” Marsali gripped Fergus’s hand and looked at him with fierce affection. “I want him.”

(From VOYAGER by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 41, "We Set Sail". Copyright © 1994 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

5) Lizzie and the Beardsley twins always make me laugh. ("Both of them? At once?") But their love for one another is never in any doubt:

“The lads and I have been talking wi’ your father,” [Jamie] said, addressing Lizzie. “I take it it’s true, what ye told your Da? Ye are with child, and ye dinna ken which is the father?”

Lizzie opened her mouth, but no words came out. Instead, she bobbed her head in an awkward nod.

“Aye. Well, then, ye’ll need to be wed, and the sooner the better,” he said, in a matter-of-fact tone of voice. “The lads couldna quite decide which of them it should be, so it’s up to you, lass. Which one?”

All six hands tightened in a flash of white knuckles. It was really quite fascinating--and I couldn’t help feeling sorry for the three of them.

“I can’t,” Lizzie whispered. Then she cleared her throat and tried again. “I can’t,” she repeated more strongly. “I don’t--I don’t want to choose. I love them both.”

(From A BREATH OF SNOW AND ASHES by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 73, "Double-Dealing". Copyright © 2005 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

6) I can't wait to hear more about how Jamie's parents, Brian Fraser and Ellen MacKenzie, met and fell in love:

“Hair like fire,” Alec said dreamily, enjoying the warmth of the oil on his back. “And eyes like Colum’s--grey, and fringed wi’ black lashes--verra pretty, but the kind would go through ye like a bolt. A tall woman; even taller than you. And sae fair it would hurt the eyes to see her.

“I heard tell later as they’d met at the Gathering, taken one look and decided on the spot as there could be none other for either one o’ them. So they laid their plans and they stole awa’, under the noses of Colum MacKenzie and three hundred guests.”

He laughed suddenly, remembering. “Dougal finally found them, living in a crofter’s cottage on the edge of the Fraser lands. They’d decided the only way to manage was to hide until Ellen was wi’ child, and big enough that there’d be no question whose it was. Then Colum would have to give his blessing to the marriage, like it or no--and he didn’t.”

(From OUTLANDER by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 24, "By the Pricking of My Thumbs". Copyright © 1991 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

7) I think Rachel and Ian were very lucky to find one another. Rachel is a strong-willed woman with a mind of her own, just like Ian's mother Jenny, but she also makes it very clear that she accepts Ian for who he is, even when he's committed acts of violence that go against everything she believes as a Quaker.

“Rachel?” he said, shifting uneasily on his bed of prickly hay. The door of the byre was open and there was light enough, but he couldn’t read her face at all. Her gaze rested on his own face, though, hazel-eyed and distant, as though she were looking through him. He was afraid she was.

[...]

Finally a shiver went over Rachel, as though she shook herself awake, and she put a hand on his forehead, smoothing back his hair as she looked into his eyes, her own now soft and fathomless. Her thumb came down and traced the tattooed line across his cheekbones, very slowly.

“I think we can’t wait any longer to be married, Ian,” she said softly. “I will not have thee face such things alone. These are bad times, and we must be together.”

He closed his eyes and all the air went out of him. When he drew breath again, it tasted of peace.

(From WRITTEN IN MY OWN HEART'S BLOOD by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 92, "I Will Not Have Thee Be Alone". Copyright © 2014 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

8) I'll let Jamie and Claire have the final word. This is my all-time favorite romantic Jamie quote of the whole series. The idea of a love so powerful that it can outlast even death itself still takes my breath away, no matter how many times I've read or listened to the books.

“But do ye not see how verra small a thing is the notion of death, between us two, Claire?” he whispered.

My hands curled into fists against his chest. No, I didn’t think it a small thing at all.

“All the time after ye left me, after Culloden--I was dead then, was I not?"

[....]

“I was dead, my Sassenach--and yet all that time, I loved you.”

I closed my eyes, feeling the tickle of the grass on my lips, light as the touch of sun and air.

“I loved you, too,” I whispered. “I always will.”

The grass fell away. Eyes still closed, I felt him lean toward me, and his mouth on mine, warm as sun, light as air.

“So long as my body lives, and yours--we are one flesh,” he whispered. His fingers touched me, hair and chin and neck and breast, and I breathed his breath and felt him solid under my hand. Then I lay with my head on his shoulder, the strength of him supporting me, the words deep and soft in his chest.

"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."

(From DRUMS OF AUTUMN by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 16, "The First Law of Thermodynamics". Copyright © 1997 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.)

I hope you've enjoyed this collection. Happy Valentine's Day!