Diana Gabaldon

“Overall, the library held a hushed exultation, as though the cherished volumes were all singing soundlessly within their covers.”

“But just then, for that fraction of time, it seems as though all things are possible. You can look across the limitations of your own life, and see that they are really nothing. In that moment when time stops, it is as though you know you could undertake any venture, complete it and come back to yourself, to find the world unchanged, and everything just as you left it a moment before. And it's as though knowing that everything is possible, suddenly nothing is necessary.”

“I read Tolkien when I was 11. I read 'The Hobbit' and the trilogy on a road trip with my family. I identified with the nonhumans in those books, and it never occurred to me why that was.”

“Why?" I shrieked, hitting him again and again, and again, the sound of the blows thudding against his chest. "Why, why why!".Because I was afraid!" He got hold of my wrists and threw me backward so I fell across the bed. He stood over me, fists clenched, breathing hard.I am a coward, damn you! I couldna tell ye, for fear ye would leave me, and unmanly thing that I am, I thought I couldna bear that!"~~~~~~~~~You should have told me!"And if I had?, You'd have turned on your heel and gone without a word. And having seen ye again--I tell ye, I would ha' done far worse than lie to keep you!"Voyager”

“It would ha' been a good deal easier, if ye'd only been a witch.”

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

“I understand the visual media very well, as I used to write comic books for Walt Disney, and I've written a graphic novel. How you carry a story in pictures is different than how you do it in text.”

“What underlies great science is what underlies great art, whether it is visual or written, and that is the ability to distinguish patterns out of chaos.”

“There's not a lot of pictorial evidence from the Highlands, because only the very wealthy had their portraits painted - but there is one well-known painting of the two sons of the Duke of Argyll, wearing tartan.”

“I know what it felt . . . like when I . . . thought you were dead, and-" A small gasp for breath, and her eyes locked on his. "And I wouldn't do that to you." Her bosom fell and her eyes closed.It was a long moment before he could speak."Thank ye, Sassenach," he whispered, and held her small, cold hand between his own and watched her breathe until the moon rose.”

“Whenever you're dealing with something that's difficult to describe, that you can't get across to someone in a sound bite, it sounds like the normal default is to pick what's easiest, and in the case of fiction written by women, fiction involving women, fiction involving any sort of relationship, the word that comes to mind is 'romance.'”

“No matter how ugly the manner in which a man dies, it’s only the presence of a suffering human soul that is horrifying, once gone, what is left is only an object.”

“For months, people have been asking my views about the Scottish independence referendum, and I've been saying, 'It's not my country; I don't live here. Much as I love Scotland, I think it would be inappropriate to express a personal opinion regarding Scottish politics'.”

“You don’t need to know the purpose as you write, but when you read over something you’ve written, you should be able to point to any given element—be that a line of dialogue, a descriptive phrase, a plot point—and say why it’s there.”

“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.”

“No. Ye loved him. I canna hold it against either of you that ye mourn him. And it gives me some comfort to know ..." He hesitated, and I reached up to smooth the rumpled hair off his face."To know what?""That should the need come, you might mourn for me that way," he said softly.”

“Normally, it takes me about three years to write one of the big books. It is usually four years between releases because of the huge amount of travel and PR and just nuisance going on around them. I have a lot of pressure from publishers and agents.”

“Eight was about the age I was when I realized that people actually produced books, they didn't just spring out of the library shelves.”

“The law's a necessary evil--we canna be doing without it--but do ye not think it a poor substitute for conscience?”

“When' Voyager', the third book of the series, hit the 'New York Times' bestseller list, they very honorably redesigned the covers and started calling them fiction.”