“Why, what's the matter wi' the poor child?" she demanded of Jamie. "Has she had an accident o' some sort?""No, it's only she's married me," he said, "though if ye care to call it an accident, ye may.”

“I've thought that perhaps that's why women are so often sad, once the child's born," she said meditatively, as though thinking aloud. "Ye think of them while ye talk, and you have a knowledge of them as they are inside ye, the way you think they are. And then they're born, and they're different - not the way ye thought of them inside, at all. And ye love them, o' course, and get to know them they way they are...but still, there's the thought of the child ye once talked to in your heart, and that child is gone. So I think it's the grievin' for the child unborn that ye feel, even as ye hold the born one in your arms.”

“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.”

“He turned his head to look full at me, his hair fire-struck with the setting sun, face dark in silhouette. "Twenty-four years ago today, I married ye, Sassenach," he said softly. "I hope ye willna have cause yet to regret it." -Jamie Fraser”

“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.”

“There are things ye maybe canna tell me, he had said. I willna ask ye, or force ye. But when ye do tell me something, let it be the truth. There is nothing between us now but respect, and respect has room for secrets, I think - but not for lies.”

“I thought the force of my wanting must wake ye, surely. And then ye did come. . ." He stopped, looking at me with eyes gone soft and dark. "Christ, Claire, ye were so beautiful, there on the stair, wi' your hair down and the shadow of your body with the light behind ye…." He shook his head slowly. "I did think I should die, if I didna have ye," he said softly. "Just then.”