“I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God's hands, that I still possess.”

“I like that library books have secret lives. All those hands that have held them. All those eyes that have read them.”

“All of history is a malleable instrument in my hands. Ohhh, I have accumulated all of these pasts and I possess every fact—yet the facts are mine to use as I will and, even using them truthfully, I change them.”

“How rough your hands still are.”Embarrassed, she made to pull them away, but he held them fast. “Yet never have I longed to kiss any woman’s hands as I long to kiss these.”

“Suppose for a moment that God began taking from us the many things for which we have failed to give thanks. Which of our limbs and faculties would be left? Would I still have my hands and my mind? And what about loved ones? If God were to take from me all those persons and things for which I have not given thanks, who or what would be left of me?”

“I was crying for joy, my Sassenach,' he said softly. He reached out slowly and took my face between his hands. "And thanking God that I have two hands. That I have two hands to hold you with. To serve you with, to love you with. Thanking God that I am a whole man still, because of you.”