We love Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series and of course the the Starz TV adaptation too. But what specifically about these eight romance-packed books that makes us squeal and wanting more? Amazon provided EW with the top Kindle highlights for each book, so you can see which passages made fellow Outlander fans’ hearts go a-flutter. Check them out below:
Book 1: Outlander
- “Life among academics had taught me that a well-expressed opinion is usually better than a badly expressed fact, so far as professional advancement goes.”
- “‘Ye are Blood of my Blood, and Bone of my Bone. I give ye my Body, that we Two might be One. I give ye my Spirit, ’til our Life shall be Done.’”
- “We have nothing now between us, save—respect, perhaps. And I think that respect has maybe room for secrets, but not for lies.”
- “To stand against a crowd would take something more than ordinary courage; something that went beyond human instinct. And I feared I did not have it, and fearing, was ashamed.”
- “As though, knowing that everything is possible, suddenly nothing is necessary.”
- “It starts out the same, but then, after a moment,” he said, speaking softly, “suddenly it’s as though I’ve a living flame in my arms.” His touch grew firmer, outlining my lips and caressing the line of my jaw. “And I want only to throw myself into it and be consumed.”
- “Without one word of direct explanation or apology, he had given me the message he intended. I gave you justice, it said, as I was taught it. And I gave you mercy, too, so far as I could. While I could not spare you pain and humiliation, I make you a gift of my own pains and humiliations, that yours might be easier to bear.”
- “Then let amorous kisses dwell On our lips, begin and tell A Thousand and a Hundred score A Hundred, and a Thousand more.”
- “He told me that a man must be responsible for any seed he sows, for it’s his duty to take care of a woman and protect her. And if I wasna prepared to do that, then I’d no right to burden a woman with the consequences of my own actions.”
Book 2: Dragonfly in Amber
- “Lord, ye gave me a rare woman, and God! I loved her well.”
- “You cannot save the world, but you might save the man in front of you, if you work fast enough.”
- “But for the hours of the night, I was helpless; powerless to move as a dragonfly in amber.”
- “But I talk to you as I talk to my own soul,” he said, turning me to face him. He reached up and cupped my cheek, fingers light on my temple. “And, Sassenach,” he whispered, “your face is my heart.”
- “Blood of my blood,” he whispered, “and bone of my bone. You carry me within ye, Claire, and ye canna leave me now, no matter what happens. You are mine, always, if ye will it or no, if ye want me or nay. Mine, and I wilna let ye go.”
- “For I give ye my spirit, ’til our life shall be done.”
- “Social prejudice is a strong force, but no match for simple competence when skill is in urgent demand and short supply.”
- “Oh, Claire, ye do break my heart wi’ loving you.”
- “Healing comes from the healed; not from the physician. That much, Raymond had taught me.”
- “it’s only the essence of a thing that counts. When time strips everything else away, it’s only the hardness of the bone that’s left.”
Book 3: Voyager
- “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.”
- “Faith is as powerful a force as science,” he concluded, voice soft in the darkness, “—but far more dangerous.”
- “Only you,” he said, so softly I could barely hear him. “To worship ye with my body, give ye all the service of my hands. To give ye my name, and all my heart and soul with it. Only you. Because ye will not let me lie—and yet ye love me.”
- “I have noticed,” she said slowly, “that time does not really exist for mothers, with regard to their children. It does not matter greatly how old the child is—in the blink of an eye, the mother can see the child again as it was when it was born, when it learned to walk, as it was at any age—at any time, even when the child is fully grown and a parent itself.”
- “Well, I say it is the place of science only to observe,” he said. “To seek cause where it may be found, but to realize that there are many things in the world for which no cause shall be found; not because it does not exist, but because we know too little to find it. It is not the place of science to insist on explanation—but only to observe, in hopes that the explanation will manifest itself.”
- “Post coitum omne animalium triste est,” I remarked, with my eyes closed.”
- “There is a great difference between those phenomena which are accepted on faith, and those which are proved by objective determination, though the cause of both may be equally ‘rational’ once known. And the chief difference is this: that people will treat with disdain such phenomena as are proved by the evidence of the senses, and commonly experienced—while they will defend to the death the reality of a phenomenon which they have neither seen nor experienced.”
- “It’s only when ye ken ye can say no that it takes courage.”
- “It isn’t necessarily easier if you know what it is you’re meant to do—but at least you don’t waste time in questioning or doubting. If you’re honest—well, that isn’t necessarily easier, either. Though I suppose if you’re honest with yourself and know what you are, at least you’re less likely to feel that you’ve wasted your life, doing the wrong thing.”
- “Know why the Jews and Muslims have nine hundred names for God; one small word is not enough for love.”
Book 4: Drums of Autumn
- “That only by forgiveness could she forget—and that forgiveness was not a single act, but a matter of constant practice.”
- “You are my courage, as I am your conscience,” he whispered. “You are my heart—and I your compassion. We are neither of us whole, alone. Do ye not know that, Sassenach?”
- “Nothing is lost, Sassenach; only changed.” “That’s the first law of thermodynamics,” I said, wiping my nose. “No,” he said. “That’s faith.”
- “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.”
- “The difference between an American and an Englishman. An Englishman thinks a hundred miles is a long way; an American thinks a hundred years is a long time.”
- “‘Whither thou goest,’ ” I said, “ ‘I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried.’ ” Be it Scottish hill or southern forest. “You do what you have to; I’ll be there.”
- “Your face is my heart, Sassenach,” he said softly, “and love of you is my soul. But you’re right; ye canna be my conscience.”
- “But a man is not forgotten, as long as there are two people left under the sky. One, to tell the story; the other, to hear it. So.”
- “We look in the mirror and see the shades of other faces looking back through the years; we see the shape of memory, standing solid in an empty doorway. By blood and by choice, we make our ghosts; we haunt ourselves.”
- “But bees that hae honey in their mouths hae stings in their tails, aye?”
Book 5: The Fiery Cross
- “When the day shall come, that we do part,” he said softly, and turned to look at me, “if my last words are not ‘I love you’—ye’ll ken it was because I didna have time.”
- “The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding go out to meet it.”
- “To see the years touch ye gives me joy, Sassenach,” he whispered, “—for it means that ye live.”
- “The past is gone—the future is not come. And we are here together, you and I.”
- “May God make safe to me each step, May God make open to me each pass, May God make clear to me each road, And may He take me in the clasp of His own two hands.”
- “Everyone makes choices, and no one knows what may be the end of any of them. If my own was to blame for many things, it was not to blame for everything. Nor was harm all that had come of it.”
- “The world and each day in it is a gift, mo chridhe—no matter what tomorrow may be.”
- “He was not afraid to die with her, by fire or any other way—only to live without her.”
- “Help us, O Lord, to remember how often men do wrong through want of thought, rather than from lack of love; and how cunning are the snares that trip our feet.”
- “He’s a man,” she said, “and that’s no small thing to be.”
Book 6: A Breath of Snow and Ashes
- “All I want,” she said softly to the dark, “is for you to love me. Not because of what I can do or what I look like, or because I love you—just because I am.”
- “There is no more perfect stillness than the solitude in the heart of a snowstorm.”
- “A Man’s sense of Morality tends to decrease as his Power increases.”
- “If I die,” he whispered in the dark, “dinna follow me. The bairns will need ye. Stay for them. I can wait.”
- “I have yearned always,” he said softly, “for love given and returned; have spent my life in the attempt to give my love to those who were not worthy of it. Allow me this: to give my life for the sake of one who is.”
- “And if Time is anything akin to God, I suppose that Memory must be the Devil.”
- “Lavender and rosemary should be cut in the morning, though, when the volatile oils had risen with the sun; it wasn’t as potent if taken later in the day.”
- “My turn today—yours tomorrow. Thus passes the glory of the world.”
- “O Lord, bless the blood and the flesh of this the creature that You gave me.”
- “Real danger had its own taste, vivid as lemon juice, by contrast with the weak lemonade of imagination.”
Book 7: An Echo in the Bone
- “I’ve heard it said that a man’s reach must exceed his grasp—or what’s a heaven for?”
- “All loss is one, and one loss becomes all, a single death the key to the gate that bars memory.”
- “It was possible to leave things behind—places, people, memories—at least for a time. But places held tight to the things that had happened in them, and to come again to a place you had once lived was to be brought face-to-face with what you had done there and who you had been.”
- “Catholics don’t believe in divorce,” Bree had informed him once. “We do believe in murder. There’s always Confession, after all.”
- “Do women hold back the evolution of such things as freedom and other social ideals, out of fear for themselves or their children? Or do they in fact inspire such things—and the risks required to reach them—by providing the things worth fighting for? Not merely fighting to defend, either, but to propel forward, for a man wanted more for his children than he would ever have.”
- “Home is where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.”
- “Like forgiveness, it was not a thing once learned and then comfortably put aside but a matter of constant practice—to accept the notion of one’s own mortality, and yet live fully, was a paradox worthy of Socrates.”
- “I am what God has made me, and must deal with the Times in which He has placed me.”
- “They’re girls,” she replied briefly. “They were born in danger and will live their lives in that condition, regardless of circumstance.”
- “A man’s life had to have more purpose than only to feed himself each day.”
Book 8: Written in My Own’s Heart Blood
- “I have loved others, and I do love many, Sassenach—but you alone hold all my heart, whole in your hands,” he said softly. “And you know that.”
- “Thy life’s journey lies along its own path, Ian,” she said, “and I cannot share thy journey—but I can walk beside thee. And I will.”
- “a marriage is made not in ritual or in words but in the living of it.”
- “Advice? You’re too old to be given it and too young to take it.”
- “I have loved ye since I saw you, Sassenach,” he said very quietly, holding my eyes with his own, bloodshot and lined with tiredness but very blue. “I will love ye forever. It doesna matter if ye sleep with the whole English army—well, no,” he corrected himself, “it would matter, but it wouldna stop me loving you.”
- “That they can only be what they are because you and I are what we are?”
- “If God makes man in His image, we all return the favor.”
- “Mmphm. Well, I suppose men can make all the laws they like,” he said, “but God made hope. The stars willna burn out.” He turned and, cupping my chin, kissed me gently. “And nor will we.”
- “But what I do say is that there is nothing in this world or the next that can take ye from me—or me from you.”
- “Ye lost your parents young, mo nighean donn, and wandered about the world, rootless. Ye loved Frank”—his mouth compressed for an instant, but I thought he was unconscious of it—“and of course ye love Brianna and Roger Mac and the weans … but, Sassenach—I am the true home of your heart, and I know that.”
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