That's for calling your father a fool. It may be true, but it's disrespectful. Brian Fraser to teenage Jamie

He shook his head, absorbed in one of his feats of memory, those brief periods of scholastic rapture where he lost touch with the world around him, absorbed completely in conjuring up knowledge from all its sources.

So long as my body lives, and yours -- we are one flesh," he whispered, "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.

And Finally I put down the last and the best advice I knew, on growing older. 'Stand up straight and try not to get fat.

Not for the first time, I reflected that intimacy and romance are not synonymous.

As usual, the note occupied less than a page and included neither salutation nor closing, Uncle Hal's opinion being that since the letter had a direction upon it, the intended recipient was obvious, the seal indicated plainly who had written it, and he did not waste his time in writing to fools.

But we are here, all of us. And we're here because I love you, more than the life that was mine. Because I believed you loved me the same way...will you tell me that's not true? No, he said after a moment, so softly I could barely hear him. His hand tightened harder on mine. No, I willna tell ye that. Not ever, Claire.