Any piece of good music is in essence a love song.

Sometimes,' he whispered at last, 'sometimes, I dream I am singing, and I wake from it with my throat aching.' He couldn't see her face, or the tears that prickled at the corners of her eyes. 'What do you sing?' she whispered back. She heard the shush of the linen pillow as he shook his head. 'No song I've ever heard, or know,' he said softly. 'But I know I'm singing it for 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.

People assume that science is a very cold sort of profession, whereas writing novels is a warm and fuzzy intuitive thing. But in fact, they are not at all different.

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.

I stood still, vision blurring, and in that moment, I heard my heart break. It was a small, clean sound, like the snapping of a flower's stem.

Do ye want me?" he whispered. "Sassenach, will ye take me - and risk the man that I am, for the sake of the man ye knew?