Bedding her could be anything from tenderness to riot, but to take her when she was a bit the worse for drink was always a particular delight. Intoxicated, she took less care for him than usual; abandoned and oblivious to all but her own pleasure, she would rake him, bite him - and beg him to serve her so, as well. He loved the feeling of power in it, the tantalizing choice between joining her at once in animal lust, or of holding himself-for a time- in check, so as to drive her at his whim.

That's what marriage is good for; it makes a sacrament out of things ye'd otherwise have to confess. Jamie Fraser

You could tell from the books whether a library was meant for show or not. Books that were used had an open, interested feel to them, even if closed and neatly lined up on a shelf in strict order with their fellows. You felt as though the book took as much interest in you as you did in it and was willing to help when you reached for it.

Through eons of living in a land so poor there was little to eat but oats, they had as usual converted necessity into a virtue, and insisted that they liked the stuff.

And if Time is anything akin to God, I suppose that Memory must be the Devil.

I thought I could make out Jamie's Highland screech, but that was likely imagination; they all sounded equally demented.

It's only that ye looked so beautiful, wi' the fire on your face, and your hair waving in the wind. I wanted to remember it.