I work late at night. I'm awake and nobody bothers me. It's quiet and things come and talk to me in the silence.

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.

If I die," he whispered in the dark, "dinna follow me. The bairns will need ye. Stay for them. I can wait.

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.

Character, I think, is the single most important thing in fiction. You might read a book once for its interesting plot—but not twice.

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 wind stirred the leaves of the chestnut trees nearby, and the scents of late summer rose up rich around us; pine and grass and strawberries, sun-warmed stone and cool water, and the sharp, musky smell of his body next to mine. "Nothing is lost, Sassenach; only changed." "That's the first law of thermodynamics," I said, wiping my nose. "No," he said. "That's faith.

Lord, ye gave me a rare woman, and God! I loved her well.