Lying on the floor, with the carved panels of the ceiling flickering dimly above, I found myself thinking that I had always heretofore assumed that the tendency of eigh­teenth-century ladies to swoon was due to tight stays; now I rather thought it might be due to the idiocy of eighteenth-century men.

You are mine, always, if ye will it or no, if ye want me or nay. Mine, and I willna let ye go

I didn't want to tell the story of what makes two people come together, although that's a theme of great power and universality. I wanted to find out what it takes for two people to stay together for fifty years -- or more. I wanted to tell not the story of courtship, but the story of marriage.

Sassenach, I've been stabbed, bitten, slapped, and whipped since supper - which I didna get to finish. I dinna like to scare children an I dinna like to flog men, and I've had to do both. I've two hundred English camped three miles away, and no idea what to do about them. I'm tired, I'm hungry, and I'm sore. If you've anything like womanly sympathy about ye, I could use a bit!

She sounded as though love were an unfortunate but unavoidable condition.

When God closes a door, he opens a window. Yeah. The problem was that this particular window opened off the tenth story, and he wasn't so sure God supplied parachutes.

So remember it, lad. If your head thinks up mischief, your backside's going to pay for it. Brian Fraser to young Jamie