- Another Link --
Judie, Sun, November 24 2024, 19:53:39
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Outlandish Voices:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/outlandishvoices/
It is a Facebook group and they have done quotes. So here is the link to check them out as you so choose. :)
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- The board is locked - check out these links -- Judie, Fri, November 22 2024, 21:57:08
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Hi, ladies.
I am going to set the board to moderated because all we are getting these days is spam.
If you are looking to discuss the books or TV show, here are some Facebook links.
Ladies of Lallybroch(TM) Stars Outlander Season 7 discussions: https://www.facebook.com/groups/196455687405875
Ladies of Lallybroch main discussions: https://www.facebook.com/groups/85831728896
Ladies of Lallybroch Stars Outlander discussions - all the episodes: https://www.facebook.com/groups/247589332102782
And there is also Karen Henry's website - Outlandish Observations:
https://www.outlandishobservations.com
She has a lot of information there and she posts regularly. I believe you can comment also. :)
We had a great run with the quotes. I'll leave them here so folks can peruse them as they wish. Thanks, gang.
Judie
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- Thank you, Judie! Because the show started last night I thought I’d look and see if anyone was here. And you are with some good options for keeping in touch. Can I add “Outlandish Voices”. I don’t know how to make the http address. Lallyhugs to you ❤️ (NT) -- Kathy in PA, Sat, November 23 2024, 7:33:07
- You can still contact me via the "contact forum admin" link. :) (NT) -- Judie, Sat, November 23 2024, 18:12:23
- Because I was not logged in when I made the main post, I cannot edit it. But here is another link to an Outlander group - Outlandish Voices - on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/outlandishvoices/ (NT) -- Judie, Sun, November 24 2024, 19:52:00
- The recent discussion on the future of the Board -- Janet, Thu, August 22 2024, 10:53:17
I find it quite interesting that something as significant as possibly closing the Board has had a total of 4 responses, unless there are more somewhere I'm not seeing them. If anyone else has comments, please, post them!
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- Quote of the Day discussion -- Judie, Sat, August 17 2024, 19:07:38
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On July 15th, kgp posted the following:
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For our Lovely Lurkers and the few active participants - you beautiful people - a discussion will occur next month as to whether there is enough traffic and interest to keep the Board going. This has been home to a lot of us for a very long time but it might be time to let it go. -- kgp, Mon, July 15 2024, 12:01:08
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Quote of the Day started somewhere around 2000, I think. Someone may have a more accurate record than I do - I'm just guessing. Anyway, if it was 2000 then QOTD has been going for 24 years. I'd say that's a pretty good run.
I think things have dwindled down to about half a dozen diehards these days. KGP did a great job of moderating for the last few years. And I know there are a few ladies who aren't on Facebook and they enjoy coming here to see the quotes.
But, to be honest, it seems that interest has really waned. There haven't been any quotes for over a week and I've only had one inquiry about that.
I guess the question would be is there still interest? And then the second question would be who wants to take on the job of organising quoters?
I'll leave this here and see what the responses are.
Another option could be to move it to a Facebook group but that would leave out those who are not on Facebook. I think FB is just an easier way to do things, but there may not even be interest in that. 24 years is a long time for something to continue, but people change and interests change.
Hey - throw out your thoughts. :)
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- I agree, interest in the board has waned, but not our love for the books. I was a lurker for years, then started doing some quotes, it was fun. As much as I love this site, I think it is time to say goodbye unless someone steps up and takes charge. Unfortunately, that won't be me. I'll check back in a day or two and see what the sense of the group is. (NT) -- Janet, Sun, August 18 2024, 9:08:58
- I'm also a permanent lurker. I love the daily quotes but I have to admit I can't be arsed to post them myself. (NT) -- Susannah, Mon, August 19 2024, 6:39:19
- I love this board and the extras of the card and ornament exchange and cards for Ladies that need them. I don’t want it to end but I’ve been lax about posting and taking a week too. Could we keep some form? Remember Polls & Surveys, Social Board and the Kirk, besides QOTD. I love the thoughts and opinions here; not Facebook but a common place online. When the new book and season come out we’ll have a lot to discuss. (NT) -- Kathy in PA, Mon, August 19 2024, 9:20:51
- QOTD for Wednesday, August 7, 2024 -- kgp, Wed, August 07 2024, 16:13:18
The following quotation is from Seven Stones To Stand Or Fall by Diana Gabaldon Copyright 2017 All Rights Reserved Besieged
“What did you mean, Mother, when you said, ‘It’s come to that already’? Because you didn’t know about the invasion, did you?”
She glanced up at him sharply, ceasing to stir. Then she took a deep breath, like one marshaling her mental forces, visibly made a decision, and put down the quill and ink.
“No,” she said, turning to him. “George told me such a thing was being quietly discussed - but I left England with Olivia in September. War with Spain hadn’t yet been declared, though anyone could have seen that it was coming. No,” she repeated, and looked at him intently. “I meant the slave revolt.”
John stared at his mother for the space of thirty seconds or so, then slowly sank onto a wooden pew that ran along the side of the room. He closed his eyes briefly, shook his head, and opened them.
“Is there anything to drink in this establishment, Mother?”
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- QOTD for Tuesday, August 6, 2024 -- kgp, Tue, August 06 2024, 11:45:01
The following quotation is from Seven Stones To Stand Or Fall by Diana Gabaldon Copyright 2017 All Rights Reserved Besieged
“She’s in Havana,” General Stanley said. “Minding your cousin Olivia.”
This seemed like a moderately respectable thing for an elderly lady to be doing, and Grey relaxed slightly. But only slightly.
“Is she ill?”
“I hope not. She said in her last letter that there was an outbreak of some sort of ague in the city but that she herself was in good health.”
“Fine.” Tom had come back with the brandy bottle, and John poured himself a small glass. “I trust she’s enjoying the weather.” He raised an eyebrow at his stepfather, who sighed deeply and put his hands on his knees.
“I’m sure she is. The problem, my boy, is that the British Navy is on its way to lay siege to the city of Havana, and I really think it would be a good idea if your mother wasn’t in the city when they get there."
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- QOTD for Monday, August 5, 2024 -- kgp, Mon, August 05 2024, 17:43:52
The following quotation is from Seven Stones To Stand Or Fall by Diana Gabaldon Copyright 2017 All Rights Reserved Besieged
“Me lord! It’s General Stanley!”
“Who?” Grey said blankly. His mind, occupied with the details of imminent escape refused to deal with anything that might interfere with said escape, but “Stanley” did ring a distant, small bell.
“Might be as he’s your mother’s husband, me lord?” Tom said. With a becoming diffidence.
“Oh . . . that General Stanley. Why didn’t you say so?” John hastily grabbed his coat from it’s hook and shrugged into it, brushing crumbs off his waistcoat as he did so. “Show him in, by all means!”
~~~~~~~~
A couple of light hearted pieces to start the week
Last edited by author: Mon, August 05 2024, 17:44:06
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- QOTD for Sunday August 4, 2024 -- kgp, Mon, August 05 2024, 17:42:55
The following quotation is from Seven Stones To Stand Or Fall by Diana Gabaldon Copyright 2017 All Rights Reserved Besieged
Lord John Grey Dipped a finger gingerly into the little stone pot, withdrew it, glistening, and sniffed cautiously.
“Jesus!”
“Yes, me lord. That’s what I said.” His valet, Tom Byrd, face carefully averted, put the lid back on the pot. “Was you to run yourself with that stuff, you’d be drawing flies in their hundreds, same as if you were summat that was dead. Long dead,” he added, and muffled the pot in a napkin for additional protection.
“Well, in justice,” Grey said dubiously, “I suppose the whale is long dead.” He looked at the far wall of his office. There were a number of flies resting along the wainscoting, as usual, fat and black as currants against the white plaster. Sure enough, a couple of them had already risen into the air, circling lazily toward the pot of whale oil.
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- QOTD -- Janet, Sat, August 03 2024, 3:17:55
Quote of the Day for Saturday, August 3, 2024
The following quote is taken from Written in My Own Heart’s Blood, Chapter 7, The Unintended Consequences of Ill-Considered Actions. Copyright 2014, All Rights Reserved.
This quote is going to be long, but I needed all of it to get to a conclusion…..
“What the devil did you tell me for, ye wee idiot?” he said under his breath, urging his horse up into a gallop. “What did ye think I’d do?”
Just what you damn well did was the answer. John hadn’t resisted, hadn’t fought back. “Go ahead and kill me,” the wee bugger had said. A fresh spurt of rage curled Jamie’s hands as he imagined all too well doing just that. Would he have gone ahead and done it, if that pissant Woodbine and his militia hadn’t shown up?
No. No, he wouldn’t. Even as he longed momentarily to go back and choke the life out of Grey, he was beginning to answer his own question, reason fighting its way through the haze of fury. Why had Grey told him? There was the obvious---the reason he’d hit the man by sheer reflex, the reason he was shaking now. Because Grey had told him the truth.
“We were both fucking you.” He breathed hard and deep, fast enough to make him giddy, but it stopped the shaking and he slowed a little; his horse’s ears were laid back, twitching in agitation.
Hope you enjoyed a week of the first seven chapters of MOBY as much as I did bringing them to you!
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- QOTD -- Janet, Fri, August 02 2024, 10:22:00
Quote of the Day for Friday, August 2, 2024
The following quote is taken from Written in My Own Heart’s Blood, Chapter 6, Under My Protection. Copyright 2014, All Rights Reserved.
“No,” I said definitely, putting the cork back in and shoving vial and box into my pocket. “That won’t help. Purse you lips and blow out.” His eyes bulged a bit, but he did it; I could feel the slight movement of air on my own perspiring face.
“Right. Now, relax, don’t gasp for air, just let it come. Blow out to the count of four. One…two…three….four…let it come in, count of two…yes, good. Now don’t worry; you aren’t going to suffocate, you can keep doing that all day.” I smiled encouragingly at him, and he managed to nod. I straightened up and looked round; we were near Locust Street, and Peterman’s ordinary was no more than a block away.
And so we meet the Duke of Pardlow. As a physical therapist I have worked with people with asthma, and while it’s very scary, if you can get them to control their breath it really does help! (But the drugs were have now are much, much better!!!)
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- QOTD -- Janet, Thu, August 01 2024, 10:35:39
The following quote is taken from Written in My Own Heart’s Blood by Diana Gabaldon, Chapter 5, The Passions of Young Men. Copyright 2014, All Rights Reserved.
I shook my head, dismissing the dozen things I could do nothing about. During this minor reverie, Jenny and Mrs. Figg appeared to have been discussing William and his abrupt departure from the scene.
“Where would he go to, I wonder?” Mrs. Fig looked worriedly toward the wall of the stairwell, pocked with blood smeared dents left by William”s fist.
“Gone to find a bottle, a fight, or a woman,” said Jenny, with the authority of a wife, sister, and the mother of sons. “Maybe all three.”
This makes me smile every time I read it. Jenny is nothing if not pragmatic! I often wonder what she would have done if she found Young Ian in the brothel in Edinburgh instead of Old Ian…..
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- The exact same thing happened to me Janet! A huge smile. I wish I could be as succinct and right as Jenny. Lol. If she found Ian in a brothel she’d probably have something snarky to say, but after how many kids?, she’s unflappable. (NT) -- Kathy in PA, Thu, August 01 2024, 11:19:25
- I know lots of folks dislike Jenny because of grabbing Jamie by the balls in Outlander, and how she treated Claire when she returned in Voyager, but I've always been a fan of hers. (NT) -- DianaH, Fri, August 02 2024, 10:39:02
- QOTD -- Janet, Wed, July 31 2024, 3:57:59
The following quote is taken from Written in My Own Heart’s Blood by Diana Gabaldon, Chapter 4, Don’t ask Questions You Don’t Want the Answers To. Copyright 2014,All Rights Reserved.
The hands wrapped themselves in his shirt and jerked him to his feet. He managed to stand, and a wisp of air seeped into his lungs. Fraser’s face was an inch from his. Fraser was in fact so close that Grey couldn’t see the man’s expression---only a close-up view of two bloodshot blue eyes, both of them berserk. That was enough. He felt quite calm now. It wouldn’t take long.
“You tell me exactly what happened, ye filthy wee pervert,” Fraser whispered, his breath hot on Grey’s face and smelling of ale. He shook Grey slightly. “Every word. Every motion. Everything.”
Grey got just enough breath to answer.
“No,” he said defiantly. “Go ahead and kill me.”
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- QOTD -- Janet, Tue, July 30 2024, 4:07:57
The following quote is taken from Written in My Own Heart’s Blood by Diana Gabaldon, Chapter 3, In Which the Women, As Usual, Pick up the Pieces. Copyright 2014, All rights reserved.
Jenny Murray had entered the house on the heels of William’s departure, and while the sight of her was a lessor shock than any of the others so far, it left me speechless. I goggled at my erstwhile sister-in-law---though, come to think, she still was my sister-in-law…..because Jamie was alive. Alive.
He’d been in my arms not ten minutes before, and the memory of his touch flickered through me like lightening in a bottle. I was dimly aware I was smiling like a loon, despite massive destruction, horrific scenes, William’s distress---if you could call an explosion like that “distress”---Jamie’s danger, and a faint wonder as to what either Jenny or Mrs. Figg, Lord John’s cook and housekeeper, might be about to say.
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- QOTD -- Janet, Mon, July 29 2024, 4:25:02
Quote of the Day for, Monday, July 29, 2024. The following quote is taken from Written in My Own Heart’s Blood by Diana Gabaldon. Chapter 2, Dirty Bastard. Copyright 2014, All Rights Reserved
“Bastard!” he said out loud, and shouted, “Bastard, bastard, bastard!” at the top of his lungs, hammering at the brick wall next to him with a clenched fist.
“Who’s a bastard?” said a curious voice behind him. He swung round to see a young woman looking at him with some interest. Her eyes moved slowly down his frame, taking note of the heaving chest, the bloodstains on the facings of his uniform coat, and the green smears of goose shit on his breeches. Her gaze reached his silver buckled shoes and returned to his face with more interest.
“I am,” he said, hoarse and bitter.
“Oh really?” She left the shelter of the doorway in which she’d been lingering and came across the alley to stand right in front of him. She was tall and slim and had a very fine pair of high young breasts---which were clearly visible under the thin muslin of her shift, because, while she had a silk petticoat, she wore no stays. No cap, either—her hair fell loose over her shoulders. A whore.
“I’m partial to bastards myself,” she said, and touched him lightly on the arm. “What kind of bastard are you? A wicked one? An evil one?”
“A sorry one,” he said, and scowled when she laughed. She saw the scowl, but didn’t pull back.
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- QOTD -- Janet, Sun, July 28 2024, 10:42:23
I thought I'd do QOTD, and happened to pick up MOBY. I opened to the first page, and found a great scene. Then I turned to the Second Chapter, and found another. Then the third.....I don't know where the quotes will take me, but I find it fascinating to take the trip
Quote of the day for Sunday, July 28, 2024
Written in My Own Heart's Blood, by Diana Gabaldon. Chapter 1, A Hundredweight of Stones. Copyright 2014, All Rights Reserved
Even as he did so, he found himself shaking his head. No, it had to be two cairns. His mam and Uncle Jamie were brother and sister, and the family could mourn them here together---but there were others he might bring, maybe, to remember and pay their respects. And those were the folks who would have known Jamie Fraser and loved him well but wouldn't ken Jenny Murray from a hole in the---
The image of his mother in a hole in the ground stabbed him like a fork, retreated with the recollection that she wasn't after all in a grave, and stabbed again all the harder for that.
The thought process here, mourning his mam and Uncle Jamie and how Ian's thoughts jump around remind me of times when I lost people who were special to me.
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- QOTD for Saturday, July 20, 2024 -- CindyG, Fri, July 19 2024, 20:41:01
The following quote is from Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 8, “Visitations.” Copyright ©️ 2021 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“‘Both, then,’ Roger said. ‘Two holes for the family, and a separate privy for visitors—or rather, for the surgery. Say it’s for convenience. Ye dinna want to seem highfalutin by not letting people use your own privy.’
‘No, that wouldna do at all.’ Jamie vibrated briefly then stilled, but stayed for a moment, looking down, a half smile still on his face. The smells of damp, fresh-dug earth and newly sawn wood rose thick around them, mingling with the scent of the fire, and Roger could almost imagine that he felt the house solidifying out of the smoke.
Jamie left off what he was thinking, then, and turned his head to look at Roger. ‘I missed ye, Roger Mac,’ he said.
Roger opened his mouth to reply, but his throat had closed as hard as if he’d swallowed a rock, and nothing came out but a muffled grunt.”
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- QOTD for Friday, July 19, 2024 -- CindyG, Thu, July 18 2024, 20:40:28
The following quote is from Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 6, “Home is the Hunter, Home From the Hill.” Copyright ©️ 2021 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“He turned his head, casting a look toward the distant mountain, where the sun was coming slowly down through a scatter of fat little clouds, painting their bellies with soft gold.
We both sighed a little at the sight, and he turned back and took my hand. ‘What I want ye to do, Sassenach, is sit wi’ me here for a moment—and tell me I’m no dreaming. She’s really here? She and the bairns and Roger Mac?’
I squeezed his hand and felt the same bubbling joy I could see in his face.
‘It’s real. They’re here. Right there, in fact.’”
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- What a devil of a trek it took for the Mackenzies to get back. I would need to sleep for a month, not get up at crack of stupid to go hunting. (NT) -- kgp, Fri, July 19 2024, 10:22:19
- So many emotions with the return of the Mackenzies - sheer joy, relief, terror, curiousity, and the ever present concerns of the practical - housing, feeding & clothing them, plus explaining where they've been. (NT) -- DianaH, Fri, July 19 2024, 10:37:01
- QOTD for Thursday, July 18, 2024 -- CindyG, Wed, July 17 2024, 19:29:29
The following quote is from Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 1, “The MacKenzies are Here.” Copyright ©️ 2021 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“‘I wanted…’ he whispered. ‘I wanted you. Had to have ye. But once I was inside ye, I wanted…’
He sighed then, deep, and moved deeper.
‘I thought I’d die of it, then and there. And I wanted to. Wanted to go—while I was inside ye.’ His voice had changed, still soft but somehow distant, detached—and I knew he’d moved away from the present moment, gone back to the cold stone dark and the panic, the fear and overwhelming need.
‘I wanted to spill myself into ye and let that be the last I ever knew, but then I started, and I kent it wasna meant to be that way—that I’d live, but that I would keep myself inside ye forever. That I was givin’ ye a child.’”
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- QOTD for Wednesday, July 17, 2024 -- CindyG, Tue, July 16 2024, 20:15:53
The following quote is from Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 1, “The MacKenzies are Here.” Copyright ©️ 2021 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“‘It was me freezing, at the abbey. I’d worn myself out tryin’ to walk, and ye wouldna let me eat anything, so I was starving to death, and—‘
‘Oh, you know that’s not true! You—‘
‘Would I lie to ye, Sassenach?’
‘Yes, you bloody would,’ I said. ‘You do it all the time. But never mind that now. You were freezing and starving, and suddenly decided that instead of asking Brother Paul for a blanket or a bowl of something hot, you should stagger naked down a dark stone corridor and get in bed with me.’
‘Some things are more important than food, Sassenach.’ His hand settled firmly on my arse. ‘And finding out whether I could ever bed ye again was more important than anything else just then. I reckoned if I couldn’t, I’d just walk on out into the snow and not come back.’”
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- QOTD for Tuesday, July 16, 2024 -- CindyG, Mon, July 15 2024, 19:43:22
The following quote is from Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 1, “The MacKenzies are Here.” Copyright ©️ 2021 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“‘I want ye, a nighean,’ he said softly. ‘Will ye lie wi’ me? It may be the last time we have any privacy for some while.’
I opened my mouth to say, ‘Of course!’ and instead yawned hugely.
I clapped a hand to my mouth, removing it to say, ‘Oh, dear. I really didn’t mean that.’
He was laughing, almost soundlessly. Shaking his head, he straightened out the rumpled quilt I’d been sitting on, knelt on it, and stretched up a hand to me.
‘Come lie wi’ me and watch the stars for a bit, Sassenach. If ye’re still awake in five minutes, I’ll take your clothes off and have ye naked in the moonlight.’
‘And if I’m asleep in five minutes?’ I kicked off my shoes and took his hand.
‘Then I won’t bother takin’ your clothes off.’”
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- For our Lovely Lurkers and the few active participants - you beautiful people - a discussion will occur next month as to whether there is enough traffic and interest to keep the Board going. This has been home to a lot of us for a very long time but it might be time to let it go. -- kgp, Mon, July 15 2024, 12:01:08
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- QOTD for Monday, July 15, 2024 -- CindyG, Sun, July 14 2024, 20:18:30
The following quote is from Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 1, “The MacKenzies are Here.” Copyright ©️ 2021 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“‘Aye,’ he said again after a long moment. ‘I ken what ye’re saying, Sassenach. I thought my heart would burst when I saw Brianna and kent it was really her, and the bairns…but for all the joy of it…see, I missed them cruelly, but I could take comfort in thinking they were safe. Now—‘
He stopped and I felt his heart beating against me, slow and steady. He took a deep breath, and the fire popped suddenly, a pocket of pitch exploding in sparks that disappeared into the night. A small reminder of the war that was rising, slowly, all around us.
‘I look at them,’ he said, ‘and my heart is suddenly filled with…’
‘Terror,’ I whispered, holding tight to him. ‘Sheer terror.’
‘Aye,’ he said. ‘That.’”
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- QOTD for Sunday, July 14, 2024 -- CindyG, Sat, July 13 2024, 19:45:05
The following quote is from Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 1, “The MacKenzies are Here.” Copyright ©️ 2021 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“‘I just asked Daddy if he remembered a Gathering we went to, years ago. The clans were all called at a big bonfire and I handed Daddy a burning branch and told him to go down to the fire and say the MacKenzies were there.’
‘Oh.’ Jem blinked once, then twice, looked at the fire blazing in front of us, and a slight frown formed between his soft red brows. ‘Where are we now?’
‘Home,’ Roger said firmly, and his eyes met mine, then passed to Jamie. ‘For good.’
Jamie let out the same breath I’d been holding since the afternoon, when those four figures had appeared suddenly in the clearing below, and we had flown down the hill to meet them. There had been one moment of joyous, wordless explosion as we all flung ourselves at one another, and then the explosion had widened as Amy Higgins came out of her cabin, summoned by the noise, to be followed by Bobby, then Aidan—who had whooped at sight of Jem and tackled him, knocking him flat—with Orrie and little Rob.”
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- QOTD for Saturday, July 13, 2024 -- kgp, Sat, July 13 2024, 5:29:53
The following quotation is from Written In Me Own Heart’s Blood by Diana Gabaldon. Copyright 2005 All Rights Reserved. Chapter 78 In The Wrong Place At The Wrong Time
Ian’s left eye was stinging badly and his vision was cloudy; a cut in his eyebrow was bleeding. He groped in the small bag at his waist and found the handkerchief wrapped around the smoked ear he carried. The cloth was a small one, but big enough to tie round his brow.
He wiped his knuckles over his mouth, already longing for more water. What ought he to do? He could see the standard now being vigorously waved, flapping heavily in the thick air, summoning troops to follow. Plainly Lee was headed over the bridge; he knew where he was going, and his troops with him. No one would - or could - stop to climb down a ravine to aid a wounded British soldier.
Ian shook his head experimentally and, finding that his brains didn’t seem to rattle, set off toward the southwest. With luck, he’d meet La Fayette or Uncle Jamie coming up, and maybe get another mount. With a horse, he could get William out of the ravine alone. And whatever else might happen today, he’d settle the hash of those Abenaki bastards.
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- QOTD for Friday, July 12, 2024 -- kgp, Fri, July 12 2024, 4:55:51
The following quotation is from An Echo In The Bone by Diana Gabaldon. Copyright 2005 All Rights Reserved. Chapter 100 Lady In Waiting
“Let her go,” said Ian, hoarse with running. His chest heaved and sweat was running down his face; she could smell him, even above the old man’s musty reek. She jerked her hand out of Arch Bug’s clasp, speechless with horror.
“Don’t kill him,” she said, to both of them. Neither of them listened.
“I told ye, did I not? Arch said to Ian. He sounded reasonable, a teacher pointing out the proof of a theorem. Quod erat demonstrandum. Q.E.D.
“Get away from her,” Ian said.
His hand hovered above his knife, and Rachel, choking on the words, said, “Ian! Don’t. Thee must not, Please!”
Ian gave her a look of furious confusion, but she held his eyes, and his hand dropped away. He took a deep breath and then a quick step to the side. Bug whirled to keep him in range of the ax, and Ian slid fast in front of Rachel. Screening her with his body. .”
“Kill me, then,” he said, deliberately to Bug. “Do it.”
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- QOTD for Thursday, July 11, 2024 -- kgp, Wed, July 10 2024, 18:48:48
The following quotation is from A Breath Of Snow And Ashes by Diana Gabaldon. Copyright 2005 All Rights Reserved. Chapter 36 Winter Wolves
Ian stood a moment longer, looking toward the house where his Emily was. His face felt hot, fevered with urgency. He burned harsh and bright, like a coal, but he could feel the heat seeping out of him into the cold sky, and his heart turning slowly black. Finally, he slapped his palm against his thigh and turned away into the forest, walking fast, the dog padding big and soundless by his side.
“Hail Mary, full of grace . . . “ He paid no attention to where he was going, praying under his breath, but aloud, for the comfort of his own voice in the silent dark.
Ought he be praying to one of the Mohawk spirits, he wondered? Would they be angry that he spoke to his old God, to God’s mother? Might they take revenge for such a slight, on his wife and child?
The child is dead already. He had no notion where that knowledge came from, but he knew it was so, as surely as if someone had spoken the words to him aloud. The knowledge was dispassionate, not yet food for grief; only a fact he knew to be true - and was appalled to know it.
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- QOTD for Wednesday, July 10, 2024 -- kgp, Tue, July 09 2024, 17:22:09
The following quotation is from The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon. Copyright 2001 All Rights Reserved. Chapter 109 The Voice of Time
Jamie laughed in gratified surprise, and Ian grinned broadly back. His face was weathered to a deep brown, and the dotted lines of his Mohawk tattoos ran in fierce crescents from nose to cheekbones - but for a moment, I saw his hazel eyes dance with mischief, and saw again the lad we had known.
“I used to say things over in my mind,” he said, the grin fading a little. “I’d look at things, and say the words in my mind - ‘Avbhar,’ ‘Coire,’ Skirlie’ - so as not to forget.” He glanced shyly at Jamie. “Ye did tell me to remember, Uncle.”
Jamie blinked, and cleared his throat.
“So I did, Ian,” he murmured, “I’m glad of it.” He squeezed Ian’s shoulder hard - and then they were embracing fiercely, thumping each other’s backs with wordless emotion.
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- QOTD for Tuesday, July 9, 2024 -- kgp, Tue, July 09 2024, 6:48:05
The following quotation is from Drums of Autumn by Diana Gabaldon. Copyright 1997 All Rights Reserved. Chapter 50 In Which All Is Revealed
“Ian,” I said, torn between exasperation and tenderness, “are you doing this because of Brianna’s baby?”
The white of his eyes flashed as he glanced at me, startled. He nodded, shifting his shoulders uncomfortably inside the stiff coat.
“Aye, of course,” he said, as though surprised that I should ask.
“Then you’re not in love with her?” I knew the answer quite well, but thought we had better have it all out..”
“Well . . . no,” he said, the painful blush renewing itself. “But I’m no promised to anyone else,” he hastened to add. “So that’s all right.”
“It is not all right,” I said firmly. “Ian, that’s a very kind notion of yours, but - “
“Oh, it’s not mine,” he interrupted, looking surprised. “Uncle Jamie thought of it.”
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- QOTD for Monday, July 8, 2024 -- kgp, Mon, July 08 2024, 5:08:23
The following quotation is from Voyager by Diana Gabaldon. Copyright 1994 All Rights Reserved. Chapter 27 Up in Flames
Young Ian, though, was the focus of attention, as multiple heads came popping out of the drawing room in response to the noise Bruno was making. With his singed hair, swollen red face, beaky nose, and lashless, blinking eyes, he strongly resembled the fledgling young of some exotic bird species - a newly hatched flamingo, perhaps. His face could scarcely grow redder, but the back of his neck flamed crimson, as the sound of feminine giggles followed us up the stairs.
Safely ensconced in the small upstairs sitting room, with the door closed, Ian turned to his hapless offspring.
“Going to live, are ye, ye wee bigger?” he demanded.
“Aye, sir,” Young Ian replied in a dismal croak, looking rather as though he wished the answer were “No.”
“Good,” his father said grimly. “D’ye want to explain yourself, or shall I just belt the hell out of ye now and save us both time?”
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- QOTD for July 6, 2024 - Sunday -- kgp, Sun, July 07 2024, 12:31:35
The following quotation is from Voyager by Diana Gabaldon. Copyright 1994 All Rights Reserved. Chapter 5 To Us a Child Is Given
“D’ye want to see him?”
“Oh, a him, is it?” With hands experienced by years of unclehood, he lifted the tiny package and cuddled it against himself, pushing back the flap of blanket that shaded its face.
Its eyes were closed tight, the lashes not visible in the deep crease of the eyelids. The eyelids themselves lay at a sharp angle above the smooth rounds of the cheeks, giving promise that it might - in this one recognizable feature - resemble its mother.
The head was oddly lumpy, with a lopsided appearance that made Jamie think uncomfortably of a kicked-in melon, but the small fat mouth was relaxed and peaceful, the moist pink underlip quivering faintly with the snore attendant on the exhaustion of being born.
“Hard work, was it?”
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- QOTD -- Janet, Sat, June 22 2024, 3:00:32
Well, this week started off to be ghostly, like the first two quotes, but as I wandered through Drums, it became first meetings, with foreshadowing of things to come. I guess that's kind of ghostly.....I know re-meting Sgt. Murchison certainly invoked ghosts....Hope you enjoyed the week.
Quote of the Day for Saturday, June 22, 2024
The following quote is from Drums of Autumn by Diana Gabaldon, Chapter20, The White Raven. Copyright 1997, all rights reserved.
The elder lady was Nawayenne, not Grabrielle’s grandmother as I had thought, but rather Nacognaweto’s. This lady was light-boned, thin, and bent with rheumatism, but bright eyed as the sparrow she so strongly resembled. She wore a small leather bag tied round her neck, ornamented with a rough green stone pierced for stringing, and the spotted tail feathers of a woodpecker. She had a larger bag, this one of cloth, tied at her waist. She saw me looking at the green stains on the rough cloth, and smiled, showing two prominent yellow front teeth.
………Moved by curiosity, and an impulse I couldn’t describe, I asked Grabrielle about the old lady’s amulet, hoping this wasn’t an insufferable breech of good manners.
“Grandmere est…….” She hesitated, looking for the right French word, but I already knew.
“Pas docteur,” I said, “et pas sorciere, magicienne. Elle est…..” I hesitated too; there really wasn’t a suitable word for it in French, after all.
“We say she is a singer,” Berthe put in shyly in French. “We call it shaman; her name, it means ‘It may be; it will happen.’”
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- QOTD -- Janet, Fri, June 21 2024, 10:17:45
The following quote is from Drums of Autumn by Diana Gabaldon, Chapter13, An Examination of Conscience. Copyright 1997, all rights reserved.
Dim as it was in the taproom, I could see the man’s face go blank with shock. Jamie came to an abrupt halt behind me. He said something in Gaelic under his breath that I recognized as a vicious obscenity, but then he was moving forward past me, with no sign of hesitation in his manner.
“Sargent Murchison,” he said, in tone of mild surprise, as one might greet a casual acquaintance. “I had not thought to lay eyes on you again---not in this world, at least.”
The Sargent’s expression strongly suggested that the feeling was mutual. Also that any meeting this side of heaven was too soon. Blood flooded his beefy, pockmarked cheeks with red, and he shoved back his bench with a screech of wood on the sanded floor.
“You!” he said.
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- QOTD -- Janet, Thu, June 20 2024, 10:55:11
Quote of the Day for Thursday, June 20, 2024
The following quote is from Drums of Autumn by Diana Gabaldon, Chapter 10, Jocasta. Copyright 1997, all rights reserved
I found her at once, among the people hurrying out of the house and down the walk. I would have know her for a MacKenzie, even if I hadn’t known who she was. She had the bold bones, the broad Viking cheekbones, and high, smooth brow of her brothers, Colum and Dougal. And like her nephew, like her great-niece, she had the extraordinary height that marked them all as descendants of the same blood.
A head higher than the bevy of black servants who surrounded her, she floated down the path from the house, hand on the arm of her butler, though a woman less in need of support, I had never seen.
……Suddenly, the truth dawned on me: her hand on the butler’s arm, her touching Jamie’s face in greeting, the glass put ready for her grasp, and the shadow on her face when Ian talked about her painting. Jocasta Cameron was blind.
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- Nice to meet you, Jocasta! Like all the MacKenzie's, there's a lot hidden beneath surface impressions. (NT) -- kgp, Thu, June 20 2024, 18:22:03
- Blind or not, we find Jocasta to be a force, not a helpless woman. She's as sly as any Mackenzie. (NT) -- DianaH, Fri, June 21 2024, 9:32:59
- QOTD -- Janet, Wed, June 19 2024, 4:05:10
Quote of the Day for Wednesday, June 19, 2024
The following quote is from Drums of Autumn by Diana Gabaldon, Chapter 6, I Encounter a Hernia. Copywrite 1997, all rights reserved.
“Claire Fraser,” I said, offering him a hand in fascination. He squinted at it a moment, brought my fingers to his nose and sniffed them, then looked up and broke into a wide smile, nonetheless charming for missing half his teeth.
“Why you’ll maybe be a yarb-woman, won’t you?”
“I will?”
He turned my hand gently over , tracing the chlorophyll stains around my cuticles.
“A green fingered lady might just be tending her roses, but a lady whose hands smell of sassafras root and Jesuit bark is like to know more than how to make flowers bloom. Don’t you reckon that’s so?” he asked, turning a friendly gaze on Ian, who was viewing Mr. Myers with unconcealed interest.
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- QOTD -- Janet, Tue, June 18 2024, 3:54:12
The following quote is from Drums of Autumn by Diana Gabaldon, Chapter 2, In Which We Meet a Ghost. Copywrite 1997, all rights reserved.
“Sacree Vierge!”
My head snapped up. Everyone was shouting, and the horses, startled, were neighing and jerking frantically against their hobbles, making the wagon hop and lurch like a drunken beetle.
“Wuff!” Rollo said next to me.
“Jesus!” said Ian, goggling at the wagon. “Jesus Christ!”
I swung in the direction he was looking and screamed. A pale fugure loomed out of the wagon bed, swaying with the wagon’s jerking. I had no time to see more before all hell broke loose
And so we meet Stephan Bonnet…….
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- QOTD -- Janet, Mon, June 17 2024, 4:06:56
Quote of the Day for Monday, June 17, 2024
Taken from Drums of Autumn by Diana Gabaldon, Chapter 1, A Hanging in Eden. Copywrite 1997, All rights reserved
"Ah the pity of it." Duncan Innes was quite drunk by now. He sat slumped against the wall, his armless shoulder rising higher than the other, giving him a strange, humpbacked appearance. "That a dear man like Gavin should come to such an end!" He shook his head lugubriously, swing it back and forth over his alecup like the clapper of a funeral bell.
"No family left to mourn him, cast alone in a savage land---hanged as a felon, and to be buried in an unconsecrated grave. Not even a proper lament to be sung for him!" He picked up the cup, and with some difficulty, found his mouth with it. He drank deep and set it down with a muffled clang.
"Well, he shall have a caithris!" He glared belligerently from Jaimie to Fergus to Ian. "Why not?"
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- QOTD -- Janet, Sun, June 16 2024, 9:39:58
If anyone wants to join me in quotes, please jump in. Otherwise, we'll romp through Drums of Autumn....
Quote of the Day for Sunday, June 16, 2024
Taken from Drums of Autumn, Prologue. Written by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved. Copywrite 1997
All the time the ghosts flit past and through us, hiding in the future. We look in the mirror and see shades of other faces looking back through the years; we see the shape of memory, standing solid in an empty doorway. By blood and by choice, we make our ghosts; we haunt ourselves.
( I wanted to include the whole Prologue about ghosts, but that would be WAY too long. This bit lets us know that we are all haunted.....)
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- QOTD for Saturday, June 15, 2024 -- CindyG, Fri, June 14 2024, 19:44:56
The following quote is from The Outlandish Companion by Diana Gabaldon, “Prologue.” Copyright ©️ 1999, 2015 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“I was sitting in church the next day, thinking idly about this particular show (no, oddly enough, I don’t remember what the sermon was about that day), when I said suddenly to myself, Well, heck. You want to write a book, you need a historical period, and it doesn’t matter where or when. The important thing is just to start, somewhere. Okay. Fine. Scotland, eighteenth century.
So I went out to my car after Mass, dug a scrap of paper out from under the front seat, and that’s where I began to write Outlander; no outline, no plot, no characters—just a time and a place. . . .
I had not the slightest intention of telling my online acquaintances in the Literary Forum what I was up to. I didn’t want even the best-intentioned of advice; I wanted simply to figure out how to write a novel, and was convinced that I must do this on my own—I’d never asked anyone how to write a software review or a comic book script, after all, and I didn’t want anyone telling me things before I’d worked out for myself what I was doing.
So I didn’t say anything. To anybody. I just wrote, a bit every day, in between the other things I was doing, like changing diapers and writing grant proposals.”
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- QOTD for Friday, June 14, 2024 -- CindyG, Thu, June 13 2024, 18:44:33
The following quote is from The Outlandish Companion by Diana Gabaldon, “Prologue.” Copyright ©️ 1999, 2015 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“ Okay. Fine. Where to set this historical novel? I have no formal background in history; one time or place would do as well as another.
Enter another accident. I rarely watch TV, but at the time I was in the habit of viewing weekly PBS reruns of Doctor Who (a British science-fiction serial), because it gave me just enough time to do my nails. So, while pondering the setting for my hypothetical historical novel, I happened to see one very old episode of Doctor Who featuring a ‘companion’ of the Doctor’s—a young Scottish lad named Jamie MacCrimmon, whom the Doctor had picked up in 1745. This character wore a kilt, which I thought rather fetching, and demonstrated—in this particular episode—a form of pigheaded male gallantry that I’ve always found endearing: the strong urge on the part of a man to protect a woman, even though he may realize that she’s plainly capable of looking after herself.”
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- QOTD for Thursday, June 13, 2024 -- CindyG, Wed, June 12 2024, 19:00:47
The following quote is from The Outlandish Companion by Diana Gabaldon, “Prologue.” Copyright ©️ 1999, 2015 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“So…what kind of novel should this be? Well, I read everything, and lots of it, but perhaps more mysteries than anything else. Fine, I thought, I’d write a mystery. But then I began to think. Mysteries have plots. I wasn’t sure I knew how to do plots. Perhaps I should try something easier for my practice book, then write a mystery when I felt ready for a real book.
Fine. What was the easiest possible kind of book for me to write, for practice? (I didn’t see any point in making things difficult for myself.) After considerable thought, it seemed to me that perhaps a historical novel would be the easiest thing to try. I was a research professor, after all; I had a huge university library available, and I knew how to use it. I thought it seemed a little easier to look things up than to make them up—and if I turned out to have no imagination, I could steal things from the historical record.”
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- QOTD for Wednesday, June 12, 2024 -- CindyG, Tue, June 11 2024, 19:42:10
The following quote is from The Outlandish Companion by Diana Gabaldon, “Prologue.” Copyright ©️ 1999, 2015 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“This was a fascinating group of individuals who all liked books. That was the only common denominator; the group included people of every conceivable background and profession—among them, a few published writers, a good many aspiring writers, and a great many nonwriters who simply liked to discuss books and writing. Finding this congenial gathering to be the ideal social life for a busy person with small children—something like a twenty-four-hour electronic cocktail party—I promptly signed up with CompuServe, and began logging on to the Literary Forum several times a day, to read and exchange posted messages with the kindred spirits there.
At this point in my life, I had a full-time job with the university, I was writing part-time for the computer press, and I had three children, ages six, four, and two. I’m not sure quite why I thought this was the ideal time to begin writing my long-intended novel—mania induced by sleep deprivation, perhaps—but I did.
I didn’t intend to show this putative novel to anyone. It wasn’t for publication; it was for practice. I had come to the conclusion—based on experience—that the only real way of learning to write a novel was probably to write a novel. That’s how I learned to write scientific articles, comic books, and software reviews, after all. Why should a novel be different?”
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- QOTD for Tuesday, June 11, 2024 -- CindyG, Mon, June 10 2024, 19:31:11
The following quote is from The Outlandish Companion by Diana Gabaldon, “Prologue.” Copyright ©️ 1999, 2015 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“I sent a query letter to the editors of Byte, InfoWorld, PC, and several other large computer magazines, enclosing both a recent copy of Science Software and a copy of a Walt Disney comic book I had written. The query said roughly, ‘As you can see from the enclosed, you’ll never find anyone better qualified to review scientific and technical software—and at the same time, capable of appealing to a wide popular audience.’
By good fortune, the microcomputer revolution had just bloomed, to the point where there actually was a fair amount of scientific and technical software on the market. And as one of perhaps a dozen ‘experts’ in the newly invented field of scientific computation (it’s really pretty easy to be an expert, when there are only twelve people in the world who do what you do), I got immediate assignments. It was in the course of one of these that a software vendor sent me a trial membership to CompuServe, for the purpose of mentioning a support forum that the vendor maintained for the software I was reviewing.
I spent half an hour checking out the software support forum, and then—finding myself with several hours of free connect time in hand—set out to see what else might be available in this fascinating new online world. This being the mid-1980s, there was not nearly so much online as there is today (there was no World Wide Web; only the subscription services, such as CompuServe, GEnie, and Prodigy. America Online didn’t even exist yet). Still, among the resources available then (on CompuServe) was a group called the Literary Forum.”
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- QOTD for Monday, June 10, 2024 -- CindyG, Sun, June 09 2024, 20:45:30
The following quote is from The Outlandish Companion by Diana Gabaldon, “Prologue.” Copyright ©️ 1999, 2015 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“At the time when my desire to write novels resurfaced, though, I was working at Arizona State University, writing Fortran programs to analyze the contents of bird gizzards. . . .
At the conclusion of eighteen months of labor—which resulted in a gigantic eight-hundred-page coauthored monograph on the dietary habits of the birds of the Colorado River Valley—I said to myself, You know, there are probably only five other people in the entire world who care about bird gizzards. Still, if they knew about these programs I’ve written, it would save each one of those five people eighteen months of effort. That’s about seven and a half years of wasted work. Why is there no way for me to find those five people and share these programs with them?
The net result of this rhetorical question was a scholarly journal called Science Software, which I founded, edited, and wrote most of for several years. A secondary result was that when my husband quit his job to start his own business and we needed more money, I was in a position to seek freelance writing work with the computer press.”
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- QOTD for Sunday, June 9, 2024 -- CindyG, Sat, June 08 2024, 19:24:34
The following quote is from The Outlandish Companion by Diana Gabaldon, “Prologue.” Copyright ©️ 1999, 2015 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“Well, it was all an accident, is what it was. I wasn’t trying to be published; I wasn’t even going to show it to anyone. I just wanted to write a book—any kind of book.
Not actually any kind of book. Fiction. See, I’m a storyteller. I can’t take any particular credit for this—I was born that way. When my sister and I were very young and shared a bedroom, we stayed up far into the night, nearly every night, telling enormous, convoluted, continuing stories, with casts of thousands (like I said, I was born with this).
Still, even though I knew I was a storyteller from an early age, I didn’t know quite what to do about it. Writing fiction is not a clearly marked career path, after all. It’s not like law, where you do go to school for X years, pass an exam, and bing! you can charge people two hundred dollars an hour to listen to your expert opinions (my sister’s a lawyer). Writers mostly make it up as they go along, and there is no guarantee that if you do certain things, you will get published. Still less is there any guarantee that you’ll make a living at it.”
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- QOTD for Saturday -- kgp, Sat, June 08 2024, 4:07:27
The following quotation is from Outlander by Diana Gabaldon Copyright 1991 All Rights Reserved. Chapter 3 The Man In The Woods
Not until we were picking our way cautiously down the far side of the hill did I gather breath and wit enough to ask where we were going. Receiving no answer from my companion, I repeated “Where are we going?” in a louder tone.
To my considerable surprise, he rounded on me, face contorted, and pushed me off the path. As I opened my mouth in protest, he clapped a hand over it and dragged me to the ground, rolling on top of me.
Not again! I thought, and was heaving desperately to and fro to free myself when I heard what he had heard. And suddenly lay still. Voices called back and forth, accompanied by trampling and splashing sounds. They were unmistakably English voices. I struggled violently to get my mouth free. I sank my teeth into his hand, and had time only to register the fact that he had been eating pickled herring with his fingers, before something crashed against the back of my skull, and everything went dark.
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- QOTD for Friday -- kgp, Fri, June 07 2024, 6:18:21
The following quotation is from Outlander by Diana Gabaldon Copyright 1991 All Rights Reserved. Chapter 3 The Man In The Woods
There was a sudden whoosh from above, followed immediately by a blur before my eyes and a dull thud. Captain Randall was on the ground at my feet, under a heaving mass that looked like a bundle of old plaid rags. A brown, rocklike fist rose out of the mass and descended with considerable force, meeting decisively with some bony protuberance, by the sound of the resultant crack. The Captain’s struggling legs, shiny in tall brown boots, relaxed quite suddenly.
I found myself staring into a pair of sharp black eyes. The sinewy hand that had temporarily distracted the Captain’s unwelcome attentions was attached like a limpet to my forearm.
“And who the hell are you?” I said in astonishment.
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- QOTD for Thursday -- kgp, Thu, June 06 2024, 8:13:42
The following quotation is from Outlander by Diana Gabaldon Copyright 1991 All Rights Reserved. Chapter 3 The Man In The Woods
“Not just at present, Chuckie. I’m asking myself,” he said, conversationally, “just why a whore abroad in her shift would be wearing her shoes? And quite fine ones, at that,” he added, glancing at my plain brown loafers.
“A what!” I exclaimed.
He ignored me completely. His gaze had returned to my face, and he suddenly stepped forward and gripped my chin in his hand. I grabbed his wrist and yanked.
“Let go of me!” He had fingers like steel. Disregarding my efforts to free myself, he turned my face from one side to the other, so the fading afternoon light shone on it.
“The skin of a lady, I’ll swear,” he murmured to himself. He leaned forward and sniffed. “And a French scent in your hair.”
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- QOTD for Wednesday -- kgp, Wed, June 05 2024, 7:07:32
The following quotation is from Outlander by Diana Gabaldon Copyright 1991 All Rights Reserved. Chapter 3 The Man In The Woods
Had he been a snake, I would have stepped on him. He stood so quietly among the saplings as almost to have been one of them, and I did not see him until a hand shot out and gripped me by the arm.
Its companion clapped over my mouth as I was dragged backward into the oak grove, thrashing wildly in panic. My captor, whoever he was, seemed not much taller than I, but rather noticeably strong in the forearms, I smelled a faint flowery scent, as of lavender water, and something more spicy, mingled with the sharper reek of male perspiration. As the leaves whipped back into place in the path of our passage, though, I noticed something familiar about the hand and forearm clasped about my waist.
I shook my head free of the restraint over my mouth.
“Frank!” I burst out. “What in heaven’s name are you playing at?”
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- QOTD for Tuesday -- kgp, Tue, June 04 2024, 7:59:58
The following quotation is from Outlander by Diana Gabaldon Copyright 1991 All Rights Reserved. Chapter 2 Standing Stones.
It was in fact nearly eleven before I reached the stone circle. It was drizzling, and I was soaked through, not having thought to bring a mac. I made a cursory examination of the outside of the circle, but if there had ever been a fire there, someone had taken pains to remove its traces.
The plant was easier to find. It was right where I remembered it, near the foot of the tallest stone, I took several clippings of the vine and stowed them temporarily in my handkerchief, meaning to deal with them properly when I got back to Mrs. Baird’s tiny car, where I had left the heavy plant presses.
The tallest stone of the circle was cleft, with a vertical split dividing the two massive pieces. Oddly, the pieces had been drawn apart by some means. Though you could see that the facing surfaces matched, they were separated by a gap of two or three feet.
There was a deep humming noise coming from somewhere near at hand. I thought there might be a beehive lodged in some crevice of teh rock, and placed a hand on the stone in order to lean into the cleft.
The stone screamed.
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- QOTD for Monday -- kgp, Tue, June 04 2024, 7:47:04
The following quotation is from Outlander by Diana Gabaldon Copyright 1991 All Rights Reserved. Chapter 2 Standing Stones.
“Goodness!” I stretched, trying to get the kinks out of my legs and back. “That was quite a sight, wasn’t it?”
“Wonderful!” enthused Frank. “I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.” He slipped out of the bush like a snake, leaving me to disentangle myself while he cast about the interior of the circle, nose to the ground like a bloodhound.
“Whatever are you looking for?” I asked. I entered the circle with some hesitation, but day was fully come, and the stones, while still impressive, had lost a good deal of the brooding menace of dawn light.
“Marks.” he replied, crawling about on hands and knees, eyes intent on the short turf. “How did they know where to start and stop?”
“Good question. I don’t see anything.” Casting an eye over the ground, though, I did see and interesting plant growing near the base of one of the tall stones. Myosotis? No, probably not; this had orange centers to the deep blue flowers, Intrigued, I started toward it.
Last edited by author: Tue, June 04 2024, 7:47:30
Edited 1 time.
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- QOTD for Sunday - 50 lashes with wet noodle for me. I'll catch up. -- kgp, Tue, June 04 2024, 7:39:44
The following quotation is from Outlander by Diana Gabaldon Copyright 1991 All Rights Reserved. Chapter 2 Standing Stones.
It wasn’t until we were undressing for bed that I remembered to mention the miniature henge on Craigh na Dun to Frank. Hid fatigue vanished at once.
“Really? And you know where it is? How marvelous, Claire!” He beamed and began rattling through his suitcase.
“What are you looking for?”
“The alarm clock,” he replied, hauling it out.
“Whatever for?” I asked in astonishment.
“I want to be up in time to see them.”
“Who?”
“The witches.”
“Witches? Who told you there were witches?”
“The vicar,” Frank answered, clearly enjoying the joke. “His housekeeper’s one of them.”
I thought of the dignified Mrs. Graham and snorted derisively. “Don’t be ridiculous!”
Last edited by author: Tue, June 04 2024, 7:47:48
Edited 2 times.
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- QOTD for Saturday, May 18, 2024 -- CindyG, Fri, May 17 2024, 19:49:53
The following quote is from Written in My Own Heart’s Blood, chapter 24, “Welcome Coolness in the Heat, Comfort in the Midst of Woe.” Copyright ©️ 2014 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“‘Ask me to your bed,’ he said, breathless, hands on my arms. ‘I shall come to ye. For that matter—I shall come, whether ye ask it or no. But remember, Sassenach—I am your man; I serve ye as I will.’
‘Do,’ I said. ‘Please do. Jamie, I want you so!’
He seized my arse in both hands, hard enough to leave bruises, and I arched up into him, grasping, hands sliding on his sweat-slick skin.
‘God, Claire, I need ye!’
Rain was roaring on the tin roof now, and lightning struck close by, blue-white and sharp with ozone. We rode it together, forked and light-blind, breathless, and the thunder rolled through our bones.”
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- WOW! What a week! Thank you for this. (NT) -- Janet, Sat, May 18 2024, 10:23:20
- I couldn’t remember exactly when this happened so I read the chapter title and it struck me how beautiful that thought is; comfort in the midst of woe. Thank you, Cindy, for a week of “hump days!” (NT) -- Kathy in PA, Sun, May 19 2024, 4:29:31
- This week's quotes were a reminder that DG's sex scenes are so much more than "Insert Tab A into Slot B, repeat as necessary." Wow! (NT) -- DianaH, Mon, May 20 2024, 10:20:46
- QOTD for Friday, May 17, 2024 -- CindyG, Thu, May 16 2024, 19:31:33
The following quote is from An Echo in the Bone by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 11, “Transverse Lie.” Copyright ©️ 2009 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“‘This is silly,’ she said, ‘I can see my breath—and yours. It’s cold enough to blow smoke rings. We’ll freeze.’
‘No, we won’t. Ken the way the Indians make fire?’
‘What, rubbing a dry stick on a …’
‘Aye, friction.’ He’d got her petticoats up; her thigh was smooth and cold under his hand. “I see it’s no going to be dry, though—Christ, Sassenach, what have ye been about?” He had her firmly in the palm of his hand, warm and soft and juicy, and she squealed at the chill of his touch, loud enough that one of the mules let out a startled wheeze. She wriggled, just enough to make him take his hand out from between her legs and insert something else, quick.
‘Ye’re going to rouse the whole barn,’ he observed, breathless. God, the enveloping shock of the heat of her made him giddy.
She ran her cold hands up under his shirt and pinched both his nipples, hard, and he yelped, then laughed.
‘Do that again,’ he said, and bending, stuck his tongue in her cold ear for the pleasure of hearing her shriek. She wriggled and arched her back, but didn’t—he noticed—actually turn her head away. He took her earlobe gently between his teeth and began to worry it, rogering her slowly and laughing to himself at the noises she made.
It had been a long time of making silent love.
Her hands were busy at his back; he’d only let down the flap of his breeks and pulled his shirttail up out of the way, but she’d got the shirt out at the back now, and shoved both hands down his breeks and got his hurdies in a good two-handed grip. She pulled him in tight, digging in her nails, and he took her meaning. He let go her ear, rose on his hands, and rode her solid, the straw a-rustle round them like the crackle of burning.
He wanted simply to let go at once, spill himself and fall on her, hold her to his body and smell her hair in a doze of warmth and joy. A dim sense of obligation reminded him that she’d asked him for this; she’d needed it. He couldn’t go and leave her wanting.
He closed his eyes and slowed himself, lowered himself onto her so her body strained and rose along his length, the cloth of their clothes rasping and bunching up between them. He got a hand down under her, cupped her bare bum, and slid his fingers into the straining warm crease of her buttocks. Slid one a little farther, and she gasped. Her hips rose, trying to get away, but he laughed deep in his throat and didn’t let her. Wiggled the finger.
‘Do that again,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘Make that noise again for me.’
She made a better one, one he’d never heard before, and jerked under him, quivering and whimpering.
He pulled out the finger and guddled her, light and quick, all along the slick deep parts, feeling his own cock under his fingers, big and slippery, stretching her …
He made a terrible noise himself—like a dying cow—but was too happy to be shamed.
‘Ye’re no verra peaceful, Sassenach,’ he murmured a moment later, breathing in the smell of musk and new life. ‘But I like ye fine.’”
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- QOTD for Thursday, May 16, 2024 -- CindyG, Wed, May 15 2024, 19:30:56
The following quote is from A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 66, “The Dark Rises.” Copyright ©️ 2005 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“‘I’ve the hands of a bricklayer,’ he said, laughing a little as I passed my lips lightly over the roughened knuckles and the still-sensitive tips of his long fingers.
‘Calluses on a man’s hands are deeply erotic,’ I assured him.
‘Are they, so?’ His free hand passed lightly over my shorn head and down the length of my back. I shivered and pressed closer to him, self-consciousness beginning to be forgotten. My own free hand roamed down the length of his body, toying with the soft, wiry bush of his hair, and the damply tender, half-hard cock.
He arched his back a little, then relaxed.
‘Well, I’ll tell ye, Sassenach,’ he said. ‘If I havena got calluses there, it’s no fault of yours, believe me.’”
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- QOTD for Wednesday, May 15, 2024 -- CindyG, Tue, May 14 2024, 19:45:32
The following quote is from The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 13, “Beans and Barbecue.” Copyright ©️ 2001 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“‘I think we’ll not have time for the lot, Jamie dear,’ said the priest. ‘But if ye were to tell me about one or two of these occasions, just so as I could be formin’ a notion as to the … er … severity of the offense …?’
‘Och, aye. Well, the worst was likely the time wi’ the butter churn.’
‘Butter churn? Ah … the sort with the handle pokin’ up?” Father Kenneth’s tone encompassed a sad compassion for the lewd possibilities suggested by this. “Oh, no, Father; it was a barrel churn. The sort that lies on its side, aye, with a wee handle to turn it? Well, it’s only that she was workin’ the churn with great vigor, and the laces of her bodice undone, so that her breasts wobbled to and fro, and the cloth clinging to her with the sweat of her work. Now, the churn was just the right height—and curved, aye?—so as make me think of bendin’ her across it and lifting her skirts, and—‘
My mouth opened involuntarily in shock. That was my bodice he was describing, my breasts, and my butter churn! To say nothing of my skirts. I remembered that particular occasion quite vividly, and if it had started with an impure thought, it certainly hadn’t stopped there.“
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- This made me laugh, again. Every time I picture Jamie’s “wellllll, Father” fake pious confession and Claire’s dawning realization - it cracks me up. (NT) -- Kathy in PA, Wed, May 15 2024, 3:19:10
- This whole section of the book made me laugh, what with the butter churn, Jamie and Germaine making faces at Bree's wedding, etc. (NT) -- DianaH, Wed, May 15 2024, 14:23:00
- QOTD for Tuesday, May 14, 2024 -- CindyG, Mon, May 13 2024, 20:25:44
The following quote is from Drums of Autumn by Diana Gabaldon, chapter. 2, “In Which We Meet a Ghost.” Copyright ©️ 1997 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“Then he stirred and came toward me, still intent, but still no longer. His thighs were cold as water when he touched me, but within seconds he warmed and grew hot. Sweat sprang up at once where his hands touched my skin, and a flush of hot moisture dampened my breasts once more, making them round and slick against the hardness of his chest.
Then his mouth moved to mine and I melted—almost literally—into him. I didn’t care how hot it was, or whether the dampness on my skin was my sweat or his. Even the clouds of insects faded into insignificance. I raised my hips and he slid home, slick and solid, the last faint coolness of him quenched by my heat, like the cold metal of a sword, slaked in hot blood.”
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- QOTD for Monday, May 13, 2024 -- CindyG, Sun, May 12 2024, 21:14:22
The following quote is from Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 6, “Making Waves.” Copyright ©️ 1992 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“‘How did you get me in bed?’
‘I didn’t. I couldn’t budge you, so I just laid a quilt over you and left you on the hearth. You came to life and crawled in under your own power, somewhere in the middle of the night.’
He seemed surprised, and opened the other eye again.
‘I did?’
I nodded and tried to smooth down the hair that spiked out over his left ear.
‘Oh, yes. Very single-minded, you were.’
‘Single-minded?’ He frowned, thinking, and stretched, thrusting his arms up over his head. Then he looked startled.
‘No. I couldn’t have.’
‘Yes, you could. Twice.’
He squinted down his chest, as though looking for confirmation of this improbable statement, then looked back at me.
‘Really? Well, that’s hardly fair; I dinna remember a thing about it.’”
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- QOTD for Sunday, May 12, 2024 -- CindyG, Sun, May 12 2024, 8:01:15
The following quote is from Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 18, “Raiders in the Rocks.” Copyright ©️1991 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“‘Jamie,’ I panted. He pushed his kilt out of the way and pressed my hand against him.
‘Bloody Christ,’ I said, impressed despite myself. My sense of propriety slipped another notch.
‘Fighting gives ye a terrible cockstand, after. Ye want me, do ye no?’ he said, pulling back a little to look at me. It seemed pointless to deny it, what with all the evidence to hand. He was hard as a brass rod against my bared thigh.
‘Er … yes … but …’
He took a firm grip on my shoulders with both hands.
‘Be quiet, Sassenach,’ he said with authority. ‘It isna going to take verra long.’”
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- QOTD for Friday, May 10, 2024 -- kgp, Fri, May 10 2024, 5:47:16
The following quotation is from Go Tell The Bees That I Am Gone by Diana Gabaldon. Copyright 2021 All Rights Reserved Chapter 78 Thee Smells of Blood
“Friend Silvia,” Ian said softly, “this is my wife, Rachel.”
“Friend?” Rachel said, astonished but heartened, “Thee is a Friend?”
The woman nodded, uncertain, “I am,” she said, and her voice was soft, but clear. “We are. I am Silvia Hardman, and these are my daughters: Patience, Prudence, and little Chastity.”
“They’ll be needing something to eat, mo cridhe. And then maybe - “
“A little hot water,” Silvia Hardman blurted. “Please. To - to wash.” Her hands were clenched on her knees, crumpling the faded homespun, and Rachel gave the hands a quick look - possibly she had helped Ian in his killing? The stone was hard in her throat again, but she nodded, touching the smallest of the little girls, a pretty, round-faced babe somewhere between one and two, more than half asleep on a sister’s lap.
“Right away,” she promised. “Ian - get thy mother.”
“I’m here,” Jenny said from behind her. Her voice was alert and interested. “I see we’ve got company.”
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- QOTD for Thursday, May 9, 2024 -- kgp, Thu, May 09 2024, 8:11:42
The following quotation is from Go Tell The Bees That I Am Gone by Diana Gabaldon. Copyright 2021 All Rights Reserved Chapter 77 City Of Brotherly Love
“Yes. He - he brought us food. Every time he came.”
Her eye lingered on the awkward shape, but her face was unreadable.
“That’s no a bad epitaph,” he told her, taking the valise. “When my time comes, I hope mine is as good. Mount up. I’ll take care of this.”
He helped her up, then lifted Prudence, who squealed with excitement, and Chastity, who just stared, round-eyed, and sucked her thumb hard.
“Patience, ye’ll come with me, aye?” He tied the bundle of possessions at the back of the saddle, boosted Patience up front, then swung up behind her, a rope to the bridle of the Justice’s horse in one hand. He clicked his tongue to the horses and the grim little cavalcade lurched off into the lightly falling snow. None of the Hardmans looked back.
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- QOTD for Wednesday, May 8, 2024 -- kgp, Wed, May 08 2024, 5:37:41
The following quotation is from Go Tell The Bees That I Am Gone by Diana Gabaldon. Copyright 2021 All Rights Reserved Chapter 77 City Of Brotherly Love
“Go away,” she said. “And tell thy uncle to stop coming here.”
He looked her over carefully, but she seemed to be in her right mind. Homely as a board fence, but sensible enough.
“I think we may be talkin’ of different men, lassie. My uncle is Jamie Fraser, of Fraser’s Ridge in North Carolina. He stayed with your family for a day or two sometime past - “ He counted backward in his head and found an approximation, “It would ha’ been maybe two weeks before the battle at Monmouth; will ye have heard o’ that one?”
Evidently she had, for she scrambled out of the bush in such a hurry as to snag both limp brown hair and ratty shawl and emerged covered with dead leaves.
“Jamie Fraser? A very large Scottish man with red hair and a bad back?”
“That’s the one,” Ian said, and smiled at here. “Will your mam be at home, maybe? My uncle’s sent me to see to her welfare.”
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- QOTD for Tuesday, May 7, 2024 -- kgp, Tue, May 07 2024, 4:03:37
The Following Quotation is from Written In My Own Heart’s Blood by Diana Gabaldon. Copyright 2015 All Rights Reserved. Chapter 10 The Descent Of The Holy Ghost Upon A Reluctant Disciple
“Don’t let Mam give thee rhubarb syrup,” she advised him.”It makes thee shit like the blazes, and if thee can’t get to the privy, it - “
“Prudence!”
Prudence obligingly shut her mouth, though she continued to look Jamie over with interest. Her sister knelt and rummaged under the bed, emerging with the family utensil, this a homely object of brown earthenware, which she presented gravely for inspection.
“We’ll turn our backs, sir, if thee should need to - “
“Patience!”
Red in the face, Mrs. Hardman took the pisspot from her daughter and shooed the little girls to the table, where - with a glance at Jamie to be sure he had meant it - she took the bread and meat and apples from his bag, dividing the food scrupulously into three parts: two large portions for the girls, and a smaller one for herself, put side for later.
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- QOTD for Monday, May 6, 2024 -- kgp, Mon, May 06 2024, 5:38:17
The Following Quotation is from Written In My Own Heart’s Blood by Diana Gabaldon. Copyright 2015 All Rights Reserved. Chapter 10 The Descent Of The Holy Ghost Upon A Reluctant Disciple
“Is thee ill? I could give thee rhubarb syrup,” she offered. He managed to smile at that, shaking his head.
“I thank ye, ma’am. It’s no but a clench in my back. When it eases, all will be well.” The trouble was that until it eased, he was all but helpless, and the dawning realization of that gave him a sense of panic.
“Oh.” The woman hesitated for a moment, hovering, but then the baby started to wail and she turned away to fetch it. A little girl - five or six, he thought, a stunted little creature - crawled out from under the bed and stared at him curiously.
“Is thee going to stay to supper?” she asked, in a high, precise voice. She gave him an appraising frown. “Thee looks like thee would eat a lot.”
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- QOTD for Sunday, May 5, 2024 -- kgp, Sun, May 05 2024, 10:58:00
The Following Quotation is from Written In My own Heart’s Blood by Diana Gabaldon. Copyright 2015 All Rights Reserved. Chapter 10 The Descent Of The Holy Ghost Upon A Reluctant Disciple
“Jesus, Mary and Bride - not now,” he said between his teeth, and meant it somewhere between prayer and curse. He’d felt something small wrench or tear in his back when he’d hit John Grey, but in the heat of the moment it hadn’t seemed important. It’s hadn’t troubled him much walking - he’d barely noticed, with all there was on his mind - but now that he’d sat for a time and the muscles had chilled . . .
He tried rising, carefully, collapsed again. Bent sweating over the table with his fists clenched, he said a number of things in Gaelic that weren’t at all prayerful.
“Is thee quite well, Friend?” The woman of the house leaned near, peering nearsightedly at him in concern.
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- Spam posters -- Janet, Thu, May 02 2024, 11:36:18
I HAD to open my mouth about adult sites......sorry!
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- Parrots??? -- Janet, Sun, April 28 2024, 10:08:15
Does it seem like this web site has been taken over by the parrot and macaw lobby?????
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- QOTD for Saturday, April 20, 2024 -- CindyG, Fri, April 19 2024, 20:40:39
The following quote is from Seven Stones to Stand or Fall by Diana Gabaldon, “Introduction.” Copyright©️2017 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“NOW, REMEMBER…
You can read the short novels and novellas by themselves, or in any order you like. I would recommend reading the Big, Enormous Books of the main series in order, though. Hope you enjoy them all!”
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- QOTD for Friday, April 19, 2024 -- CindyG, Thu, April 18 2024, 19:56:38
The following quote is from Seven Stones to Stand or Fall by Diana Gabaldon, “Introduction.” Copyright©️2017 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“ So, for the reader’s convenience, the detailed listing here shows the sequence of the various elements in terms of the story line. However, it should be noted that the shorter novels and novellas are all designed in such a way that they may be read alone, without reference either to one another or to the Big, Enormous Books—should you be in the mood for a light literary snack instead of the nine-course meal with wine pairings and dessert trolley.”
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- QOTD for Thursday, April 18, 2024 -- CindyG, Wed, April 17 2024, 19:39:07
The following quote is from Seven Stones to Stand or Fall by Diana Gabaldon, “Introduction.” Copyright©️2017 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“The Big Books of the main series deal with the lives and times of Claire and Jamie Fraser. The shorter novels focus on the adventures of Lord John Grey but intersect with the larger books (The Scottish Prisoner, for example, features both Lord John and Jamie Fraser in a shared story). The novellas all feature people from the main series, including Jamie and/or Claire on occasion. The description below explains which characters appear in which stories.
Most of the shorter Lord John novels and novellas (so far) fit within a large lacuna left in the middle of Voyager, in the years between 1756 and 1761. Some of the Bulges also fall in this period; others don’t.”
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- QOTD for Wednesday, April 17, 2024 -- CindyG, Wed, April 17 2024, 8:35:05
The following quote is from Seven Stones to Stand or Fall by Diana Gabaldon, “Introduction.” Copyright©️2017 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“THE OUTLANDER SERIES includes three kinds of stories:
The Big, Enormous Books of the main series, which have no discernible genre (or all of them);
The Shorter, Less Indescribable Novels, which are more or less historical mysteries (though dealing also with battles, eels, and assorted sexual practices);
And
The Bulges,—these being short(er) pieces that fit somewhere inside the story lines of the novels, much in the nature of squirming prey swallowed by a large snake. These deal frequently—but not exclusively—with secondary characters, are prequels or sequels, and/or fill some lacuna left in the original story lines.”
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- QOTD for Tuesday, April 16, 2024 -- CindyG, Mon, April 15 2024, 21:24:00
The following quote is from Seven Stones to Stand or Fall by Diana Gabaldon, “Introduction.” Copyright©️2017 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“SO. THIS IS (as the front cover suggests) a collection of seven novellas (fiction shorter than a novel but longer than a short story), though all of them are indeed part of the Outlander universe and do intersect with the main novels.
Five of the novellas included in this book were originally written for various anthologies over the last few years; two are brand-new and have never been published before: ‘A Fugitive Green’ and ‘Besieged.’
Owing to differences among publishers in different countries, some of the previously published novellas may subsequently have been published in print form as a four-story collection (in the UK and Germany) or as separate ebooks (in the United States). Seven Stones provides a complete print collection for those readers who like tactile books and includes the two new stories.
Since the novellas fit into the main series at different points (and involve a number of different characters), below is an overall chronology of the Outlander series, to explain Who, What, and When.”
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- QOTD for Monday, April 15, 2024 -- CindyG, Sun, April 14 2024, 21:34:13
The following quote is from Seven Stones to Stand or Fall by Diana Gabaldon, “Introduction.” Copyright©️2017 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“Without going too much into the mental process that led to this (words like ‘sausage-making’ and ‘rock-polishing’ come to mind), I wanted a title that at least suggested that there were a number of elements in this book (hence the Seven), and Seven Stones just came naturally, and that was nice (‘stone’ is always a weighty word) and suitably alliterative but not a complete poetic thought (or rhythm). So, a bit more thinkering (no, that’s not a typo), and I came up with to Stand or Fall, which sounded suitably portentous.
It took a bit of ex post facto thought to figure out what the heck that meant, but things usually do mean something if you think long enough. In this instance, the ‘stand or fall’ has to do with people’s response to grief and adversity: to wit, if you aren’t killed outright by whatever happened, you have a choice in how the rest of your life is lived—you keep standing, though battered and worn by time and elements, still a buttress and a signpost—or you fall and return quietly to the earth from which you sprang, your elements giving succor to those who come after you.”
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- QOTD for Sunday, April 14, 2024 -- CindyG, Sun, April 14 2024, 10:59:37
The following quote is from Seven Stones to Stand or Fall by Diana Gabaldon, “Introduction.” Copyright©️2017 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
I just love the introduction to this book. Who else begins with an apology and explanation of the title?
“If you picked this book up under the misapprehension that it’s the ninth novel in the main Outlander series, it’s not. I apologize.
So, if it’s not the ninth novel, what is it? Well, it’s a collection of seven…er…things, of varying length and content, but all having to do with the Outlander universe. As for the title…basically, it’s the result of my editor not liking my original title choice, Salmagundi.* Not that I couldn’t see her point…Anyway, there was a polite request via my agent for something more in line with the ‘resonant, poetic’ nature of the main titles.”
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- QOTD for Saturday, April 13, 2024 -- kgp, Fri, April 12 2024, 19:40:09
The following quotation is from The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon Copyright 2001 All Rights Reserved. Chapter 44 Private Parts
With my blood no longer boiling, I could admit that Jamie might perhaps be right about Phillip Wylie’s intent in making objectionable advances to me. He might not be, too. But regardless of the young man’s underlying motives, I did have incontrovertible proof that he had found me physically appealing, grandmother or not. I rather thought I wouldn’t mention that to Jamie, though; Phillip Wylie was a very annoying young man, but upon cooler reflection, I had decided that I would prefer not to have him disemboweled on the front lawn, after all.
Still, maturity did alter one’s perspective somewhat. For all the personal implications of those male members in an excited state, it was the flaccid one that most interested me at the moment. My fingers itched to get hold of Duncan Innes’s private parts - figuratively, at least.
Last edited by author: Fri, April 12 2024, 19:40:53
Edited 1 time.
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- QOTD for Friday, April 12, 2024 -- kgp, Fri, April 12 2024, 19:38:48
The following quotation is from The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon Copyright 2001 All Rights Reserved. Chapter 43 Flirtations
“Aye, I’m up to my ears in Majors and Regulators and drunken maid servants, and you’re out in the stable canoodling wi’ the fop!”
I felt the blood rising behind my eyes, and curled my fists, in order to control the impulse to slap him.
“I was not ‘canoodling’ in the slightest degree, and you know it! The beastly little twerp made a pass at me, that’s all.”
“A pass? Made love to ye, ye mean? Aye, I can see that!!”
“He did not!”
“Oh, aye? Ye asked him to let ye try his bawbee on for luck, then?” He waggled the finger with the black patch under my nose, and I slapped it away, recalling a moment too late that “make love to” merely meant to engage in amorous flirtation, rather than fornication.
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- QOTD for Thursday, April 11, 2024 -- kgp, Thu, April 11 2024, 8:50:26
The following quotation is from The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon Copyright 2001 All Rights Reserved. Chapter 40 Duncan’s Secret
“Oh, it makes a difference, all right,” I said. I leaned back against a tree, arms crosses under my bosom, and gave him a look from under my lashes. “When I am a hundred and one, and you’re ninety-six, I’ll invite you to my bed - and we’ll see which one of us rises to the occasion, hmmm?”
He looked at me thoughtfully, a glint in the dark blue of his eyes.
“I’ve a mind to take ye where ye stand, Sassenach,” he said. “Payment on account, hmmm?
“I’ve a mind to take you up on it,” I said. “However . . . “ I glanced through the screen of branches toward the house, which was clearly visible. The trees were beginning to leaf out, but the tiny sprays of tender green were by no means sufficient camouflage. I turned back, just as Jamie’s hands descended on the swell of my hips.
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- QOTD for Wednesday, April 10, 2024 -- kgp, Thu, April 11 2024, 8:49:50
The following quotation is from The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon Copyright 2001 All Rights Reserved. Chapter 40 Duncan’s Secret
“Well,” he said slowly, “it’s true that Duncan hasna been wed before. Did ye not wonder why?”
“No,” I said. “I’d just assumed that the Rising had - oh, dear.” I stopped, catching a notion of what this might be about. “It’s not - goodness. You mean . . . he likes men?” My voice rose involuntarily.
“No!” he said, scandalized. “Christ, ye dinna think I’d let him marry my aunt, and him a sodomite? Christ.” He glanced around, to be sure no one else had heard this calumny. And shepherded me into the shelter of the tree, just in case.
“Well, you wouldn’t necessarily know, would you?” I asked, amused.
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- QOTD for Tuesday, April 9, 2024 -- kgp, Tue, April 09 2024, 10:34:46
The following quotation is from The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon Copyright 2001 All Rights Reserved. Chapter 39 In Cupid’s Grove
Ever since she had shown him the sperms, he had been uncomfortably aware of the crowded conditions that must now and then obtain in his balls, and impression made forcibly stronger in situations such as this. He kent well enough that there was no danger of rupture or explosion - and yet he couldn’t help but think of all the shoving going on.
Being trapped in a seething mass of others, with no hope of escape, was one of his own personal visions of Hell, and he paused for a moment outside the screen of willow trees to administer a brief squeeze of reassurance, which he hoped might calm the riot for a bit.
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- QOTD for Monday, April 8, 2024 -- kgp, Mon, April 08 2024, 5:35:28
The following quotation is from The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon Copyright 2001 All Rights Reserved. Chapter 37 Mail Call
“Here’s one we could do. The Testicles of a Male Animal - like you’d get them from a female animal - taken with six large Mushrooms and boyled in Sour Ale until tender, the both Testicles and Mushrooms to be sliced thin, well-pepper’d and seasoned with Salt, then sprinkled with Vinegar and brown’d before the Fire until crusty. Da hasn’t gotten around to castrating Gideon yet, has he?”
“No. I’m sure he’d be happy to give you the objects in question, if you want to try.”
She went very pink in the face, and cleared her throat with a noise that reminded me even more of her father. “I - um - don’t think we need that just yet.”
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- QOTD for Sunday, April 7, 2024 -- kgp, Sun, April 07 2024, 11:40:00
The following quotation is from The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon Copyright 2001 All Rights Reserved. Chapter 37 Mail Call
”A Spur To Venus. This being a list of infallible Remedys for Fatigue of the Male Member.”
I peered over her arm, my own eyebrows rising.
“Goodness. A Dozen of Oysters, soaked overnight in a Mixture of Wine and Milk, to be baked in a Tart with Crushed Almonds and Lobstermeat, and served with Spiced Peppers. I don’t know what it would do for the male member, but it would probably give the gentleman attached to it violent indigestion. Of course, we haven't got any oysters here anyway.”
“No loss,” she assured me, frowning at the page in concentration. “Oysters remind me of big plugs of snot.”
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- QOTD for Saturday, March 16, 2024 -- CindyG, Fri, March 15 2024, 19:44:34
The following quote is from Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 155, “Quaker Wedding, Redux.” Copyright ©️ 2021 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“Then the rider came right to the edge of the porch and reined up and my heart leapt as I saw who it was. William snatched off his hat and bowed from the saddle. He was breathing hard, his dark hair was pasted to his head with sweat, and there were hectic patches of red across his broad cheekbones. He gulped air, his eyes fixed on Jamie.
‘Sir,’ he said, and swallowed. ‘I need your help.’”
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- QOTD for Friday, March 15, 2024 -- CindyG, Thu, March 14 2024, 20:15:42
The following quote is from An Echo in the Bone by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 101, “Redivivus.” Copyright ©️ 2009 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“Jamie stood at the end of the hall, some ten feet away; John stood beside him, white as a sheet, and his eyes bulging as much as Willie’s were. This resemblance to Willie, striking as it was, was completely overwhelmed by Jamie’s own resemblance to the Ninth Earl of Ellesmere. William’s face had hardened and matured, losing all trace of childish softness, and from both ends of the short hall, deep blue Fraser cat-eyes stared out of the bold, solid bones of the MacKenzies. And Willie was old enough to shave on a daily basis; he knew what he looked like.
Willie’s mouth worked, soundless with shock. He looked wildly at me, back at Jamie, back at me—and saw the truth in my face.
‘Who are you?’ he said hoarsely, wheeling on Jamie.
I saw Jamie draw himself slowly upright, ignoring the noise below.
‘James Fraser,’ he said. His eyes were fixed on William with a burning intensity, as though to absorb every vestige of a sight he would not see again. ‘Ye kent me once as Alex MacKenzie. At Helwater.’
William blinked, blinked again, and his gaze shifted momentarily to John.
‘And who—who the bloody hell am I?’ he demanded, the end of the question rising in a squeak.
John opened his mouth, but it was Jamie who answered.
‘You are a stinking Papist,’ he said, very precisely, ‘and your baptismal name is James.’ The ghost of regret crossed his face and then was gone. ‘It was the only name I had a right to give ye,’ he said quietly, eyes on his son. ‘I’m sorry.’”
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- QOTD for Thursday, March 14, 2024 -- CindyG, Wed, March 13 2024, 19:24:28
The following quote is from A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 116, “The Ninth Earl of Ellesmere.” Copyright ©️ 2005 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“‘My son,’ Lord John was saying. ‘William, Lord Ellesmere.’ He eyed her narrowly, as though daring her to say anything. ‘Might I present Mr. Roger MacKenzie, William? And his wife.’
‘Sir. Mrs. MacKenzie.’ The young man took her hand before she realized what he meant to do, and bowed low over it, planting a small formal kiss upon her knuckles.
She nearly gasped at the unexpected touch of his breath on her skin, but instead gripped his hand, much harder than she’d meant to. He looked momentarily disconcerted, but extricated himself with reasonable grace. He was much younger than she’d thought at first glance; it was the uniform and the air of self-possession that made him seem older. He was looking at her with a slight frown on his clear-cut features, as though trying to place her.
‘I think …’ he began, hesitant. ‘Have we met, Mrs. MacKenzie?’
‘No,” she said, astonished to hear her voice emerge sounding normal. ‘No, I’m afraid not. I would have remembered.’ She darted a daggerlike glance at Lord John, who had gone slightly green around the gills.”
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- QOTD for Wednesday, March 13, 2024 -- CindyG, Tue, March 12 2024, 19:25:10
The following quote is from Drums of Autumn by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 25, “Enter a Serpent.” Copyright ©️ 1997 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“There had luckily been enough sewage in the bottom of the pit to break his fall. From appearances, the ninth Earl of Ellesmere had landed facedown. Lord John stood for a moment on the path, wiping his hands on his breeches and surveying the encrusted object before him. He rubbed the back of a hand over his mouth, trying either to hide a smile or to stifle his sense of smell.
Then his shoulders started to shake.
‘What news from the Underworld, Persephone?’ he said, unable to keep the quaver of laughter out of his voice.
A pair of slanted eyes looked blue murder out of the mask of filth obscuring his Lordship’s features. It was a thoroughly Fraser expression, and I felt a qualm go through me at the sight. By my side, Ian gave a sudden start. He glanced quickly from the Earl to Jamie and back, then he caught my eye and his own face went perfectly and unnaturally blank.”
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- QOTD for Tuesday, March 12, 2024 -- CindyG, Mon, March 11 2024, 19:27:13
The following quote is from Drums of Autumn by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 25, “Enter a Serpent.” Copyright ©️ 1997 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“No, I thought, watching covertly as he straightened up, face flushed from bending. It wasn’t as strong as I’d thought at first. He had the promise of Jamie’s bones, but it wasn’t all there yet—he had the outlines, but not yet the substance. He would be very tall—that was obvious—but now he was about my height, gawky and slender, his limbs very long, and thin enough to seem almost delicate.
He was much darker than Jamie, too; while his hair glinted red in the shafts of sunlight that came through the branches, it was a deep chestnut, nothing like Jamie’s bright red-gold, and his skin had turned a soft golden brown in the sun, not at all like Jamie’s half-burnt bronze.
He had the Frasers’ slanted cat-eyes, though, and there was something about the set of his head, the cock of the slender shoulders, that made me think of—
Bree. It hit me with a small shock, like a spark of electricity.”
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- QOTD for Monday, March 11, 2024 -- CindyG, Sun, March 10 2024, 19:46:22
The following quote is from Voyager by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 16, “Willie.” Copyright ©️ 1994 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“Willie started for the door, but stopped halfway, suddenly distressed again, with a hand pressed flat to his chest.
‘You said to keep this to remember you. But I haven’t got anything for you to remember me by!’
Jamie smiled slightly. His heart was squeezed so tight, he thought he could not draw breath to speak, but he forced the words out.
‘Donna fret yourself,’ he said. ‘I’ll remember ye.’”
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- QOTD for Sunday, March 10, 2024 -- CindyG, Sat, March 09 2024, 18:57:39
The following quote is from Voyager by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 15, “By Misadventure.” Copyright ©️ 1994 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“Past all conscious thought or any fear of consequence, Jamie Fraser acted on the instinct that had seen him through a dozen battles. He snatched one pistol from the transfixed Jeffries, turned on his heel, and fired in the same motion.
The roar of the shot struck everyone silent. Even the child ceased to scream. Ellesmere’s face went quite blank, thick eyebrows raised in question. Then he staggered, and Jamie leapt forward, noting with a sort of detached clarity the small round hole in the baby’s trailing drapery, where the pistol ball had passed through it.
He stood then rooted on the hearthrug, heedless of the fire scorching the backs of his legs, of the still-heaving body of Ellesmere at his feet, of the regular, hysterical shrieks of Lady Dunsany, piercing as a peacock’s. He stood, eyes tight closed, shaking like a leaf, unable either to move or to think, arms wrapped tight about the shapeless, squirming, squawking bundle that contained his son.”
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- QOTD for Saturday, March 9, 2024. Highland Ball Weekend here. One blasted thing to scratch off my list. Cuccu. -- kgp, Sat, March 09 2024, 7:20:39
The following quotation is from Written in My Own Heart’s Blood by Diana Gabaldon. Copyright 2014 All Rights Reserved. Chapter 102 Postpartum
“Your mother,” he began, and cleared his throat again.
When Roger had finished, Buck sat in silence for some time, blinking at the last slice of bacon, drying in the pan.
“Jesus,” he said, but not in tones of shock. More a deep interest, Roger thought, with some unease. Buck glanced up at Roger, speculation in his moss-green eyes. “And what d’ye ken about my father, then?”
“More than I can tell ye in a few minutes, and we should be on our way.” Roger got up, brushing crumbs off his knees. “I don’t want to try explaining our presence to any of those hairy buggers. My Old English isn’t what it used to be.”
“ ‘Sumer is icumen in,” Buck said, with a glance at the leafless, wind-blasted saplings precariously rooted in the cliff’s crevices. “ ‘Lhude sing cuccu.’ Aye, let’s go.”
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- QOTD for Friday, March 8, 2024 -- kgp, Fri, March 08 2024, 10:02:58
The following quotation is from Written in My Own Heart’s Blood by Diana Gabaldon. Copyright 2014 All Rights Reserved. Chapter 97 A Man To Do A Man’s Job
“No, sir,” he said respectfully, and pushed back his own chair. “I’ll stay with my mam.”
“You don’t need to do that, honey,” she said. “Uncle Joe and I have grown-up things we need to talk about. You - “
“I’m staying.”
She gave him a hard look, but recognized instantly, with a combination of horror and fascination, a Fraser male with his mind made up.
His lower lip was trembling, just a little. He shut his mouth hard to stop it and looked soberly from her to Joe, then back.
“Dad’s not here,” he said, and swallowed. “And neither is Grandda. I’m . . . I’m staying.”
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- QOTD for Thursday, March 7, 2024 -- kgp, Thu, March 07 2024, 8:11:36
The following quotation is from Written in My Own Heart’s Blood by Diana Gabaldon. Copyright 2014 All Rights Reserved. Chapter 80 Pater Noster
“Your father,” Hal said after a few moments. “Or my brother, if you prefer. Do you recall when you saw him last?”
Resentment sparked abruptly into anger.
“Yes, I bloody do. On the morning of the sixteenth. In his house. With mo other father.”
Hal made a low humming noise, indicating interest.
“That when you found out, was it?”
“It was.”
“Did John tell you?”
“No, he bloody didn’t!” Blood surged to William’s face, making his head throb with a fierce suddenness that made him dizzy. “If I hadn’t come face-to-face with the - the fellow, I don’t suppose he’d ever have told me!”
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- I never really understood all of William’s awful emotions until I just read this passage alone. We, along with almost everyone important in his life, already knew and he realized that almost the same time. It was horrible for him and I get it a lot more when I look at it from his perspective. I’m still trying to like him more than I do. lol (NT) -- Kathy in PA, Sun, March 10 2024, 12:22:14
- So much of who William thought he was turned out to be false. Plus, all of the people - Lord John, Hal, Claire, even Ian, knew, while he himself was kept ignorant of his parentage. It's little wonder he was so angry and confused. (NT) -- DianaH, Tue, March 19 2024, 11:39:57
- QOTD for Wednesday, March 6, 2024 -- kgp, Wed, March 06 2024, 5:47:37
The following quotation is from Written in My Own Heart’s Blood by Diana Gabaldon. Copyright 2014 All Rights Reserved. Chapter 80 Pater Noster
“You want me to . . . sing? he managed.
“Well, perhaps not right this minute,” the duke said. He sat back on his stool and began to whistle a tune. “Recognize that, do you?” he asked, breaking off.
“‘Lillibulero’,” William said, beginning to feel rather cross. “Why, for God’s sake?”
“Knew a chap once who was hit on the head with an ax and lost the ability to make out music. Couldn’t tell one note from another.” Hall leaned forward, holding up two fingers. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
“Two. Stick them up your nose,” William advised him.
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- QOTD for Tuesday, March 5, 2024 - I like this section becaue we rarely seem to see Denny lose his s***. He usually sounds (in my head) so calm and reasonable. There's also the ingrained politeness in the midst of it. "Not at all." I've read other stories about regimental surgeons that echo this, the rivalry between units and preference given. -- kgp, Tue, March 05 2024, 7:40:20
The following quotation is from Written in My Own Heart’s Blood by Diana Gabaldon. Copyright 2014 All Rights Reserved. Chapter 75 The Cider Orchard
“They are idiots,” he said, so pale - with rage, I now realized - that he could barely speak. Regimental surgeons, they call themselves! A good quarter of them have never seen a man wounded in battle before. And those who have are barely capable of anything in the way of treatment save the crudest amputation. A company of barbers would do better!”
“Can they stop bleeding?” I asked, taking his hand and wrapping it round my patient’s arm. He automatically pressed his thumb to the brachial artery near the armpit, and the spurting that had started when I took my own hand away stopped. “Thank you,” I said.
“Not at all. Yes, most of them can do that,” he admitted, calming down just a little. “But they are so jealous of privilege - and so much affiliated with their own regiments - that some are letting a wounded man die because he is not one of theirs and his own regimental surgeon is otherwise occupied!”
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- QOTD for Monday, March 4, 2024 -- kgp, Mon, March 04 2024, 6:28:30
The following quotation is from Written in My Own Heart’s Blood by Diana Gabaldon. Copyright 2014 All Rights Reserved. Chapter 75 The Cider Orchard
I don’t know when physicians began calling it “the Golden Hour,” but surely every battlefield medic from the time of the Iliad onward knows about it. From the time of an accident or injury that isn’t immediately fatal, the victim’s chances of living are best if he receives treatment within an hour of sustaining the injury. After that, shock, continual loss of blood, debility due to pain . . . the chance of saving a patient goes sharply downhill.
Add in blazing temperatures, lack of water, and the stress of running full out through fields and woods, wearing wool homespun and carrying heavy weapons, inhaling powder smoke, and trying either to kill someone or avoid being killed, just prior to being injured, and I rather thought we were looking at a Golden fifteen minutes or so.
Given also the fact that the wounded were having to be carried or to walk - probably more than a mile - to a place where they could find assistance . . . I supposed we were doing well to save as many as we were. If only temporarily, I added grimly to myself, hearing the screaming from inside the church.
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- QOTD for Sunday, March 3, 2024 -- kgp, Sun, March 03 2024, 8:31:27
The last five or six months have been rather trying and emotionally exhausting. I'd committed to organizing the Highland Ball which is this weekend which is exhausting in itself. But my DH who had not been well, had extensive cardiac surgery in November and is recovering well but slowly. My dear little Civic hybrid was valiantly trying to reach 400 K miles but was being attacked by the local chipmunks who were taking insulation, etc as well as leaving tiny calling cards all over the interior. A large pine branch fell some 40 ft and through our roof causing it to rain in the bedroom as the snow melted. The remediation crew has been in and out since January drying the ceiling, walls and floor, spraying whatever to discourage mold. There is a giant dumpster in my driveway. The roofing crew showed up unexpectedly on Friday, found more damage than previously expected and ended up rebuilding our entire dormer. The interior repair still needs to get done so we still can't use our bedroom. One grown son is having an issue we had hoped had been resolved 13 years ago - I won't go into it. It's been one damn thing after another.
Yet we are still more fortunate than others and have decent health and property insurance. The financial blow of having to replace a car just now was not fun but we'll get through it. I need to remember that and look for the glimmers in the gloom. The Ball will be over in a few days and then it's the mopping up of the details. I'm not worried my car will die late at night coming home from teaching an hour away. The grown child is getting help and still plans to get married next year. My DSis and I are taking some time away that had been canceled last year when DH ended up in the ER. The sun is out and it's 60F today. Deep breath.
Anyway, here's Claire -
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The following quotation is from Written in My Own Heart’s Blood by Diana Gabaldon. Copyright 2014 All Rights Reserved. Chapter 74 The Sort Of Thing That Will Make A Man Sweat and Tremble
I gave my burnt artilleryman water, then helped him to his feet. As he stood up, I saw behind his legs the epitaph carved into Gilbert Tennent’s headstone:
O READER HAD YOU HEARD HIS LAST TESTIMONY YOU WOULD HAVE BEEN CONVINCED OF THE EXTREME MADNESS OF DELAYING REPENTANCE.
“I suppose there are worse places to be doing this,” I remarked to the artilleryman, but, unable to hear me, he simply raised my hand and kissed it before swaying off to sit down on the grass, the wet towel pressed to his face.
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- Oh. My. God. I’m so sorry - talk about an overflowing plate! You must be a half full glass person because you sure ended that awful tale with positivity. Like Claire’s artillery man - that wet towel was enough for massive gratitude after hell. Sending good karma, best wishes and prayers that all this moves along in Claire fashion. Correct, brief, no nonsense, with love. (NT) -- Kathy in PA, Sun, March 03 2024, 8:40:57
- WOW! You've had your hands full, thank you for the QOTD with all that going on. Lally love to you. (NT) -- Janet, Sun, March 03 2024, 10:20:29
- Thank you for the prayers and good wishes. I needed to get that out, I feel like I'm the one holding it together for everyone else right now. (NT) -- kgp, Mon, March 04 2024, 7:10:16
- kgp, my grandfather used to say, "If it's not one thing, it's TWO!" But this is a whole lot more. Sending Lally Hugs, wish there was more I could do to help you through. (NT) -- DianaH, Mon, March 04 2024, 10:54:52
- QOTD for Saturday (I think)2/24/24 -- Betsy, I'm pretty sure I'm Betsy. Somedays I'm sure, but not today., Sat, February 24 2024, 11:44:35
Happy Saturday/Sunday to us All,
My desk-top computer sits up against a wall full of (dusty) pictures of four generations of Family paintings and photos. Paintings of my two grandmothers as young women hang above my head, sometimes beautiful, sometime eerie, sometimes intimadating. Both of those ladies were about twenty when the original pictures were taken. My parents had oil paintings made sometime in the sixties and the Ladies now reside on my wall, beautiful and haunting.
There are many more photos planted all over the wall.....From a cute black and white of my father, age about two trying to climb into a wagon with his cousins, to David's father as a young man, David as a baby, and a ton more, but you get the picture.
Way over on the left side is a miniature painting of an unknown woman in my ancestory. The framing around it is quite beautiful, but the woman herself doesn't appear to have been a beauty. Her head is large, her arms are short, her hair is pulled severly back behind her ears into what may be a curl down her back BUT her eyes are quite nice. When I was young, my brothers and I had many times stood staring at this mystery relative, wondering who she was and why do we have her on our wall. When I reached my later teens, I inherited Miss Aunt-Somebody and she moved to my room, hanging on the wall right by the door.
One day, a couple who were friends of my parents came to visit and were being given a tour of our home. When they entered my room, the woman put her glasses on and stared at the Mystery Woman's miniature. "This is amazing!!!! How did you get a picture of Betsy into an authentic miniature? This is fascinating!" Before anyone had a chance to reply, my younger brother volunteered (lovingly) "That's not Betsy..... That's Aunt Ugly."
No one said a thing, just meandered judiciously out of my bedroom to go see a very beautiful painting in a different room. I don't remember exactly how the "chat" with my brother went, but I was four years older and out-weighed him by a considerable amount. I think there was blood involved.
And Aunt Ugly is still hanging on my wall. Maybe I'm working off some Karma.
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The following quote is taken from "Go Tell The Bees I Am Gone," by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 126, 'When I go to sleep at night, I die.' Copyright 2021 by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.
"Let's leave Albert out of it," he said hastily "At least for now."
"Alright," she said agreeably, "Einstein never got it to work, anyway. All I'm saying is, Maybe when you walk into one of those places--- if you have the genetics for it---you, um, die. Physically. You disolve into stardust, if you want to call it that---- and your particles can pass through stone, because they're smaller than the atoms that make up the stones."
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- It's a short quote today. This whole conversation between Brianna and Roger gave me the willies. It still does. Taking into account subatomic particles and the principles of physics...."Energy doesn't die, it only transforms," and all that. When I read this the first time, I had shivers running up my back and I got a headache. There is a lot more of this conversation but the past couple of days represents the gist of it. It still makes my head spin backwards. (NT) -- Betsy BFS, Sat, February 24 2024, 11:59:19
- I agree, Betsy. This was too much for me. I once read The Dancing Wu Li Masters, which is about quantum physics (!?!?!?!?) One thing that I got out of it: when you go deep, deep, deep into subatomic particles, there's nothing there, so we're basically made up of nothing! I When Bree and Roger had this discussion, I remembered that factoid...... (NT) -- Janet, Sun, February 25 2024, 9:06:21
- QOTD for Friday, 2/23/24 -- Betsy BFS, Fri, February 23 2024, 11:44:32
This is a late post. I did notice nothing was posted, so I am now posting. Late.
I am back in school!! I'm learning how to do all the "stuff" that was on David's plate. I'm NOT on the dean's list. There is a very good reason I don't know anything, but I won't go into it now.
Read this with humor. To me, it's funny...
The latest disaster to take residence on Betsy's List of the Unknown, is the boiler circulation pump not working. Do not groan. It's a lesson I really didn't want to know, but I need to. After three (3) visits and two new parts, the service man, who is the owner of the business, was smuggly explaining everything that was going on to me. Now, I don't usually pull the My Husband Dropped Dead card, but halfway through his diatribe , I stopped him and said "Just stop. I have no idea what you're saying. Boiler's for Dummies is beyond my skill set. My husband dropped dead (and I pantomimed a person , eyes crossed --for effect--hitting the floor in a heap,) and this was his realm.... Sorry I haven't stopped to learn about my boiler. Do not assume I understand one word you're saying." At that point, it finally sunk in that I truly didn't have a clue, he got nice, and explained it all out slowly and in language I understood. I think I may be at the pre-school level now.
Service call number four will be happening as soon as the part arrives. We've been playing Little House on the Prairie for a week. "Little House, etc." is our family's code for SNAFU. I think I saw David, head in his hands, moving it back and forth. I Can't tell if it's shaking in laughter or OMG, Betsy!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The following quote is from 'Go Tell The Bees That I Am Gone," by Diana Gabaldon. Chapter 126, "When I go to Sleep at night., I die." Copyright 2021, by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.
That's what a ley line IS," she said patiently. "The electromagnetism in the earch runs in parallel bands, the bands alternate in the direction of their magnetic current. Though it's not totally neat and tidy, of course. The diverge and overlap and like that. Haven't I told you this stuff before?"
"Possibly." He abandoned his half-formed romantic intentions, with a sense of regret. "But the ley lines I know about are...I don't know what you'd call them, in terms of classification. Folklore, ancient builder stuff? At least in the British Isles, if you go looking for ancient hill forts and churches that are probably built on much older sites of worship and....well, things like standing stones, you often find that you can draw a straight ... very straight , in most cases, as though it had been surveyed---line through two or three or four such sites. Archeologists call those ley lines---though some fold call them spirit walks, because the dead are thought to....Oh,my God."
A brief, uncontrollable shudder ran through him.
"Goose walking on your grave?" she asked, sympathy slightly marred by a look of satisfaction.
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- Nothing wrong with saying, I don’t get it! Glad your plumber took the time and hope the part comes soon. A boiler is a MAJOR appliance but I’ve done some repairs on the washer, dryer and dishwasher that I used to pay for by looking up symptoms on YouTube. I had heard of ley lines but didn’t really get what they were until I read this explanation. Is it Bri to Roger here? (NT) -- Kathy in PA, Sat, February 24 2024, 4:51:56
- 35 years ago I went on a "crinkle tour" with my mother (average age 68+ and we had an 18 yo on the trip to lower the age!) to England, Ireland, and Scotland. Our tour guide was awesome, and when we were at Stonehenge, she explained about ley lines. When she started there was only about half our group (maybe 15) around her, when she ended there were close to 50 people listening. It was really interesting! And Betsy, my mechanical and technical knowledge is less than stellar, because my husband can do almost anything! (NT) -- Janet, Sat, February 24 2024, 10:35:58
- QOTD for Thursday, 2/22/24 -- Betsy BFS, Wed, February 21 2024, 21:24:01
Happy Thursday, Lallyland!
I seem to have the attention of a gnat these days. It's not quite new of an issue but I think it's worse. As I sit here and look around I can see five laundry baskets, all overflowing (honest) so piled high, they have erupted to the floor. Some are dirty cloths, some are clean, but they have all decided to mingle together and have tea. I have no idea which basket is what; this afternoon, I folded the same T-shirt four times and still don't know which basket is waiting for this shirt to come home. And the washing machine keeps spitting out more clean stuff that should be folded and put in the appropriate basket, if I could figure out what's clean stuff and what's dirty... I honestly believe the endless piles have conspired to play musical chairs together, and I Know I've heard snickering in the bottom at least two of the piles.
There really is an excuse for some of this insanity. Apparently, when I left for a few hours, I had blocked off the kitchen so my precious puppies couldn't get into it but they battled through my blockade and ate: two pounds of butter, all the cat food in the kitty dishes, all of the can of dog kibble, two bananas, one mangled grapefruit which I guess they didn't like, two extra-large yams that were cooling on the counter for their supper, every last bit in the garbage, and two big coffee cans full of compost. After their non-sanctioned snack, both of them threw up in the middle of my bed. Several times. Seeping through two big quilts and two, Two, yes indeed TWO down comforters. Oh the the sheets as well. And one pillow. Queen sized sheets but king size everything else.
The dogs are alive, but I'm not fond of them today.
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The following quote is from "Go Tell The Bees That I Am Gone," by Diana Gabaldon, etc. All rights reserved.
"Mmphm," Jamie knew he was defeated, but he wasn't surrendering just yet. "And how d'ye mean to guarantee their good behavior, a bhanamhaighister?"
An inaudible but clear vibration that might have been amusement ran through the older women, though it vanished in an instant when Harriet turned her head to look over at them. When she turned back, her eyes were fixed on me, not Jamie, which gave me a start.
"I suppose your wife could answer that for ye, Laird," she said circumspectly, and let the corner of her mouth tuck in for a moment. Her gaze dropped to Jamie again. "None of the men can cook. But if ye dinna trust what a wife might do to a husband who's taken the house from over her head, and the food out of her bairn's mouths... perhaps ye can imagine what the brothers and sons of those wives might do to him. If ye'd like me to have my lads come and swear that same oath to ye..."
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- Oh,no!! We do love our pets but sometimes that is definitely put to the test. Mine knocked over the kitty fountain during a disagreement and splattered everything in the kitchen. Nothing like what your darlings did but woke the house none the less. I was surprised and rather indignant that Jamie let these families stay. Also appalled at the presumption of these ladies. (NT) -- kgp, Thu, February 22 2024, 6:33:02
- Nothing can get me out of bed faster than the sound of a cat hocking up dinner.....but at least I don't find it after the fact! Jamie is showing mercy here; I figured that even though they were against him, they were still "his" to care for. Also, I'm sure he remembered the aftermath of Culloden and all the death and destruction, and wanted to avoid that if he had assurances of good behaviour. (NT) -- Janet, Thu, February 22 2024, 10:44:57
- OMG, Betsy - that is the WORST dog story I ever heard!!! Are they really puppies in age, so you have to expect a bit? But they did every puppy bad thing in one episode!!! It is so good to see you and I know I’m not alone when I say I love your ramblings. So relatable; you remind me of Erma Bombeck. I think Jamie could never turn away women or children no matter what. (NT) -- Kathy in PA, Thu, February 22 2024, 14:21:42
- QOTD for Wednesday, 2/21/23 -- Betsy BFS, Tue, February 20 2024, 20:56:47
Hello, my wonderful Lally Family,
When I do QOTD and share the absurdities and foibles of my life, I never know what I'm going to write. I just sit and my fingers take off with a mind of their own. I don't trust myself to do that yet. It's been several months since I've done QOTD, so we'll see what happens. Mostly, I want to tell you All how unbelievably wonderful you are. I'm going to post a message on Fraser's Gathering in thanks for all the support you've given me the last six months.
I'm doing QOTD for today. Maybe tomorrow. I never know when I'll come completely undone. I'll do as much as I can.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The following quote is from 'Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone,' by Diana Gabaldon.Copyright 2021, by Diana Gabaldon. All rights reserved.
Harriette MacIlhenny came in with her head up, jaws clenched, and chin trembling. She stopped abruptly before Jamie's table and collapsed onto her knees with a thud, followed by the other wives and half the children, spilling out into the hallway, all looking bewildered but obedient.
"We have come to beg thy mercy, Laird," she said, bowing so low that she spoke to the floor. "Not for ourselves, but for our bairns."
"Did your husbands put ye up to this?" Jamie demanded.. "Get yourselves up, for God's sake."
"No, Laird," Harriet said. She rose, slowly, but her hands were pressed so hard together that the knuckles and nails showed white. "Our husbands forbade us to come to ye; and said they would beat us if we stirred a foot out of doors. The gomerels would sacrifice us and the bairns for the sake of their pride --but... we came anyway."
This passage reminds me of several conversations I had with David. It went sort of like this: "David, what do you think about (insert almost anything you want."
"Why do you bother to ask me what I think? You're going to do just what you want anyway." "Well, yes. I am. But there was a chance you'd say something close to my plans and it would seem like we collaborated." Insert that Scottish noise Jamie, and William, make.
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- Betsy, it is so wonderful to "see" you. I think of you every time I'm on the LOL Boards. <3 (NT) -- DianaH, Wed, February 21 2024, 10:45:05
- Betsy, glad you are here today. I think of you often, and send prayers your way regularly. We enjoy it whatever/whenever you post In these few, simple, lines, Diana illuminates the fragile grasp on survival the people on the Ridge have, even in the best of times. (NT) -- Janet, Wed, February 21 2024, 11:09:40
- QOTD for Saturday, February 17, 2024 -- CindyG, Fri, February 16 2024, 16:54:07
The following quote is from Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 26, “The Laird’s Return.” Copyright ©️1991 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“‘Dinna worry for Murtagh. There’s a canty wee bird can mind for himself.’
‘Canty? Murtagh?’ I knew the word meant “cheerful,” which seemed incongruous to a degree. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen him smile. Have you?’
‘Oh, aye. At least twice.’
‘How long have you known him?’
‘Twenty-three years. He’s my godfather.’
‘Oh. Well, that explains a bit. I didn’t think he’d bother on my account.’
Jamie patted my leg. ‘Of course he would. He likes you.’
‘I’ll take your word for it.’”
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- QOTD for Friday, February 16, 2024 -- CindyG, Thu, February 15 2024, 19:43:08
The following quote is from Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 24, “By the Pricking of My Thumbs.” Copyright ©️1991 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“I hastily turned toward the nearest face, as an antidote to such disturbing thoughts. It happened to be Murtagh’s. Well, at least he looked like neither of the men who haunted my thoughts. Short, slightly built but sinewy as a gibbon, with long arms that reinforced the simian resemblance, he had a low brow and narrow jaw that for some reason made me think of cave dwellers and pictures of Early Man shown in some of Frank’s texts. Not a Neanderthal, though. A Pict. That was it. There was something very durable about the small clansman that reminded me of the weathered, patterned stones, ancient even now, that stood their implacable guard over crossroads and burial grounds.”
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- QOTD for Thursday, February 15, 2024 -- CindyG, Wed, February 14 2024, 19:33:28
The following quote is from Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 15, “Revelations of the Bridal Chamber.” Copyright ©️1991 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“‘What are you doing?’ he asked, shocked.
‘Just what it looks like. Hold still.’ After a few moments, I began to use my teeth, pressing progressively harder until he drew in his breath with a sharp hiss. I stopped.
‘Did I hurt you?’ I asked.
‘Yes. A little.’ He sounded half-strangled.
‘Do you want me to stop?’
‘No!’
I went on, being deliberately rough, until he suddenly convulsed, with a groan that sounded as though I had torn his heart out by the roots. He lay back, quivering and breathing heavily. He muttered something in Gaelic, eyes closed.
‘What did you say?’
‘I said,’ he answered, opening his eyes, ‘I thought my heart was going to burst.’
I grinned, pleased with myself. ‘Oh, Murtagh and company didn’t tell you about that, either?’
‘Aye, they did. That was one of the things I didn’t believe.’”
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- QOTD for Wednesday, February 14, 2024 -- CindyG, Tue, February 13 2024, 19:43:43
The following quote is from Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 15, “Revelations of the Bridal Chamber.” Copyright ©️1991 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“‘I want to ask ye something,’ he said, running a hand down the length of my back.
‘What’s that?’
‘Did ye like it?’ he said, a little shyly.
‘Yes, I did,’I said, quite honestly.
‘Oh. I thought ye did, though Murtagh told me that women generally do not care for it, so I should finish as soon as I could.’
‘What would Murtagh know about it?’ I said indignantly. ‘The slower the better, as far as most women are concerned.’ Jamie chuckled again.
‘Well, you’d know better than Murtagh.’”
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- QOTD for Tuesday, February 13, 2024 -- CindyG, Mon, February 12 2024, 19:20:26
The following quote is from Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 14, “A Marriage Takes Place.” Copyright ©️1991 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“After the first silence, the rest of those in the taproom became vocal in their admiration, and even Murtagh allowed himself a small smile, nodding in satisfaction at the results of his efforts. And who appointed you fashion editor? I thought disagreeably. Still, I had to admit that he was responsible for my not marrying in grey serge.”
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- QOTD for Monday, February 12, 2024 -- CindyG, Sun, February 11 2024, 18:20:49
The following quote is from Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 3, “The Man in the Woods.” Copyright ©️1991 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“I thought I had not been out for long; I showed no symptoms of concussion or other ill effects from the blow, save a sore patch on the base of my skull. My captor, a man of few words, responded to my questions, demands and acerbic remarks alike with the all-purpose Scottish noise which can best be rendered phonetically as ‘ Mmmmphm’. Had I been in any doubt as to his nationality, that sound alone would have been sufficient to remove it.”
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- I never get tired of going back to the beginning of this story! Thanks, CindyG! (NT) -- DianaH, Mon, February 12 2024, 10:12:35
- I've yet to hear a current Scotsman make this sound. I'll have to pay better attention the next time. (NT) -- kgp, Mon, February 12 2024, 10:54:47
- I think Murtagh says that more than anything else- and he doesn’t say much at all but he’s very expressive. Everybody would be lucky to have a Murtagh (NT) -- Kathy in PA, Tue, February 13 2024, 8:54:08
- QOTD for Sunday, February 11, 2024 -- CindyG, Sat, February 10 2024, 22:41:49
The following quote is from Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 3, “The Man in the Woods.” Copyright ©️1991 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“There was a sudden whoosh from above, followed immediately by a blur before my eyes and a dull thud. Captain Randall was on the ground at my feet, under a heaving mass that looked like a bundle of old plaid rags. A brown, rocklike fist rose out of the mass and descended with considerable force, meeting decisively with some bony protuberance, by the sound of the resultant crack. The Captain’s struggling legs, shiny in tall brown boots, relaxed quite suddenly.
I found myself staring into a pair of sharp black eyes. The sinewy hand that had temporarily distracted the Captain’s unwelcome attentions was attached like a limpet to my forearm.
‘And who the hell are you?’ I said in astonishment. My rescuer, if I cared to call him that, was some inches shorter than I and sparely built, but the bare arms protruding from the ragged shirt were knotted with muscle and his whole frame gave the impression of being made of some resilient material such as bedsprings. No beauty, either, with a pockmarked skin, low brow, and narrow jaw.”
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- QOTD for Friday, February 9, 2024 -- kgp, Fri, February 09 2024, 6:36:42
The following quotation is from Go Tell The Bees That I Am Gone by Diana Gabaldon. Copyright 2021 All Rights Reserved Chapter 139 Dreams of Glory
“Ken, When ye fight, mostly it’s just hard work. Ye get tired. Your sword’s so heavy ye think ye canna lift it one more time - but ye do, of course.” He stretched, flexing his left arm and turning it, watching the play of light over the sun-bleached hairs and deep-cut muscle. “It’s hot - or it’s freezing - and either way, ye just want to go and be somewhere else. Ye’re scairt or ye’re too busy to be scairt until it’s over, and then ye shake because of what ye’ve just been doing . . . “ He shook his head hard at this, dislodging the thoughts.
“Not this time. Once in a while, something comes over ye - the red thing, is what I’ve always called it.” He glanced at me, almost shyly. “I had it - well, I was far beyond that - when I charged the field at Culloden, This time, though, - “ He ran a hand slowly through his hair. “ In the dream . . . it was different. I wasna afraid at all, nor tired - do ye ever sweat in your dreams, Sassenach?”
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- QOTD for Thursday, February 8, 2024 -- kgp, Thu, February 08 2024, 8:29:38
The following quotation is from Go Tell The Bees That I Am Gone by Diana Gabaldon. Copyright 2021 All Rights Reserved Chapter 139 Dreams of Glory
“Did you see Murtagh?”
“Aye, I did.” The tone of surprise in his voice deepened, and his hand stilled on my back. “He was with me, by me. But I could see his face; it shone like the sun.”
This description of his late godfather was more than peculiar; Murtagh had been one of the more dour specimens of Scottish manhood ever produced in the Highlands.
“He was . . . happy?” I ventured doubtfully. I couldn’t imagine anyone who’d set foot on Culloden moor that day had cracked so much as a smile - likely not even the Duke of Cumberland.
“Oh, more than happy, Sassenach - filled wi’ joy.” He let go of me thank and glanced down into my face. “We all were.”
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- QOTD for Wednesday, February 7, 2024 -- kgp, Wed, February 07 2024, 6:58:37
The following quotation is from Go Tell The Bees That I Am Gone by Diana Gabaldon. Copyright 2021 All Rights Reserved Chapter 139 Dreams of Glory
“It’s all right, Sassenach,” he said into my hair. “I’m not . . . It’s all right.”
His voice sounded odd, almost puzzled. But he meant it; he was all right. He rubbed my back gently between the shoulder blades and I gingerly relaxed a little. He was very warm, despite the chill, and the clinical part of my mind checked him quickly - no shivering, no flinching . . . his breathing was quite normal and so was his heart rate, easily perceptible against my breast.
“Do you . . . can you tell me about it?” I said, drawing back after a bit. Sometimes he could, and it seemed to help. More often, he couldn’t, and would just shake until the dream let go its grip on his mind and let him turn away.
“I don’t know,” he said, the note of surprise still in his voice. “I mean - it was Culloden, but . . . it was different.”
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- QOTD for Tuesday, February 6, 2024 -- kgp, Tue, February 06 2024, 7:42:48
The following quotation is from Go Tell The Bees That I Am Gone by Diana Gabaldon. Copyright 2021 All Rights Reserved Chapter 139 Dreams of Glory
He didn’t move, but his body seemed to flow, the faint glow of the smoored fire shifting on his skin as he relaxed, hair by hair, his breathing slowing.
I relaxed a little, too, in response, though I still watched him warily. It wasn’t a Wentworth dream - he wasn’t sweating; I could almost literally smell fear and blood on him when he woke from those. They came rarely - but were terrible when they did come.
Battlefield? Perhaps; I hoped so. Some of those were worse than others, but he usually came back from a dream of battle fairly quickly and would let me cradle him in my arms and gentle him back to sleep. I longed to do it now. An ember cracked on the hearth behind me, and the tiny spurt of sparks lit his face for an instant, surprising me. He looked . . . peaceful, his eyes dark-wide and fixed on something he could still see.
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- QOTD for Monday, February 5, 2024 -- kgp, Mon, February 05 2024, 6:10:57
The following quotation is from Go Tell The Bees That I Am Gone by Diana Gabaldon. Copyright 2021 All Rights Reserved Chapter 139 Dreams of Glory
Fraser’s Ridge September 4, 1780
I was having the delightful sort of dream where you realize that you’re asleep and are enjoying it extremely. I was warm, bonelessly relaxed, and my mind was an exquisite blank. I was just beginning to sink down through this cloudy layer of bliss to the deeper realms of unconsciousness when a violent movement of the mattress under me jerked me into instant alertness.
By reflex, I rolled onto my side and reached for Jamie. I hadn’t achieved the state of conscious thought yet, but my synapses had already drawn their own conclusions. He was still in bed, so we weren’t under attack and the house wasn’t afire. I heard nothing but his rapid breathing; the children were all right and no one had broken in. Ergo . . . it was his own dream that had awakened him.
This thought penetrated into the conscious part of my mind just as my hand touched his shoulder. He drew back, but not with the violent recoil he usually showed if I touched him too suddenly after a bad dream. He was awake then; he knew it was me. Thank God for that, I thought, and drew a deep breath of my own.
“Jamie?” I said softly. My eyes were dark-adapted already; I could see him, half curled beside me, tense, facing me.
“Dinna touch me, Sassenach,” he said, just as softly. “Not yet. Let it pass.” He’d gone to bed in a nightshirt; the room was still chilly. But he was naked now. When had he taken it off? And why?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
An extra long one as I missed yesterday.
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- QOTD for Saturday 3 February 2024 -- JudithONH, Fri, February 02 2024, 21:54:31
The following quote is from An Echo in the Bone by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 86, “Valley Forge,” Copyright 2009 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“’Suitable’ turned out to be one Colenso Baragwanath, a stunted youth from Cornwall who had come with Howe’s troops as a stable-boy. He did know horses, William would give him that.
There were four horses and a pack mule, this last laden with sides of pork, four or five fat turkeys, a bag of rough-skinned potatoes, another of turnips, and a large keg of cider.
‘If conditions there are half as bad as I think they are,’ his father had told him, while overseeing the loading of the mule, ‘the commander would lend you the services of half a battalion in exchange for this, let alone a surgeon.’
‘Thank you, Papa,’ he said again, and swung into his saddle, his new captain’s gorget about his neck and a white flag of truce folded neatly into his saddlebag.”
Once again, William is on a mission to the rebel troops. Here's hoping he can secure the aid of Denny in this need.
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- QOTD for Friday 2 February 2024 -- JudithONH, Fri, February 02 2024, 21:51:06
The following quote is from An Echo in the Bone by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 72, “The Feast of All Saints,” Copyright 2009 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“Buccleigh stared at him, stubbled face gone quite blank. He blinked once or twice, glanced at Brianna, who nodded, then returned his stare to Roger, carefully scrutinizing his face.
‘Look at his eyes,’ Brianna said helpfully. ‘Shall I bring you a mirror?’
Buccleigh’s mouth opened as though to answer, but he found no words and shook his head as though dislodginig flies. He picked up his cup, stared into it for a moment as though astonished to find it empty, and set it down. Then looked at Brianna.
‘Ye wouldna have anything in the house stronger than coffee, would ye, _a bhana-mhaighstir?_.”
Yes, I think the house has something stronger than coffee... interesting how Buccleigh comes to understand who and what he is...and is open minded enough to accept it!
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- QOTD for Thursday 1 February 2024 -- JudithONH, Wed, January 31 2024, 22:08:24
The following quote is from An Echo in the Bone by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 59, “Battle of Bennington,” Copyright 2009 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“’What?’ said William, disbelieving. Whatever the man shouting had meant, his exhortation had a marked effect, for an enormous number of rebels came boiling out of the trees, headed at a mad run for the guns. The soldiers minding the guns promptly fled, and so did a good many of the others.
The rebels were making short work of the rest, and William had just settled down grimly to do what he could before they got him, when two Indians came springing over the rolling ground, seized him under the arms, and, yanking him to his feet, propelled him rapidly away.
Which was how Lieutenant Ellesmere found himself once more cast in the role of Cassandra, reporting the debacle at Bennington to General Burgoyne. Men killed and wounded, guns lost – and not a single cow to be shown for it.”
William's sortie was to get as many comestibles, including cattle, from the Rebels. Somehow it went awry, and there he was in front of General Burgoyne...I obviously need a reread, but wonder if the Indians had anything to do with Ian. I'll find out...
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- QOTD for Wednesday 31 January 2024 -- JudithONH, Wed, January 31 2024, 9:42:22
The following quote is from An Echo in the Bone by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 41, “Shelter From the Storm,” Copyright 2009 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“He woke suddenly, panting and sweating, aware that the pain in his guts was real. It bit with a sharp cramp, and he pulled up his legs and rolled onto his side an instant before the ax struck the floorboards where his head had just been.
He let out a tremendous fart and rolled in blind panic toward the dark figure struggling to free the ax from the wood. He struck Johnson’s legs, grabbed them, and yanked. The man fell on him with a curse and grabbed him by the throat. William punched and thrashed at his opponent, but the hands on his throat clung like grim death, and his vision darkened and flashed with colored lights.
There was screaming going on somewhere nearby. More by instinct than plan, William suddenly lunged forward striking Johnson in the face with his forehead. It hurt, but the death grip on his throat relaxed, and he wrenched loose and rolled over, scrambling to his feet.”
I think this incident and trip deepened the respect between William and Ian. I so enjoy watching their friendship grow.
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- QOTD for Tuesday 30 January 2024 -- JudithONH, Tue, January 30 2024, 10:12:47
The following quote is from An Echo in the Bone by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 31, “A Guided Tour Through the Chambers of the Heart,” Copyright 2009 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“’Surely, sir,’ Jamie said, striving for reasonableness, ‘ye canna mean to kill a wounded enemy – one in uniform, taken under his own flag, and a man who has surrendered himself to ye. That couldna be condoned by any honorable man.’
Hickman drew himself up, going puce.
‘Are you impugning my honor, sir?’
I saw the muscles in Jamie’s neck and shoulders tense, but before he could speak, Ian stepped up beside him, shoulder to shoulder.
‘Aye, he is. So am I.’
Rollo, his fur still sticking up in wet spikes, growled and rolled back his black lips, showing most of his teeth in token support of this opinion.”
I love the way Ian has Jamie's back, and Rollo has both of theirs. Reminds me of Jamie and Dougal fighting side by side.
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- QOTD for Monday 29 January 2024 -- JudithONH, Sun, January 28 2024, 17:24:48
The following quote is from An Echo in the Bone by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 21, “The Minister’s Cat,” Copyright 2009 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“It had been a couple of months before they left the Ridge. Unable to sleep one night, he’d gone out into the woods, and roaming restlessly to and fro, had encountered Claire, kneeling in a hollow full of white flowers, their shapes like a mist around her.
He’d just sat down then and watched her at her gathering, as she broke stems and stripped leaves into her basket. …
‘Most plants, though, are troubled by daylight insects, and so they begin to secrete their useful compounds at dawn; the concentration rises as the day waxes – but then, when the sun gets too hot, some of the oils will begin to vaporize from the leaves, and the plant will stop producing them. So most of the very aromatic plants, you pick in the late morning. And so the shamans and the herbalists tell their apprentices to take one plan in the dark of the moon and another at midday – thus making it a superstition, hmm?’ Her voice was rather dry, but still amused.”
Claire never passes up a teachable moment! :-)
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- As well, we learned of the passing Hugh, DH of Kate Smith (LOLKate). Lallyhugs and Blessings to all the family. Kate and Hugh lived in Australia, are originally from Scotland. -- JudithONH, Sun, January 28 2024, 9:51:06
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- QOTD for Sunday 28 January 2024 -- JudithONH, Sat, January 27 2024, 18:25:54
Here we go again…sorry, no theme this week either, just something from each page (126, 226, 326, etc.). There is always something rich when I do these silly choices, and I do remember most of this book. I must have re-read it a time or two. 😊 Enjoy!
The following quote is from An Echo in the Bone by Diana Gabaldon, chapter 13, “Unrest,” Copyright 2009 by Diana Gabaldon, all rights reserved.
“—but he wondered suddenly whether he might find a wife in Scotland.
He couldn’t. Could he? Would Bug be able to follow him so far? Maybe he’s already dead, he thought again, and shifted a bit. Rollo grumbled in his throat, but, recognizing the signs, shuffled off him and curled up a little distance away.
His family would be there. Surrounded by the Murrays, surely he – and a wife – would be safe. It was simple to lurk and steal through the dense woods here in the mountains – not nearly so simple in the Highlands, where every eye was sharp and no stranger passed unnoticed.”
I loved Ian's thought process here...it goes on to say that surely Jenny could find someone who would marry Ian, even looking like a Mohawk... And how no way could Bug be inconspicuous in the Highlands.
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