Frasi di Diana Gabaldon

pagina 3

“L’amore per un figlio non può essere libero: sin dai primi segni di movimento nell’utero germoglia in noi una devozione tanto potente quanto viscerale, irresistibile come l’atto stesso della nascita. Ma, per quanto potente esso sia, si tratta pur sempre di un amore fatto di controllo; si diventa guardiani, protettori, custodi: c’è tantissima passione in questo, certo, ma mai abbandono.
Avevo sempre, sempre dovuto bilanciare la compassione con la saggezza, l’amore con il giudizio, l’umanità con l’inflessibilità.
Solo a Jamie avevo dato tutto ciò che possedevo, rischiando tutto. Avevo gettato al vento cautela, giudizio e saggezza, insieme ai piaceri e alle limitazioni di una carriera duramente conquistata. Gli avevo portato in dono nient’altro che me stessa, non ero stata altro che me stessa con lui, donandomi anima e corpo, e avevo lasciato che mi vedesse nuda, confidando che mi avrebbe amata tutta intera, comprese le mie fragilità, perché un tempo era stato così.”

“Ci sono cose che io non posso dire a te, almeno non ancora. E non insisterò affinché tu mi riveli i tuoi segreti. Però ti chiedo questo: quando mi dici qualcosa, fa che sia la verità. E io ti prometto di fare lo stesso. Tra noi per ora non c'è nulla, tranne… il rispetto, forse. E penso che nel rispetto possa esserci spazio per i segreti, ma non per le bugie. Sei d'accordo?”

“D'accordo", sibilai tra i denti, mentre flettevo con cautela la mano destra ancora formicolante. "Cos'è che si deve fare, quando si colpisce un osso e si perde il coltello? Esiste una procedura fissa in questi casi?"
"Oh, aye", rispose Rupert, sghignazzando. "Tiri fuori la pistola con la sinistra e lo fai secco.”

“Rimasi immobile, la visione si offuscò e in quel momento sentii il mio cuore spezzarsi. Era un suono piccolo e pulito, come lo schiocco del gambo di un fiore.”

“Dove c'è amore, il parlare non è necessario”

“Non aver paura. Siamo in due adesso.”

“Oh, sì, Sassenach. Io sono il tuo padrone … e tu sei mio. Sembra che io possa possedere la tua anima senza perdere la mia.”

“Anch'io posso sopportare il dolore, disse sottovoce, ma non potevo sopportare il tuo. Ciò richiederebbe più forza di me.”

“Could I but lay my head in your lap, lass. Feel your hand on me, and sleep wi' the scent of you in my bed.

Christ, Sassenach. I need ye.”

“When the day shall come, that we do part," he said softly, and turned to look at me, "if my last words are not 'I love you'—ye'll ken it was because I didna have time.”

“While the Lord might insist that vengeance was His, no male Highlander of my acquaintance had ever thought it right that the Lord should be left to handle such things without assistance.”

“We have nothing now between us, save - respect, perhaps. And I think that respect has maybe room for secrets, but not for lies.”

“I gave you justice, it said, as I was taught it. And I gave you mercy, too, so far as I could. While I could not spare you pain and humiliation, I make you a gift of my own pains and humiliations, that yours might be easier to bear.”

“He gave you to me," she said, so low I could hardly hear her. "Now I have to give you back to him, Mama.”

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

“There comes a turning point in intense physical struggle where one abandons oneself to a profligate usage of strength and bodily resource, ignoring the costs until the struggle is over. Women find this point in childbirth; men in battle.”

“I'll scream!"
"Likely. If not before, certainly during. I expect they'll hear ye at the next farm; you've got good lungs.”

“Harmless as a setting dove," he agreed. "I'm too hungry to be a threat to anything but breakfast. Let a stray bannock come within reach, though, and I'll no answer for the consequences.”

“I want to hold you like a kitten in my shirt, and still I want to spread your thighs and plow ye like a rotting bull. I dinna understand myself.”

“… well, if women's work was never done, why trouble about how much of it wasn't being accomplished at any given moment?”

“Ye need not be scairt of me," he said softly. "Nor anyone here, so long as I'm with ye." - Jaime”

“You're mine, damn ye, Claire Fraser! Mine, and I wilna share ye, with a man or a memory, or anything whatever, so long as both shall live.”

“Sassenach." He had called me that from the first; the Gaelic word for outlander, a stranger. An Englishman. First in jest, then in affection.”

“I'll tell ye, Sassenach; if ever I feel the need to change my manner of employment, I dinna think I'll take up attacking women - it's a bloody hard way to make a living.”

“Torn between the impulse to stroke his head, and the urge to cave it in with a rock, I did neither.”

“I loveI have loved ye from the moment I saw ye, I will love ye ’til time itself is done, and so long as you are by my side, I am well pleased wi’ the world.”

“No wonder men got impervious to superficial pain, I thought. It came from this habit of hammering each other incessantly.”

“Life among academics had taught me that a well-expressed opinion is usually better than a badly expressed fact, so far as professional advancement goes.”

“Lord that she might be safe. She and my children.”

“He [Brian Fraser] told me that a man must be responsible for any see he sows, for it's his duty to take care of a woman and protect her. And if I wasna prepared to do that, then I'd no right to burden a woman with the consequences of my own actions.”

“Home is the place where they have to take you in”

“Has he come armed, then?” she asked anxiously. “Has he brought a pistol or a sword?”

Ian shook his head, his dark hair lifting wildly in the wind.

“Oh, no, Mam!” he said. “It’s worse. He’s brought a lawyer!”

“What are you doing with the child?" I inquired cautiously.
"I'm teachin' young James here the fine art of not pissing on his feet," he explained.”

“Sassenach,” he said against my shoulder, a moment later. “Mm?” “Who in God’s name is John Wayne?” “You are,” I said. “Go to sleep.”

“My father liked me, when I wasna being an idiot. And he loved me, too -- enough to beat the daylights out of me when I was being an idiot. Jamie Fraser”

“I know why the Jews and Muslims have nine hundred names for God; one small word is not enough for love.”

“Roger speaking to Brianna:
It's too important. You don't forget having a dad."
You do remember your father?"
No. I remember yours.”