Drums Of Autumn Quotes

Forgiveness is not a single act, but a matter of constant practice.

You are my courage, as I am your conscience," he whispered. "You are my heart---and I your compassion. We are neither of us whole, alone. Do ye not know that, Sassenach?

My heart is drumming in my chest so hard it aches, but it's the good kind of ache, like the feeling you get on the first real day of autumn, when the air is crisp and the leaves are all flaring at the edges and the wind smells just vaguely of smoke - like the end and the beginning of something all at once.

Your face is my heart Sassenach, and the love of you is my soul

This is our time. Until that time stops - for one of us, for both – it is our time. Now. Will you waste it, because you are afraid?

An Englishman thinks a hundred miles is a long way; and American thinks a hundred years is a long time

But a man is not forgotten, as long as there are two people left under the sky. One, to tell the story; the other, to hear it.

I hated him for as long as I could. But then I realized that loving him...that was a part of me, and one of the best parts. It didn't matter that he couldn't love me, that had nothing to do with it. But if I couldn't forgive him, then I could not love him, and that part of me was gone. And I found eventually that I wanted it back." ({Lord John, Drums of Autumn}

And when my body shall cease, my soul will still be yours, Claire? I swear by my hope of heaven, I will not be parted from you." The wind stirred the leaves of the chestnut trees nearby, and the scents of late summer rose up rich around us; pine and grass and strawberries, sun-warmed stone and cool water, and the sharp, musky smell of his body next to mine. "Nothing is lost, Sassenach; only changed." "That's the first law of thermodynamics," I said, wiping my nose. "No," he said. "That's faith.

Then the room relaxed in cheers and babbling, and she turned in his arms to kiss him hard and cling to him, and he thought perhaps it didn't matter that they faced in opposite directions - so long as they faced each other.' Roger Wakefield {Drums Of Autumn}

What possessed ye, woman, to hit me in the heid wi' a fish whilst I was fighting for my life?

And when my body shall cease, my soul will still be yours, Claire--- I swear by my hope of heaven, I will not be parted from you. --Jamie

He blinked , and his eyes moved at last from her face, slowly taking in her appearance, and- with what seemed to her a new and horrified awareness- her height. "My God," he croaked. "You're huge.

Look back, hold a torch to light the recesses of the dark. Listen to the footsteps that echo behind, when you walk alone. All the time the ghosts flit past and through us, hiding in the future. We look in the mirror and see the 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. Each ghost comes unbidden from the misty grounds of dream and silence. Our rational minds say, "No, it isn't." But another part, an older part, echoes always softly in the dark, "Yes, but it could be.

If ye have to ask yourself if you’re in love, laddie—then ye aren’t,

He turned his head to look full at me, his hair fire-struck with the setting sun, face dark in silhouette. "Twenty-four years ago today, I married ye, Sassenach," he said softly. "I hope ye willna have cause yet to regret it." -Jamie Fraser

He shook his head and squeezed my hand tight. "You are my courage, as I am your conscience," he whispered, "You are my heart-- I am your compassion. We are neither of us whole, alone. Do ye not know that, Sassenach?" --Jamie

At last I took one big, callused hand and slid forward so I knelt on the boards between his knees. I laid my head against his chest, and felt his breath stir my hair. I had no words, but I had made my choice. "'Whither thou goest,'" I said. "'I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried.' Be it Scottish hill or southern forest. You do what you have to; I'll be there.

Claire knew the flavor of solitude. It was cold as spring water, and not all could drink it; for some it was not refreshment, but mortal chill.

I thought he said you weren’t drunk if you could find your arse with both hands.” He eyed me appraisingly. “I hate to tell ye, Sassenach, but it’s not your arse ye’ve got hold of—it’s mine.” “That’s all right,” I assured him. “We’re married. Share and share alike. One flesh; the priest said so.

What a mystery blood was -- how did a tiny gesture, a tome of voice, endure through generations like the harder verities of flesh? He had seen it again and again, watching his nieces and nephews grow, and accepted without thought the ehoes of parent and grandparent that appeared for brief moments. the shadow of a face looking back through the years -- that vanished again into the face that was now.

Nothing is lost, Sassenach; only changed.” “That’s the first law of thermodynamics,” I said, wiping my nose. “No,” he said. “That’s faith.

It was one of those strange moments that came to him rarely, but never left. A moment that stamped itself on heart and brain, instantly recallable in every detail, for all of his life. There was no telling what made these moments different from any other, though he knew them when they came. He had seen sights more gruesome and more beautiful by far, and been left with no more than a fleeting muddle of their memory. But these-- the still moments, as he called them to himself-- they came with no warning, to print a random image of the most common things inside his brain, indelible.

It was a leap of faith—to throw one’s heart across a gulf, and trust another to catch it.

Do you know how rare such a thing is?” he asked quietly. “That peculiar sort of mutual passion?” The one-sided kind was common enough.

That only by forgiveness could she forget—and that forgiveness was not a single act, but a matter of constant practice.

And suddenly it was all simple. He held out his arms to her. She stepped into them and found that she had been wrong; he was as big as she’d imagined—and his arms were as strong about her as she had ever dared to hope.

Yes. It doesn't matter what happens; no matter where a child goes - how far or how long. Even if it's forever. You never lose them. You can't.

What is it about ye, Sassenach, I wonder?” he said conversationally, eyes still fixed on Myers. “What is what about me?” He turned then, and gave me a narrow eye. “What it is that makes every man ye meet want to take off his breeks within five minutes of meetin’ ye.” “Well, if you don’t know, my dear,” I said, “no one does.

Alright, all right," I said. "What if I tell you a story, instead?" Highlanders loved stories, and Jamie was no exception. "Oh, aye, " he said, sounding much happier. "What sort of story is it?

I've never been afraid of ghosts. I live with them daily, after all. When I look in a mirror, my mother's eyes look back at me; my mouth curls with the smile that lured my great-grandfather to the fate that was me. No, how should I fear the touch of those vanished hands, laid on me in love unknowing? How could I be afraid of those that molded my flesh, leaving their remnants to live long past the grave?...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 own ghosts; we haunt ourselves.

You're the best man I ever met," I said. "I only meant...it's such a strain, to try and live for two people. To try to make them fit your ideas of what's right...You do it for a child, of course, you have to, but even then, it's dreadfully hard work. I couldn't do it for you - it would be wrong even to try." I'd taken him back more than a little. He sat for some moments, his face turned half away. Do ye really think me a good man?" he said at last. There was a queer note in his voice, that I couldn't quite decipher. Yes," I said, with no hesitation. Then added, half jokingly, "Don't you?" After a long pause, he said, quite seriously, "No, I shouldna think so." I looked at him speechless, no doubt with my mouth hanging open. I am a violent man, and I ken it well," he said quietly. He spread his hands out on his knees; big hands, which could wield a sword and dagger with ease, or choke the life from a man. " So do you - or ye should." You've never done anything you weren't forced to do!" No?" I don't think so." I said, but even as I spoke, a shadow of doubt clouded my words. Even when done from the most urgent necessity, did such things not leave a mark on the soul? {Claire Fraser & Jamie Fraser. Drums of Autumn}

By blood and by choice, we make our ghosts; we haunt ourselves.

My Da says you’re never drunk, so long as ye can hold on to the floor.

We look in the mirror and see the 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.

There is nothing more delightful in life than a feather bed and an open fire—except a feather bed with a warm and tender lover in it.

He hadn’t worn the kilt since Culloden, but his body had not forgotten the way of it.

How shall I tell ye what it is, to feel the need of a place?" he said softly. "The need of snow beneath my shoon. The breath of the mountains, breathing their own breath in my nostrils as God gave breath to Adam. The scrape of rock under my hand, climbing, and the sight of the lichens on it, enduring in the sun and the wind."        His breath was gone and he breathed again, taking mine. His hands were linked behind mv head, holding me, face-to-face. "If I am to live as a man, I must have a mountain," he said simply.

Within an hour, I had gone from anguish at the thought of losing him in Scotland, to a strong desire to bed him in the herbaceous borders, and from that to a pronounced urge to hit him on the head with an oar. Now I was back to tenderness.

But a man is not forgotten, as long as there are two people left under the sky. One, to tell the story; the other, to hear it. So.

But do ye not see how verra small a thing is the notion of death, between us two, Claire?” he whispered.

Is it true—that I won’t forget?” He paused for a moment, hand on her hair. “Aye, that’s true,” he said softly. “But it’s true, too, that it willna matter after a time.

Your face is my heart, Sassenach,” he said softly, “and love of you is my soul. But you’re right; ye canna be my conscience.

I mean to take my time about it, aye?

He wasn't a whole person any longer, but only half of something not yet made.

My God, he thought, I’m going to die before I’ve been born.

I was dead, my Sassenach – and yet all that time, I loved you.

My father always said that was the difference between an American and an Englishman. An Englishman thinks a hundred miles is a long way; an American thinks a hundred years is a long time.

With vivid memories of the last IRS form I had signed, I agreed sympathetically that a two percent tax rate was a positive outrage, wondering to myself just what had become of the fiery spirit of American taxpayers over the intervening two hundred years.

Not loneliness, but solitude. Not suffering, but endurance, the discovery of grim kinship with the rocks and sky. And the finding here of a harsh peace that would transcend bodily discomfort, a healing instead of the wounds of the soul.

We got half the doggone MIT college of engineering here, and nobody who can fix a doggone /television/?" Dr. Joseph Abernathy glared accusingly at the clusters of young people scattered around his living room. That's /electrical/ engineering, Pop," his son told him loftily. "We're all mechanical engineers. Ask a mechanical engineer to fix your color TV, that's like asking an Ob-Gyn to look at the sore on your di-ow!" Oh, sorry," said his father, peering blandly over gold-rimmed glasses. "That your foot, Lenny?

I, ah, I wasn’t expecting—” I said idiotically. Brianna gave me a grin to match her father’s, eyes bright as stars and damp with happiness. “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!” “What?” said Jamie blankly.

We come and go from mystery and, in between, we try to forget.

Put your trust in God, and pray for guidance. And when in doubt, eat.” A Franciscan monk had once given me that advice, and on the whole, I had found it useful.

She was the sort of girl called “bonny”—not beautiful, but lively and nicely made, with something about her that took the eye.

If it was killing-and it was- then I thought it not murder, but a justifiable homicide, undertaken in desperate self defense.

Twenty-four years ago today, I married ye, Sassenach,” he said softly. “I hope ye willna have cause yet to regret it.

Testosterone poisoning,

Venemous,” Jamie corrected him. “If it bites you and makes ye sick, it’s venemous; if you bite it and it makes ye sick, it’s poisonous.

The universe had shifted, with a small, decisive click; he could still hear its echo in his bones.

Nothing is lost ... only changed.

the ancient savagery that men call motherhood, who mistake its tenderness for weakness.

And a long time,” he said. “I am a jealous man, but not a vengeful one. I would take you from him, my Sassenach—but I wouldna take him from you.

What is it about ye, Sassenach, I wonder?” he said conversationally, eyes still fixed on Myers. "What is what about me?” He turned then, and gave me a narrow eye. "What it is that makes every man ye meet want to take off his breeks within five minutes of meetin’ ye.

Actually, it’s your kilt that makes me want to fling you to the floor and commit ravishment,” I told him. “But you don’t look at all bad in your breeks.” [....]"Take them off,” he repeated firmly. He stepped back and tugged loose the lacing of his flies. “Ye can put them back on again after, Sassenach, but if there’s flinging and ravishing to be done, it’ll be me that does it, aye?

There comes a day each September when you wake up and know the summer is over and fall has arrived. The slant of the sun looks different and something is in the air--a coolness, a hint of frosty mornings to follow. I woke early on the morning of September 24 and reached for a warmer petticoat.

Calmar el dolor y el miedo a la muerte servía para atenuar los propios temores.

«Nadie se muere por eso. Ni tu, ni yo»

I could know ye all my life, I think, and always love you.

Feel my heart,” he said. His voice sounded thick to his own ears. “Tell me if it stops.

You can…call me Da,” he said. His voice was husky; he stopped and cleared his throat. “If—if ye want to, I mean," "Da. Is that Gaelic?” He smiled back, the corners of his mouth trembling slightly. “No. It’s only…simple.” And suddenly it was all simple. He held out his arms to her. She stepped into them and found that she had been wrong;—and his arms were as strong about her as she had ever dared to hope.

-Y cuando mi cuerpo perezca, mi alma todavía será tuya, Claire. Juro por mi esperanza de ganarme el cielo que no seré separado de ti. Nada se pierde, Sassenach; sólo se transforma. -Eso es la primera ley de la termodinámica -dije secándome la nariz. -No -respondió-. Eso es fe.

What's that you're doing, Sassenach?" "Making out little Gizmo's birth certificate--so far as I can," I added. "Gizmo?" he said doubtfully. "That will be a saint's name?" "I shouldn't think so, though you never know, what with people named Pantaleon and Onuphrius. Or Ferreolus." "Ferreolus? I dinna think I ken that one." He leaned back, hands linked over his knee. "One of my favorites," I told him, carefully filling in the birthdate and time of birth--even that was an estimate, poor thing. There were precisely two bits of unequivocal information on this birth certificate--the date and the name of the doctor who's delivered him. "Ferreolus," I went on with some new enjoyment, "is the patron saint of sick poultry. Christian martyr. He was a Roman tribune and a secret Christian. Having been found out, he was chained up in the prison cesspool to await trial--I suppose the cells must have been full. Sounds rather daredevil; he slipped his chains and escaped through the sewer. They caught up with him, though, dragged him back and beheaded him." Jamie looked blank. "What has that got to do wi' chickens?" "I haven't the faintest idea. Take it up with the Vatican," I advised him. "Mmphm. Aye, well, I've always been fond of Saint Guignole, myself." I could see the glint in his eye, but couldn't resist. "And what's he the patron of?" "He's involved against impotence." The glint got stronger. "I saw a statue of him in Brest once; they did say it had been there for a thousand years. 'Twas a miraculous statue--it had a cock like a gun muzzle, and--" "A what?" "Well, the size wasna the miraculous bit," he said, waving me to silence. "Or not quite. The townsfolk say that for a thousand years, folk have whittled away bits of it as holy relics, and yet the cock is still as big as ever." He grinned at me. "They do say that a man w' a bit of St. Guignole in his pocket can last a night and a day without tiring." "Not with the same woman, I don't imagine," I said dryly. "It does rather make you wonder what he did to merit sainthood, though, doesn't it?" He laughed. "Any man who's had his prayer answered could tell yet that, Sassenach." (PP. 841-842)

How to tell her in words, then, what he had learned himself by pain and grace? That only by forgiveness could she forget—and that forgiveness was not a single act, but a matter of constant practice.

I love you,” he murmured. “Oh, Bree, I do love you.” She didn’t answer, but a hand floated up from the dark and lay along his cheek, gentle as a tendril of seaweed. She kept it there while he took her, laid open in trust, while her other hand held his beating heart.

The light faded slowly, retreating through the trees. The thick mossy trunks grew dense with shadow, edges still rimmed with a fugitive light that hid among the leaves, green shadows shifting with the sunset breeze.

I glanced upward once, to see Brianna glowing, still smiling from ear to ear. Jamie was behind her, also smiling, his cheeks wet with tears. He said something to her in husky Gaelic, and brushing the hair away from her neck, leaned forward and kissed her gently, just behind the ear

He tolk both my hands in his, then, and kissed them - the left which still bore the gold ring of my marriage to Frank, and then the right, with his own silver ring.. "Da mi basia mille," he whispered, smiling. Give me a thousand kisses. It was the inscription inside my ring, a brief quotation from a love song by Catullus. I bent and gave him one back. "Dein mille altera, " I said. Then a thousand more.

You are my courage, as I am your conscience,” he whispered. “You are my heart—and I your compassion. We are neither of us whole, alone. Do ye not know that, Sassenach?” “I do know that,” I said, and my voice shook. “That’s why I’m so afraid. I don’t want to be half a person again, I can’t bear it.

the difference between an American and an Englishman. An Englishman thinks a hundred miles is a long way; an American thinks a hundred years is a long time.

I waved pleasantly after him, thinking how much I should enjoy sticking a fork into him, when the time came.

To see the years touch ye gives me joy, Sassenach,” he whispered, “—for it means that ye live.

of Jamie. God, how could I do it? Leave him

For a moment, I saw him as he had looked the morning I married him. Duine uasal was what he looked, a man of worth. But the bold face above the lace was the same, older now, but wiser with it—yet the tilt of his shining head and the set of the wide, firm mouth, the slanted clear cat-eyes that looked into my own, were just the same. Here was a man who had always known his worth.

He went on loving her,” she whispered, as much to herself as to anyone else. “He didn’t forget her.” "Of course he didna forget her.” She opened her eyes to see Ian’s long face and kind brown eyes six inches away. A broad work-worn hand rested on hers, warm and hard, a hand even larger than her own. “Neither did we,” he said.

And when my body shall cease, my soul will still be yours. Claire—I swear by my hope of heaven, I will not be parted from you.” [...] "Nothing is lost, Sassenach; only changed.” "That’s the first law of thermodynamics,” I said, wiping my nose. "No,” he said. “That’s faith.

Some enterprising rabbit had dug its way under the stakes of my garden again. One voracious rabbit could eat a cabbage down to the roots, and from the looks of things, he'd brought friends. I sighed and squatted to repair the damage, packing rocks and earth back into the hole. The loss of Ian was a constant ache; at such moments as this, I missed his horrible dog as well. I had brought a large collection of cuttings and seeds from River Run, most of which had survived the journey. It was mid-June, still time--barely--to put in a fresh crop of carrots. The small patch of potato vines was all right, so were the peanut bushes; rabbits wouldn't touch those, and didn't care for the aromatic herbs either, except the fennel, which they gobbled like licorice. I wanted cabbages, though, to preserve a sauerkraut; come winter, we would want food with some taste to it, as well as some vitamin C. I had enough seed left, and could raise a couple of decent crops before the weather turned cold, if I could keep the bloody rabbits off. I drummed my fingers on the handle of my basket, thinking. The Indians scattered clippings of their hair around the edges of the fields, but that was more protection against deer than rabbits. Jamie was the best repellent, I decided. Nayawenne had told me that the scent of carnivore urine would keep rabbits away--and a man who ate meat was nearly as good as a mountain lion, to say nothing of being more biddable. Yes, that would do; he'd shot a deer only two days ago; it was still hanging. I should brew a fresh bucket of spruce beer to go with the roast venison, though . . . (Page 844)

The flame of Brianna’s head moved slightly, looking from one to the other, and I saw what she saw; the echo of Jamie’s dangerous stillness in Roger. It was both unexpected and shocking; I had never seen any resemblance between them at all—and yet at the moment they might have been day and dark, images of fire and night, each mirroring the other. MacKenzie,

-¿Cómo andan? -preguntó, pretendiendo demostrar cierta despreocupación. -¿Quiénes? ¿Te refieres a Brianna y Roger?. -¿A qué otros, si no? -dijo, dejando a un lado sus pretensiones-. ¿Va todo bien entre ellos?. -Creo que sí. Se están acostumbrando de nuevo el uno al otro. -¿ Lo hacen?. -Sí -dije, mirando de reojo a la cabaña--Roger acaba de vomitar en la falda de Brianna.

Amphora,” he murmured against the wide, sweet curve of her lips. His hands slid over the wide, sweet curve of her hips, cupping smoothness cool and solid, timeless and graceful as the swell of ancient pottery, promising abundance. “Like a Grecian vase. God, you’ve got the most beautiful arse!” “Jug-butt, huh?

For I had come back, and I dreamed once more, in the cool air of the Highlands. And the voice of my dream still echoed through ears and heart, repeated with the sound of Brianna’s sleeping breath. “You are mine,” it had said. “Mine! And I will not let you go.

All over the clearing, the same thing was happening; the women gave not an inch, but their men stepped out before them. Anyone coming into the clearing would think that the women had melted into invisibility, leaving an implacable phalanx of Scotsmen staring down the glen.

We look in the mirror and see the 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. Each ghost comes unbidden from the misty grounds of dream and silence.

Scots have long memories, and they're not the most forgiving of people. There's a clan stone out there with the name of MacKenzie carved on it, and a good many of my relatives under it. I don't feel quite so personal about it as some, but I haven't forgotten either. - Roger MacKenzie Wakefield

I did say when we were wed that I would always see ye fed, no?” He pulled me closer, tucking my head into the curve of his shoulder. “I gave ye three things that day,” he said softly. “My name, my family, and the protection of my body. You’ll have those things always, Sassenach—so long as we both shall live. No matter where we may be. I willna let ye go hungry or cold; I’ll let nothing harm ye, ever.

But Mama--at first I tried to pretend she was only gone, like on a trip. And then when I couldn't do that anymore, I tried to believe she was dead.' Her nose was running, from emotion, whisky, or the heat of the tea. Roger reached for the tea towel hanging by the stove and shoved it across the tabe to her. 'She isn't, though.' She picked up the towel and wiped angrily at her nose. 'That's the trouble! I have to miss her all the time, and know that I'll never see her again, but she isn't even dead! How can I mourn for her, when I think-when I hope-she's happy where she is, when I made her go?

was awakened abruptly just after dawn by a tiny stinging sensation on top of my head. I blinked and put up a hand to investigate. The movement startled a large gray jay who had been pulling hairs out of my head, and he shot up into a nearby pine tree, screeching hysterically. “Serve you right, mate,” I muttered, rubbing the top of my head, but couldn’t help smiling. I had been told often enough that my hair looked like a bird’s nest first thing in the morning; perhaps there was something to it, after all.

You are my baby, and always will be. You won’t know what that means until you have a child of your own, but I tell you now, anyway—you’ll always be as much a part of me as when you shared my body and I felt you move inside. Always. I can look at you, asleep, and think of all the nights I tucked you in, coming in the dark to listen to your breathing, lay my hand on you and feel your chest rise and fall, knowing that no matter what happens, everything is right with the world because you are alive. All the names I’ve called you through the years—my chick, my pumpkin, precious dove, darling, sweetheart, dinky, smudge … I know why the Jews and Muslims have nine hundred names for God; one small word is not enough for love.

-¿Es verdad.., que no lo olvidaré? Estaba arrodillado a su lado y esperó un momento antes de responder. -Sí, es verdad -dijo suavemente-, Pero también es verdad que con el tiempo no te importará. -¿No? -Estaba demasiado cansada para seguir preguntándole. Se sentía extrañamente lejana-. ¿Aunque no sea lo bastante fuerte para matarlo? -Eres una mujer muy fuerte. -No lo soy. Me lo acabas de demostrar, no soy... Una mano en el hombro la detuvo. -No es eso lo que quería decirte -dijo pensativo-, Jenny tenía diez años cuando murió nuestra madre. -Y al día siguiente del funeral la encontré con el delantal de mi madre. Había estado llorando como yo. Pero me dijo: «Ve a lavarte, Jamie, voy a hacer la comida para ti y para papá». Cerró los ojos y tragó con fuerza. -Sé lo fuertes que pueden llegar a ser las mujeres. Y tú eres muy fuerte, créeme.

Was my future any more certain than hers? And did I not depend for my life upon a man bound to me—at least in part—by desire of my body? A faint wind breathed through the trees, and I hitched the blanket higher on my shoulder. The fire had burned to embers, and so high in the mountains, it was cool at night. The moon had set, but it was very clear; the stars blazed close, a net of light cast over the mountains’ peaks. No, there were differences. However unknown my future, it would be shared, and the bond between my man and me went much deeper than the flesh. Beyond all this was the one great difference, though—I had chosen to be there.