María

“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.”
― Diana Gabaldon, Drums of Autumn

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

“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.”
― Diana Gabaldon, Drums of Autumn

“Everything depends on upbringing. ”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace