Shannan

“You invent yourself...You look at other women-or men; you try on their lives for size. You take what you can use, and you look inside yourself for what you can't find elsewhere. And always...always...you wonder if you're doing it right.”
― Diana Gabaldon, The Fiery Cross

“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.”
― Diana Gabaldon, Drums of Autumn

“Ye gave me a child, mo nighean donn," he said softly, into the cloud of my hair. "We are together for always. She is safe; and we will live forever now, you and I." He kissed me, very lightly, and laid his head upon the pillow next to me. "Brianna," he whispered, in that odd Highland way that made the name his own.”
― Diana Gabaldon, Voyager

“We sat like that for a long time, until a discrete knock at the half-open door broke us apart. Lissa stood in the doorway.
"Sorry," she said, her face shining with joy when she saw me. "Should have put a sock on the door. Didn't realize that things were getting hot and heavy."
"No avoiding it," I said lightly, clasping Dimitri's hand. "Things are always hot with him around."
Dimitri looked scandalized. He'd never held back when we were in bed together, but his private nature wouldn't let him even hint about such matters and others. It was mean, but I laughed and kissed his cheek.
"Oh, this is going to be fun," I said. "Now that everything's out in the open."
"Yeah," he said. "I got a pretty 'fun' look from your father the other day.”
― Richelle Mead, Last Sacrifice