My parents were both born in 1930. They grew up during the Depression. They wanted their children to have secure lives, to have a good salary and a pension plan. If I could've guaranteed that I'd be a best-selling writer, that would've been one thing, but nobody could say that. So I knew better than to say that was ambition.

Diana Gabaldon

There's not a lot of pictorial evidence from the Highlands, because only the very wealthy had their portraits painted - but there is one well-known painting of the two sons of the Duke of Argyll, wearing tartan.

Diana Gabaldon

Art Well Wearing

I think characters are going to be, if not a reflection of the author, at least some refraction of some part of their personality.

Diana Gabaldon

Art Thor Think

Reading 'The Last Days of Magic' is like playing a well-constructed video game.

Diana Gabaldon

Yin Well Video

I do recall loving 'All Quiet on the Western Front,' and I know I read it in a schoolroom, but I think I was in the sixth grade at the time, so it probably wasn't assigned reading.

Diana Gabaldon

Time Western West

I'm not a team player. I'm used to having total control over everything I do.

Diana Gabaldon

Very Used Use

When I am at home writing, I have all the power. I am God. But TV is a polytheistic universe.

Diana Gabaldon

Power Home God

I've read a lot of classic literature from assorted cultures, and always glad to read more when one comes across my path - but why be embarrassed by the fact that flesh and blood has limits? Nobody's read everything.

Diana Gabaldon

Why Ways Way

I understand the visual media very well, as I used to write comic books for Walt Disney, and I've written a graphic novel.

Diana Gabaldon

Written Write Well

The thought that you ought not to drink while pregnant came much, much later. In fact, I had my first child in 1982, and I was still told by nurses and so forth, 'Have a glass of wine with dinner. It'll help you relax.'

Diana Gabaldon

You Wit Wine

I don't plot the books out ahead of time, I don't plan them. I don't begin at the beginning and end at the end. I don't work with an outline and I don't work in a straight line.

Diana Gabaldon

Work Time Wit

I think it's extremely important that children are exposed to reading.

Diana Gabaldon

Think Thin Tan

If you're writing something that's clearly labelled as an alternative history, of course it's perfectly legitimate to play with known historical characters and events, but less so when you're writing an essentially straight historical fiction.

Diana Gabaldon

History You Writing

I was 35, had always wanted to write novels, and thought that I had better do it while I was young enough.

Diana Gabaldon

Young You Write

Every time I'd read about the stone circles, it would describe how they worked as an astronomical observance. For example, some of the circles are oriented so that at the winter solstice, the sun will strike a standing stone.

Diana Gabaldon

Work Time Would

A romance is a courtship story. In the 19th century, the definition of the romance genre was an escape from daily life that included adventure and love and battle. But in the 20th century, that term changed, and now it's deemed only a love story, specifically a courtship story.

Diana Gabaldon

Love Life Change

I don't work in a straight line. I don't write with an outline. I write where I can see things happen, and then things get glued together.

Diana Gabaldon

Work Write Wit

I hated 'The Lovely Bones'. I thought her vision of Heaven was amazingly uninspired and very depressing. The book was just tedious.

Diana Gabaldon

Love Amazing Vision

I don't think I ever consciously separated 'school' books from any others; I just read anything that came across my path.

Diana Gabaldon

Us Think Thing

If you're going to have more than one person read your book, they're going to have totally different opinions and responses. No person - no two people - read the same book.

Diana Gabaldon

Your You Two People

When you're an artist, you can't write with the intent of affecting anyone.

Diana Gabaldon

Art You Write

All of my books have an internal geometric shape, and once I've seen the shape, then the writing gets much faster and easier because I now do know where we're going, and I know what's motivating these people, why they were here, and therefore, I have some good idea how they got there, and so I can fill in the missing chunks somewhat more easily.

Diana Gabaldon

I read some books, and I thought, 'This is better than sliced bread!' and a month later, I couldn't remember thinking about it. And I've read others that were kind of a slog, and I've put them down and come back six months later thinking, 'Wow, this is great.' So, you know, things change all the time.

Diana Gabaldon

I thought at first that I might write mysteries, but then I said, 'Mysteries have plots, and I'm not sure I can do that yet.'

Diana Gabaldon

My parents were both born in 1930. They grew up during the Depression. They wanted their children to have secure lives, to have a good salary and a pension plan. If I could've guaranteed that I'd be a best-selling writer, that would've been one thing, but nobody could say that. So I knew better than to say that was ambition.

Diana Gabaldon

Now I've got a fairly good grasp of the 18th century on what was common and what people thought. But I don't write in order. I write bits and pieces and sort of glue them.

Diana Gabaldon

Partly because of the way I write - I don't work with an outline or in a straight line. I work where I can see things happening, and so I get lots and lots of little bits to start with, and I'm doing the research at the same time.

Diana Gabaldon

How you carry a story in pictures is different than how you do it in text.

Diana Gabaldon

I understand the visual media very well, as I used to write comic books for Walt Disney, and I've written a graphic novel. How you carry a story in pictures is different than how you do it in text.

Diana Gabaldon

I write where I can see things happen, and then things get glued together. I do have the final scene, but that really is an epilogue. It's not part of the plot.

Diana Gabaldon

The Internet has improved a lot in the last few years, but still, you wouldn't want to depend on Web sources for historical analysis. There's just something hard to beat about a book.

Diana Gabaldon

Back in the day, years ago, in 1988, the only TV I watched was 'Doctor Who' because I had children and two full-time jobs, and 'Doctor Who' was the exact length of time it took to do my nails, so I would watch 'Doctor Who' once a week!

Diana Gabaldon

It's worth noting that at the time of the American Revolution, no sane person would have given two cents for its success.

Diana Gabaldon

Part of my purpose in my books has been to tell the complete story of a relationship and a marriage, not just to end with 'happily ever after,' leaving the protagonists at the altar or in bed... I wanted to show some of the complicated business of actually living a successful marriage.

Diana Gabaldon

'The Exile' covers approximately the first third of 'Outlander'.

Diana Gabaldon

When' Voyager', the third book of the series, hit the 'New York Times' bestseller list, they very honorably redesigned the covers and started calling them fiction.

Diana Gabaldon

Orkney has the kind of landscape that sort of lends itself to a relationship with the people. I think that relationship is intensified because of its remoteness and the long periods of time when there was no interaction with other cultures.

Diana Gabaldon

Normally, it takes me about three years to write one of the big books. It is usually four years between releases because of the huge amount of travel and PR and just nuisance going on around them. I have a lot of pressure from publishers and agents.

Diana Gabaldon

From the late '70s to the early '90s, I wrote anything anybody would pay me for. This ranged from articles on how to clean a longhorn cow's skull for living-room decoration to manuals on elementary math instruction on the Apple II... to a slew of software reviews and application articles done for the computer press.

Diana Gabaldon

Whenever anything bubbles up, I have to put it down. I have bits and pieces all over my hard drive.

Diana Gabaldon

You see one scene shot 25 times in one day, which is totally fascinating, but while you're watching it, you're remembering, 'This is what I was thinking when I was writing that part of the book,' and so it brings it all back very gradually as you're working.

Diana Gabaldon

People have been trying to make a two-hour feature film of 'Outlander' for years and years and years.

Diana Gabaldon

'Rob Roy' was a great adaptation. It was a lot better than 'Braveheart.'

Diana Gabaldon

I took to saying, 'Look, tell you what: Pick it up; open it anywhere. Read three pages. If you can put it down again, I'll pay you a dollar. So I never lost any money on that bet, but I sold a lot of books.

Diana Gabaldon

Well, I can't remember not being able to read. I was told I could read by myself very well at the age of three.

Diana Gabaldon

Conflict and character are the heart of good fiction, and good mystery has both of those in spades.

Diana Gabaldon

I read all the time. People ask, 'Do you read while you work?' And I say, 'I better.' I take two or three years to finish one of my enormous books, and I can't go that long without reading.

Diana Gabaldon

When you're reading, you're not where you are; you're in the book. By the same token, I can write anywhere.

Diana Gabaldon

People assume that science is a very cold sort of profession, whereas writing novels is a warm and fuzzy intuitive thing. But in fact, they are not at all different.

Diana Gabaldon

What underlies great science is what underlies great art, whether it is visual or written, and that is the ability to distinguish patterns out of chaos.

Diana Gabaldon

I work late at night. I'm awake and nobody bothers me. It's quiet and things come and talk to me in the silence.

Diana Gabaldon