Diana Gabaldon Quotes

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Diana Gabaldon

Profession : Author

Birth : January 11, 1952

When I turned 35, I thought, 'Mozart was dead at 36, so I set the bar: I'm going to start writing a book on my next birthday.' I thought historical fiction would be easiest because I was a university professor and know my way around a library, and it seemed easier to look things up than make them up.

Diana Gabaldon

I was writing 'Outlander' for practise and didn't want anyone to know I was doing it. So I couldn't very well announce to my husband that I was quitting my job and abandoning him with three small children to visit Scotland to do research for a novel that I hadn't told him I was writing.

Diana Gabaldon

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

Cultural concepts are one of the most fascinating things about historical fiction.

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

In a great many stories that deal with time travel, there's usually somebody who knows how time travel works. They lay out the rules.

Diana Gabaldon

I have all the time and space in the world when I write a book.

Diana Gabaldon

Whenever you're dealing with something that's difficult to describe, that you can't get across to someone in a sound bite, it sounds like the normal default is to pick what's easiest, and in the case of fiction written by women, fiction involving women, fiction involving any sort of relationship, the word that comes to mind is 'romance.'

Diana Gabaldon

I'm a really slow writer. What I need to start writing on any given day, is a kernel, a line of dialogue, anything I can sense concretely.

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

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

I have no objection to well-written romance, but I'd read enough of it to know that that's not what I had written. I also knew that if it was sold as romance I'd never be reviewed by the 'New York Times' or any other literarily respectable newspaper - which is basically true, although the 'Washington Post' did get round to me eventually.

Diana Gabaldon

At one point, some years ago, a nice gentleman had it in mind to do 'Outlander' the musical. His idea was to start with a CD of what you call a song cycle, with a dozen high points of the projected show. It turned out very well, though we had to stop doing it when the TV show came along.

Diana Gabaldon

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