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Can I ask if you've ever been tearful over a quote?

99 replies

ArmsClary · 23/01/2021 16:19

I'm reading 1984 for the first time (I know, better late than never). Please no spoilers Grin

I've just come across the line "We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness." and it's made me really tearful Blush

Now, I'm a little hormonal at present but it just got me wondering has a line from a book ever had this effect on you?

I'm probably going to be really disappointed once the outcome/context of this line is revealed further on but for now, I'll enjoy it!

OP posts:
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hollyandkit · 23/01/2021 19:15

Not even really a line but just "Hey, Boo" from To Kill a Mockingbird.

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LookToTreblesGoingTreblesGone · 23/01/2021 19:17

Don't read "The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse" then! You'll dissolve in your own tears!

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Knitwit99 · 25/01/2021 08:37

I love this quote from Phillip Pullman's Northern Lights when two old colleagues from Jordan College are discussing their fears for Lyra. It brought a lump to me throat, not sure why.
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"That's the duty of the old" said the librarian, "to be anxious on behalf of the young. And the duty of the young is to scorn the anxiety of the old".
They sat for a while longer and then they parted, for it was late and they were old and anxious.

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highlandcoo · 25/01/2021 13:04

"Daddy, my Daddy!" in The Railway Children is fairly heart-wrenching.

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TottiePlantagenet · 31/01/2021 14:59

Julian Barnes, Levels of Life, about bereavement:

"Nature is so exact, it hurts exactly as much as it is worth, so in a way one relishes the pain, I think. If it didn't matter, it wouldn't matter."

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tunnocksreturns2019 · 31/01/2021 15:01

@highlandcoo

"Daddy, my Daddy!" in The Railway Children is fairly heart-wrenching.

My kids wanted this as bedtime story a few months after my DH died. It nearly finished me off. Some daddy’s can’t come home Sad
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tunnocksreturns2019 · 31/01/2021 15:01

*daddys

rogue apostrophe

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CrazyDuchess · 31/01/2021 15:03

"For never was a story of more woe Than this of Juliet and her Romeo"

Only line of Shakespeare I can recall

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FTMF30 · 31/01/2021 15:07

"Everywhere I go, there I am."

Said in Ozark regarding a character's brother having nowhere suitable to go to keep out of trouble. He has bipolar and his sister was desperately trying to bundle him off somewhere to prevent him being a liability.

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yearinyearout · 31/01/2021 15:09

One of my daughter's car insurance quotes reduced me to tears.

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CrazyDuchess · 31/01/2021 15:16

Grin @yearinyearout

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MummyInTheNecropolis · 31/01/2021 15:25

Probably not what you’re looking for, but I read Arsene Wenger’s autobiography recently and in it he wrote “if you love Arsenal once, you love them forever.”

It brought a lump to my throat. My dad was a lifelong Arsenal fan, as am I. My dad died just before Arsene wenger left the club, the two events are somewhat tied together in my mind so I found it very emotional.

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Guardsman18 · 31/01/2021 15:29

' I did not die, yet nothing of life remained' - a bit like the situation we're in now!

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welliguessitwouldbenice · 31/01/2021 15:32

I read a short story in readers digest once. It was about someone passing away. There was a line “There was nothing left to say that hadn’t been felt”. Still makes me weep

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ParkheadParadise · 31/01/2021 15:32

A friend gave me a card when dd died with this quote inside ( actually lyrics from a sing)

Fly me up to where you are
Beyond the distant star
I wish upon tonight
To see you smile
If only for a while
To know you're there
A breath away's not far to where you are

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SummaLuvin · 31/01/2021 15:37

From the end of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Hagrid gives Harry a gift.

It seemed to be a handsome, leather-covered book. It was full of wizard photographs. Smiling and waving at him from every page were his mother and father.
"Sent owls off ter all yer parents' old school friends, askin' fer photos... Knew yeh didn' have any... D'yeh like it?"
Harry couldn't speak, but Hagrid understood.

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Aquamarine1029 · 31/01/2021 15:39

"Its easy to make frends if you let pepul laff at you"

Flowers for Algernon.

There are loads of heartbreaking passages in that book.

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LubaLuca · 31/01/2021 15:46

"Indeed - why should I not admit it? - in that moment, my heart was breaking."

Remains of the Day. I got all wobbly-chinned the first time I read it.

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SummaLuvin · 31/01/2021 15:46

@Aquamarine1029 yes, such a beautiful book.

"I never knew before that Joe and Frank and the others liked to have me around just to make fun of me. Now I know what they mean wen they say 'to pull a Charlie Gordon.' I'm ashamed."

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highlandcoo · 31/01/2021 18:43

Oh tunnocksreturns2019 that's sad Flowers

I hope you and the children are doing OK, as much as you can be after such a sad event.

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heidbuttsupper · 31/01/2021 18:59

'You know that place between sleep and awake, that place when you can still remember dreaming? That's where I'll always love you, that's where I'll be waiting' 💔
Reminds me of my late husband

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TheMildManneredMilitant · 31/01/2021 19:10

'And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light'
(Dylan Thomas). Reminds me of how I felt when my mum was dying.

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Xoxoxoxoxoxox · 31/01/2021 19:10

"Wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing" ~ A. A. Milne.

Brings back a lot of memories of reading to the children when they were little.

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sadpapercourtesan · 31/01/2021 19:12

Yes, when I was obsessed with Anne Boleyn and the events surrounding her death (I'm obsessed with early modern history generally). I read the poem Thomas Wyatt wrote from the Tower when his friends were being executed, and the line "These bloody days have broken my heart" made me cry. That poem still makes my lip wobble.

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Springfern · 31/01/2021 19:17

@TottiePlantagenet

Julian Barnes, Levels of Life, about bereavement:

"Nature is so exact, it hurts exactly as much as it is worth, so in a way one relishes the pain, I think. If it didn't matter, it wouldn't matter."

This entire book broke my heart. I underlined...

'Pain shows that you have not forgotten; pain enhances the flavour of memory; pain is proof of love'
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