Most heartbreaking lines from a book ever...

After you've gone by Maggie O'Farrell.
I don't have a quote but all the way through she is knitting a scarf and you don't know who for then realise it's for her husband who died. So sad. She's a wonderful writer.

Thus thread should be in classics.

The last book I cried at was The Hand that First Held Mine by Maggie O Farrell, I don’t want to post spoilers but it is a mother talking about her son in the most heartbreaking way.

This one from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows:

"Even after all this time?"
"Always"

oh God, this thread has me in bits. Some wonderful, wonderful writing in this world.

'It could be,' said Albert quietly. 'You're right David, it could be him. It sounds like him even. But there's one way I know to be sure,' and he untied my rope and pulled the halter off my head. The he turned and walked away to the gateway before facing me, cupping his hands to his lips and whistling. It was his own whistle, the same low, stuttering whistle he had used to call me when we were walking out together back at home on the farm all those long years before. Suddenly there was no longer any pain in my leg, and I trotted easily towards him and buried my nose in his shoulder.

'It's him, David,' Albert said, putting his arms around my neck and hanging onto my mane. 'It's my Joey. I've found him. He's come back to me just like I said he would.'

War Horse - cried my way through the whole book.

reallybadidea I'm re-reading Wolf Hall right now and completely agree with the bits you mentioned on Cromwell's family dying of the sweating sickness. The death of Grace is particularly moving, I think:

Grace dies in his arms; she dies easily, as naturally as she was born. He eases her back against the damp sheet: a child of impossible perfection, her fingers uncurling like thin white leaves. I never knew her, he thinks; I never knew I had her. It had always seemed impossible to him that some act of his gave her life, some unthinking thing that he and Liz did, on some immemorable night. They had intended the name to be Henry for a boy, Katherine for a girl... But when he had seen her, swaddled, beautiful, finished and perfect, he had said quite another thing, and Liz had agreed. We cannot earn grace. We do not merit it.

“We each owe a death, there are no exceptions, I know that, but sometimes, oh God, the Green Mile is so long”

Stephen King - The Green Mile

I sobbed through the book but was an inconsolable wreck at this.

darumafan His journal, that simple sentence, life is so unbearable sometimes. x

"And by the way, Monsieur Marius, I believe that I was a little bit in love with you."

She tried to smile once more and expired.

It's even sadder in the original French.-

In 'The Snow Goose' by Paul Gallico, when Fritha sees the goose and cries "God speed you, Philip!"

sobs

That whole novella makes me wail.

fufulina thanks

Oh heck, lots of these are impossible to read aloud without sobbing. The one which got me worst was reading David Copperfield to DD, the scene which describes Jip dying, while 'offstage' Dora is too.

DD got quite cross at my inability to choke the words out.

Don't do The Lacuna! The Bean Trees and Pigs in Heaven are gorgeous.

I bought a Kindle copy so I have one for the bookshelf reserved for Very Special Books and one for the kindle.

Weirdly I haven't got on with anything else she's written.

"Theo never doubted for a moment that when he died he would be reunited with Laura and, in his mind, it was just like The Railway Children –he would walk out of a fog and Laura would be there and she would say, ‘Daddy, my daddy.’ It wasn’t that Theo believed in religion, or a God, or an afterlife, he just knew it was impossible to feel this much love and for it to end."

From 'Case Histories' by Kate Atkinson

And I have just replaced my copy of the Poisonwood Bible, because mine had gone missing and I read it every couple of years. It is in my top 3 all time ever books. Truly marvellous.

The very last line of A Thousand Splendid Suns. My most favourite book ever.

'But the game only involves male names. For if it is a girl, Laila has already named her'
Oh lord every time.

When DD1 was very small I bought Owl babies.

"And she came!". Sob. Every. Time.

I haven't got the book to hand, but the bit in Wolf Hall where he goes off to work and when he comes home his wife has died of the sweating sickness and his daughters are dying is heartbreaking.

Oh god, I started reading this thread and got as far as the quote from Mog on page 2 and burst into noisy, ugly crying just out of nowhere much to the bafflement of my husband and my cat whom was squashed to my chest.

Ladydepp! Yes I cried at that too !!

Goodness that’s beautiful. I haven’t read he book but that made my cry

Read it, you're in for such a treat! I've lost count of the number of times I've read it and each time I discover something new in it. It's just beautiful.

I had a cry yesterday reading The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness.

Spoiler alert - involves a dog "there's a CRACK and a scream and a cut-off yelp that tears my heart in two forever and forever. And the pain is too much it's too much it's too much and my hands are on my head and I'm rearing back and my mouth is open in a never-ending wordless wail of all the blackness that's inside me."

I literally threw the book down and cried at this bit.

Very slowly he turned his head back to look at Shmuel, who wasn't crying anymore, merely staring at the floor and looking as if he was trying to convince his soul not to live inside his tiny body anymore, but to slip away and sail to the door and rise up into the sky, gliding through the clouds until it was very far away.

The boy in the striped pyjamas