Most heartbreaking lines from a book ever...

One of the Annes, yes. The bit that follows is about dressing the baby and it's really sad but I can't remember it.

"At sunset the little soul that had come with the dawning went away, leaving heartbreak behind it."

Is that Anne's House of Dreams?

"At sunset the little soul that had come with the dawning went away, leaving heartbreak behind it."

She lifted the small cold body from his lonely coffin kissed his face and tucked him in beside their mother. The crying stopped

Hurts my heart every time

All the birds who were never born, all the songs that were never sung and so can only exist in the imagination
(Plus the line after this which I don’t want to add in case it spoils the ending for someone)
A God in Ruins, Kate Atkinson

Great thread by the way, really enjoying it!

"Be with me always—take any form—drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!"

Wuthering Heights

DD read Black Beauty when she was 8, I think, I don't think I'd have let her if I'd known how graphic it was in places!

shopaholic Was that the one with the chimpanzee? I was so cross at the way that the twist was chucked in that I never finished it!

It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how I love him: and that, not because he's handsome, Nelly, but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.

The end of the book Sin by Josephine Hart:

As I leave you now
As I leave you
As I leave

Just found that so haunting

The end of 'We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves':

'Then she rested her forehead on the glass. I did the same and we stood that way for a very long time, face-to-face. From that vantage point, I could see her only in teary, floating pieces -
her eyes
the flaring of her nostrils
the sparse hairs on her chin and rimming her ears
the tiny rise and fall of her rounded shoulders
the way her breath painted and unpainted the glass'

The end of Pippi Longsticking in the South Seas. So beautiful.

''After all this time?”
“Always,” said Snape.

This has never left me, since I read it as a child:

A short time after this a cart with a dead horse in it passed our cab-stand. The head hung out of the cart-tail, the lifeless tongue was slowly dropping with blood; and the sunken eyes! but I can't speak of them, the sight was too dreadful. It was a chestnut horse with a long, thin neck. I saw a white streak down the forehead. I believe it was Ginger; I hoped it was, for then her troubles would be over. Oh! if men were more merciful they would shoot us before we came to such misery.

Black Beauty, Chapter 40, Poor Ginger

wherethewildthingis & TheHodgeoftheHedge

💟💓💟

Riddley Walker .. now there is a forgotten book. A pared down version of The Road, iirc. Russell Hoban is another one can engage the heart

Itsnice - it’s one of the most heartbreaking things I’ve ever read 😣

It's a book I keep going back to and take something new (including recipes) every time!
Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.

I have a very old copy of Heartburn in a bookshelf somewhere - I bought it when it first came out. reveals advanced age I loved it and read it twice very quickly! Now I want to read it again. I remember being intrigued by a recipe for Key Lime Pie!

PS epic typo there - I cannot recommend it enough!!!!!

I try ;) Bettercallsaul1 ;)

Good inter-connection between life and literature there, Hodge.

For anyone who has ever been through a painful divorce, I cannot recommend reading Heartburn by Nora Ephron.
This had me in tears as it rang so true:

Vera said: “Why do you feel you have to turn everything into a story?”
So I told her why.
Because if I tell the story, I control the version.
Because if I tell the story, I can make you laugh, and I would rather have you laugh at me than feel sorry for me.
Because if I tell the story, it doesn't hurt as much.
Because if I tell the story, I can get on with it.

A happy one - again it's about love - I can't read this to my son without a little sob.

"I wanted you more than you ever will know
so I sent love to follow wherever you go.
It’s high as you wish it. It’s quick as an elf.
You’ll never outgrow it…it stretches itself!

So climb any mountain…climb up to the sky!
My love will find you. My love can fly!

Make a big splash! Go out on a limb!
My love will find you. My love can swim!

It never gets lost, never fades, never ends…

if you’re working…

or playing…

or sitting with friends.

You can dance ’til you’re dizzy, paint ’til you’re blue…
There’s no place, not one, that my love can’t find you.

And if someday you’re lonely, or someday you’re sad,
or you strike out at baseball, or think you’ve been bad…

just lift up your face, feel the wind in your hair.
That’s me, my sweet baby, my love is right there.

In the green of the grass…in the smell of the sea…
in the clouds floating by…at the top of a tree…
in the sound crickets make at the end of the day…

“You are loved. You are loved. You are loved,” they all say.

My love is so high, and so wide and so deep,
it’s always right there, even when you’re asleep.

So hold your head high and don’t be afraid
to march to the front of your own parade.

If you’re still my small babe or you’re all the way grown,
my promise to you is you’re never alone.

You are my angel, my darling, my star…
and my love will find you, wherever you are.

You are loved."