Most heartbreaking lines from a book ever...

If you only read books which have no tragedy, no sadness, no distressing incidents then you are severely limiting what you can read. Also missing out on some great literature.

Sorry haven't managed to read the whole thread yet , really don't know how people read some of these depressing books or watch depressing films . I don't like inflicting misery on myself . I only got started with A handful of dust because it was on a school reading list .

I'm a massive Potter fan, and Amos Diggory 'My boy.' kills me. More than 'Always.' I maintain that Cedric's is the worst death, and book 4 is the darkest. 'Kill the spare.' is the end of innocence as far as I am concerned.

As a mum, the end of The House at Pooh Corner is unbearable:
'So they went off together. But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place at the top of the Forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing.'
I cried typing it out.

My worst one is To Kill a Mockingbird, I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned before (sorry if I missed it).
'Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father's passing.'
It makes me do a big, heaving, sob, every time. And I've read it annually since I was 15, so that's twenty massive gulps and tears.

My

I recently picked up "heart in a bottle" as it was an Oliver Jeffers book I hadn't heard of..... omg 3.pages in I couldn't carry on! so beautiful!

Floralnomad

The text of that part is set out ^ up thread. It's tragic.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/3062319-most-heart-breaking-lines-from-a-book-ever?pg=11

"Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart."

from Anne Frank's Diary.

Mine is from Evelyn Waughs book A Handful of Dust , I love the book and have read it several times over the years and the part I'm talking about is described in a summary below , Brenda is married to Tony and has a young son called John , which coincidentally is the name of the lover she has taken :

Brenda is in London when John Andrew is killed in a riding accident. On being told that "John is dead", Brenda at first thinks that Beaver has died; on learning that it is her son John, she betrays her true feelings by uttering an involuntary "Thank God!". After the funeral, she tells Tony that she wants a divorce so that she can marry Beaver.

All in all it's a very sad book but that part is particularly cutting .

‘She still had her mis - and her flute’, Sophie said as she finished talking to me. ‘All these years I have never been able to bear those words. Or bear to speak them, in any language’.

From Sophie’s Choice - a book I can never read again now I have a child. Mis is Polish for ‘teddy’.

Just read out the Amos Diggory passage to DD, she's read it but had forgotten it, I'm a soggy mess again. 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Oooh hes a git inni

Rufus- TheBig Big Sea is about a little girl going for a moonlight walk on the beach with her mum then going home and eating toast. Nothing weepy there, surely? However, when written by Martin Waddell..........

That last paragraph of Anne Tyler's novel, The Amateur Marriage. Michael is walking towards the house he and his first wife, long dead, once lived in. He imagines her filling the bird feeder in the front garden .
" And when he came into view she would straighten, shading her eyes with one hand. "Is it you?" she would ask. "It's you! It's really and truly you! " she would cry, and her face would light up with joy.
He began to walk faster, hurrying towards the bend.

From Sleepers about 4 boys who were friends and who were sent to a boys’ home in the 60s and were physically and sexually abused:

^The night and the streets were ours and the future lay sparkling ahead.
And we thought we would know each other forever.^

Anyone else for Riddley Walker? "O what we ben! And what we come to. How cud any 1 not want to get that shyning Power back from time back way back?"

@darumafan

No i didnt bertrand

Was it another weepy

Really shouldn't be reading this in the hairdressers

We refer to Alan Bennet as Bloody Alan Bloody Bennett in this house after dd became obsessed with him and did one of his monologues in every drama show she did for ages. Dark glasses needed every time. Bloody Martin Bloody Waddell is in the same category.

There's a book that I think might be by the same author as Once There were Giants, called Grandma's Bill (I think that's it anyway). It's about a little boy who is named after his deceased granda and his granny is telling him about her Bill and how he lives in her heart now. It's very heart wrenching too.

I sob my way through Once There were Giants too. I'm a wreck by the end of it.

And I was never even able to let Love You Forever into the house because I was such a sobbing mess when I flicked through it in the shop.

So glad to find another Giants person. My children used to insist on it to see if I could get through it - sadistic little buggers. Did you have The Big Big Sea as well?

Oh Bertrand

Makes me sob everytime

I said earlier that book once were giants and doras eggs i had to stop reading to the children

And baby loves...

"And one of the giants is ME!"

The girl sat staring into the fire, immersed in her sad memories. ‘They crucified him’, she said quietly.

Nevil Shute’s A Town Like Alice