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Original poster

Most heartbreaking lines from a book ever...

409 replies

iamdivergent · 17/10/2017 10:36

Mine has to be this one...

Then she was pressing her little proud broken self against his face, as close as she could get, and then they died.

I cried so hard the three times I've read the book (I haven't put the name of the book in case of spoilers) - what lines got to you?

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BikeRunSki · 18/10/2017 20:55

The last page of “The Paper Dolls”.
Also, whilst on chikdren’s books, DS had a book when he was 3ish about a sea turtle called Tortua, who laid eggs all round her tropical island and they all died. It was an awful book, that went to a new life fairly quickly.

Millie2013 · 18/10/2017 20:49

At the moment, most (all) of my reading is to DD. Echo that quote from "on the night you were born" and I haven't read the whole thread, so not sure if anyone has mentioned the end of "no matter what".

Queenofthedrivensnow · 18/10/2017 20:44

Most of the mouse and his child. 'He fell in love and prepared to meet his end'

quirkychick · 18/10/2017 20:38

Some of these I've read and obviously blocked out, Goodnight Mister Tom and Grapes of Wrath being ones I've read and seemed to have forgotten...

Latenightreader · 18/10/2017 20:31

It's from Goodnight Mister Tom. I weep buckets over it.

HaveToBeSure · 18/10/2017 20:25

I was sobbing on the bus home thanks to you lot by the way.

Fuckers.

HaveToBeSure · 18/10/2017 20:25

What was the one about nursing the baby (?) from?

Lambside · 18/10/2017 20:07

Oh blimey, this thread.
I sobbed over The Little Mermaid when I was young.
Ditto Charlotte's Web.

Bettercallsaul1 · 18/10/2017 19:34

I agree with TheHodgeofTheHedge that Tess of The D'Urbervilles has some of the saddest lines of all time. The ones that get me occur on the lovers' final night together after managing to evade the law for five happy days, before Tess is finally captured. (They are fleeing after Tess, in a fit of grief and anger, has killed the man who seduced her and ruined her life.)

Knowing that her life "can only be a question of weeks", Tess asks Angel:

^"Tell me now, Angel, do you think we shall meet again after we are dead? I want to know."
He kissed her to avoid a reply at such a time.
"O, Angel - I fear that means no!", said she, with a suppressed sob. "And I wanted so to see you again - so much, so much! What - not even you and I, Angel, who love each other so well?"
...to the critical question at the critical time, he did not answer: and they were again silent.^

When they wake, it is to find that the forces of the law have caught up with them.

^"What is it, Angel?", she said, starting up, "Have they come for me?"
"Yes, dearest", he said, "They have come."^

Original poster
iamdivergent · 18/10/2017 19:10

Lady SadSadSad

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Original poster
iamdivergent · 18/10/2017 19:10

Lady SadSadSad

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LadyFlumpalot · 18/10/2017 18:26

“She’s dead, ent she?”
He nodded
“My fault”, he choked out. “My fault. I killed her. I made her die.”
“How?”
“She cried and cried and I nursed her, like. I held her real good. I rocked her. I gives her the milk in the bottle and there wasn’t no more”
“Ent your fault. The milk runnin out.”
“But I should have got out like. I waited. I shouldn’t have waited. I thought me Mum’d be back any minute, only....”

Breaks. My. Heart.

Howyoualldoworkme · 18/10/2017 18:20

I've got a headache now from trying not to cry on the bus reading this!

I read Paper Dolls to my granddaughter and blubbed like a child. She was very bemused bless her!

IsabelleSE19 · 18/10/2017 17:46

Paper Dolls for me too! We have it out of the library at the moment and I have to grit my teeth and stiffen my upper lip to get through it!

Original poster
iamdivergent · 18/10/2017 17:44

Me too Morvaan

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Original poster
iamdivergent · 18/10/2017 17:44

Me too Morvaan

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MorvaanReed · 18/10/2017 17:42

Oh, what a wonderful thread. I have had a pants day and need a good cry.

Iamdivergant That bit in Terry Pratchett's nation had me a wet mess.

Batteriesallgone · 18/10/2017 17:27

Oh gosh the paper dolls made me cry so much I couldn't see the page. Did not see it coming!!

quirkychick · 18/10/2017 16:11

Another Terry Pratchett one, The Shepherd's Crown, his last book when Death comes for one of the favourite characters. Also, there was an excerpt that his daughter wrote with him about Terry Pratchett meeting Death, I think it was published online after he died. Very poignant.

InDubiousBattle · 18/10/2017 16:06

Not a novel but a poem, the last line of Mid term Break always gets me;
"A four foot box. A foot for every year"

So many mentioned on here make me sob now. I wasn't much of a crier until I had dc but now I'm at it all of the time! I can not read my dc 10 little fingers any more, or Winnie the Pooh.

Latenightreader · 18/10/2017 15:09

So much of Alan Bennett's A Cream Cracker Under the Settee. We read it in English and I was a wreck.

A Small Person Far Away (third of the When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit books) when Anna and Max visit an exhibition about their father and see a near life size photo of him.

SorrelForbes · 18/10/2017 15:09

These lines from On The Beach by Neville Shute always set me off!

'It's not the end of the world at all," he said. "It's only the end for us. The world will go on just the same, only we shan't be in it. I dare say it will get along all right without us."

Original poster
iamdivergent · 18/10/2017 15:07

Paper Dolls is heart breaking as was Aslan Sad

I just remembered another one, from Terry Pratchett's Nation - names removed.

^'Well, yes, when she died - which was not long after he died - the trousermen were not very happy because they wanted to bury her in a stone box in one of their god houses, but she had the Gentlemen of Last Resort on her side. They brought her here in a steamship full of ice, and she was wrapped up in papervine and weighed down with stones and sent into the dark current, where we had gently sent him only two months before. And then, my great grandfather wrote, everyone cried and cried...as I see the two of you are now, in fact, doing.'

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Rejectedwoman · 18/10/2017 14:29

Bridges of Madison county. The whole book has me howling

treaclesoda · 18/10/2017 14:27

My husband cried at The Road. Apart from that, I've only ever seen him cry at the births of our children and when his father was diagnosed with cancer.

He advised me not to read it because he thought I'd probably not cope. That makes him sound like a patronising superior man type, he really really isn't, but he knows me inside out and knows my limits. I took his advice.