A scene or a line which you remember

The opening sentence of Chapter four of Thomas Hardy's The Woodlanders has stayed with me:

There was now a distinct manifestation of morning in the air, and presently, the bleared white visage of a sunless winter day emerged like a dead-born child.

Ooof!

A brilliant sentence from The Shipping News "for the devil had long ago taken a shine to Ted Card, filled him like a cream horn with itch and irritation. His middle name was X. Face like cottage cheese clawed with a fork"
such a wonderful description, I feel like I know exactly what Ted looks like!

The scene in ' One Day' is definitely one for me. Remember reading it on a flight and weeping.

Also by John Magee, pilot who was killed in WW2 -

I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings

Put out my hand and touched the face of God

When my friend's son died I wrote some of the poem in the card I sent as I felt that would be his soul.

I was thinking about Pride and Prejudice recently and realised that all my favourite quotes are from Mr Bennett. He’s sarcastic and shrewd when it comes to finding people’s faults to amuse himself with.

We live to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn. This feels especially poignant in modern society!

When Lizzy confesses to him that she’s engaged to Mr Darcy and he calls him a proud and unpleasant sort of man but that would be nothing if she really liked him.

He had a fine aesthetic face precise in his movements wearing lavender water and leading a greyhound, as he got close the dog proved to be better behaved than the lavender water
From a Gavin Lyall

We visit the protagonists every 15th July between 1988 and 2007, and it's only towards the end of the novel that it become apparent that's because it's Emma's death day.
Loving this thread even though I'm late to the party!

i remember learning about a piece of literature in English called the pedestrian and the bit he walks outside is described as

There was a good crystal frost in the air; it cut the nose and made lungs blaze like a Christmas tree inside you

I don't really know why, but the first line in Lucy Maud Montgomery's book, Jane of Lantern Hill:

"Gay Street, Jane thought, did not live up to its name."

I loved that book as a pre-teen.

From the book We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves:

“I’m speechless,” said my mother, which wasn’t even remotely true.

That line really made me chuckle.
Also the final paragraph of the book - the ending was so beautifully written I had to read the last page twice and blubbed each time. So many emotions after such a wonderful tale.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

Beautiful writing and could describe the time we’re currently living through.

A line from a Saki short story always tickles me:

His socks commanded one's attention without losing one's respect

A word in for Terry Pratchett.

(on whether 'Second Sight' is all that valuable:) "First sight means you can see what really is there, and Second Thoughts mean thinking about what you are thinking."

'Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.'

It just sticks in my head!

“I feel like the word ‘shatter’”.

Offred in The Handmaid‘s Tale, sitting in her room, every word and movement in her life bound by someone else’s rules. That line summed up perfectly the tension in such profoundly enforced stillness.

@WhatsGoingOnHereThen

OMG - that sentence from One Day will stay with me forever. The most devastating and profound bit of writing ever.

“There’s no grays, only white that’s got grubby. I’m surprised you don’t know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is."
Said by Granny Weatherwax in Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett

The ending of "All Quiet on the Western Front" from which the title is taken - the main character is killed on a day when there is so little military action that the army report reads only "All quiet on the Western Front." Really brought home to me the perceives unimportance of each individual life in times of war.

I can’t quite remember the wording, but there’s a bit near the end of Bring Up The Bodies, where Cromwell has been talking to Cranmer about Anne Boleyn, who has been asking Cranmer if her good deeds will get her into heaven, and Cranmer saying that the point is to do good deeds for their own sake, not to get points from god (I’m paraphrasing, obviously!). And Cromwell imagines her climbing the steps to heaven, her good deeds weighing around her neck and wrists like jewels.

I can't quote from it but the scene where the ship with Dracula on board rushes in to Whitby harbour is amazing.

Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie
‘Do not let evil enter your heart, it will make a home there’

Less highbrow than some of these but the scene in Jane Green’s Jemima J where skinny Jemima goes on a food binge at the food hall of the mall and wolfs down noodles from the Chinese stall and hot pastries coated in sugar from a paper bag without even tasting them!
I read it years ago but just recall the imagery so clearly. The way it was described was just so vivid and really stuck with me!

I'd like to add a glimpse of Mr Mybug in Cold Comfort Farm, who gets everything a bit wrong, trying to join in the celebration from the edge of the crowd. His cardigan has worked up all wrinkly round his waist.