Favourite lines or passages from books?

[giamtGiffaffe]

Please :)

One that made me snort and accidentally hooked me on a whole series:

'He had on a leash an old and, from the odor, possibly decaying dog'

and in the same book

'Gamache wondered how low the bar could be when all a man had to do to attract a woman was not smell of decomposing bear'

(Louise Penny, Canadian mystery novels, possibly not exact quotes but you get the idea)

'You are my heart, my life, my one and only thought.'

From The White Company by Arthur Conan Doyle.

My husband wrote this on a card I received from him on the morning of our wedding. And he still writes it on flower cards or anniversary cards. The ol' romantic.

Awww @DillDanding !!

@IsItShining that made me smile

The paragraph in The Great Gatsby when the narrator describes Gatsby’s smile.

Reader, I married him. Jane Eyre.

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

Great Gatsby

It was the day my grandmother exploded

Iain Banks Crow Road

Eva Ibbotson: Madensky Square

The main character, Susanna, has gone to reclaim her 5 year old daughter who was adopted the day after she was born (long story).
However, she sees the child happily playing in the garden with her adoptive mother bringing her milk and biscuits. An idyllic scene. The adoptive mother sees Susanna and realises she's her daughter's natural mother. She stands there in shock and Susanna quietly turns and walks away, leaving her daughter in her happy home with her happy family:

"I was being good, you see. And as a matter of fact, it nearly killed me."

It's so understated, yet gives me shivers every time I read it.

'He looked up, and she was instantly scarlet, as if she had been dipped in boiling water'

Gaudy Night, Dorothy L Sayers, again probably not exact quote

" I'll close with the attorney directly"
We say this every time we see a house We'd like!

“On the occasions when Aunt is calling Aunt like mastodons bellowing across primeval swamps...”
P.J. Wodehouse

and my absolute favourite - the last lines of Middlemarch

"But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs."

I also love the lines in The Last Chronicle of Barset when Mr. Crawley says "Peace Woman!" to Mrs Proudie and Bishop Proudie startles to hear the wife of his bosom thus addressed. made me laugh out loud.

Pride and predjudice

'God grant me the confidence of a man who goes to an orgy with a spotty arse.'

From How to Kill Your Family, very funny.

LaMarschallin I know exactly the feeling you describe about the impact of understatement.

i have that about the last few lines of ‘A Kestrel for a Knave’ (Kes) where he buried the hawk, let himself in to the house and went to his room ( not exact quote but I’ll start crying if I write it word for word)…

Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot sweep it away. If one were to give all the wealth of one’s house for love, it would be utterly scorned.

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

From The Subtle Knife.

I weep every single time. I'm filling up now just thinking about it.

"We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold."

And a bit later...

"No point mentioning those bats, I thought. The poor bastard will see them soon enough."

Makes me laugh every time.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson

Really poignant

The heart dies a slow death, shedding each hope like leaves until one day there are none. No hopes. Nothing remains.

Hopes are like hair ornaments. Girls want to wear too many of them. When they become old women they look silly wearing even one.

Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha

From a poem by Wilfred Owen,world war 1 poet
Dolce etc Decorum est

Gas! GAS! Quick,boys!-An ecstasy of fumbling

Read his work in school,this poem has always stayed with me.
This line really stood out to me.
My eldest was amazed when I recited the poem when he studied it.😀

Those who think a heart cannot break have led blessed and sheltered lives.

Cromwell in The Mirror and the Light, Hilary Mantel.

“All tapes left in a car for more than about a fortnight metamorphose into Best of Queen albums.”
-Good omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaime n

Oh my goodness, I had forgotten that line. There suddenly seems to be something in my eye...

Rowan Marlow saying “I suppose you must follow your own logic” to Nicola on her choice of ice cream in Autumn term by Antonia Forest.

Elizabeth Bennett saying “I feel there cannot be too little said on the subject” to Lydia about her wedding.

Flashman saying “The Victorian conscience is a mystery to me, thank God”

Oh, me too!
*sobs, quietly