Lines in books that make your throat catch

[pongping]

Just been re-reading When We Were Very Young, and the lines in the last poem, Vespers, bring a tear to my eye every time:

Hush, hush, whisper who dares,
Christopher Robin is saying his prayers

I'm not sure why - I think it's the beauty of the innocence, the image of a lost world (the book is all nurses and stockings)?

In fact, just the title of the collection gives me a shiver.

We loved all the poems & stories of AAMilne when my DD's were young.

There's a pooh & piglet line that always gets me....hang on I'l find it!

Please don't post the line at the very end about always being there. It was on the radio last week, I had to pull over.

There's a bit at the end of Oliver's Story (sequel to Love Story) where he says all the things he is doubt with his life and asks what he would 'be if Jenny were still alive? The answer, I also would still be alive.'

A very sad book that I read a few years ago - the name eludes me - one of the characters is a albino teenage boy who hasn't made any friends. His mother makes him go out to try to meet some people...

'He sat there in his new blue shirt, sipping at a diet coke. He spoke to nobody and nobody spoke to him'

That scene has stuck with me much longer than the rest of the story did.

Not so much makes my throat catch but makes me sob out loud. Every time. Philip Pullman, The Subtle Knife, the scene where Lee and Hester die.

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

?Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind.
"Pooh?" he whispered.
"Yes, Piglet?"
"Nothing," said Piglet, taking Pooh's hand.
"I just wanted to be sure of you.?

The first sentence of A Prayer for Owen Meany.

?I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice ? not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother?s death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany.?

...and of course the line at the end of The Railway Children....
"Daddy ...my Daddy"

and "I love you to the moon & back"

Oooh OP what have you started!!!!

( leaves tissues)

The ending of the Pursuit of Love

^But I think she would have been happy with Fabrice,' I said. 'He was the great love of her life, you know.'
Oh, dulling,' said my mother, sadly. 'One always thinks that. Every, every time.^

MissMarples that's the one that came to mind for me.

I recently read the Paris wife by Paula MacLaine about Hemingway and his first wife in Paris (and subsequent break up of that marriage ) then I read a moveable feast which is hemingways account of that time. There's a really moving passage about his affair and hadleys innocence from the whole thing which starts ' the bulldozing of three people's hearts to destroy one happiness and build another ...' He talks about his wife's subsequent happiness and marriage to another man as 'the one good thing that came out of that year '

Not very well rephrased by me but its an honest account of an affair and its impact

Black Beauty, when Ginger dies and is taken away.

Also not a line from a book but the title of a famous painting of a soldier with his dying horse in WW1

'Goodbye Old Friend'

Just writing that has bought tears to my eyes!

chub that's a great quote. I don't know that book - who's it by ?

The Railway Children one, definitely

Oh daisy give yourself the treat of your life and order it from amazon now. Nancy Mitford. You'll love it.

Another request not to post the last line from Winnie The Pooh. That's definitely one but even thinking about it has made me well up!

Wuthering Heights

After the death of Cathy, Heathcliff says "do not leave me in this abyss where I cannot find you"

Yes, a violent & obsessive relationship but I think this line captures that raw, ache of losing someone you love.

Oh, and YY to 'Daddy my Daddy'! I start crying about 10 minutes before that part of the film because I know it's coming!

stop it you lot!

Thanks chub

It's a toddler book Wishmoley and the little piece of sky.

'Why are you sad?' Baby asked.

'Because some day you'll fly higher than high and the blue will fill your eyes, and maybe you'll forget to come down' said Wishmoley.

Baby snuggled next to him. 'I'll never forget' she said.

I cry like a baby everytime!

Where did my go?

"And then Bella did a very kind thing". We generally have to pause a while there while mummy gets her composure back.

daisy I really enjoyed The Paris Wife, but now can't read Hemingway as I feel so bloody cross with him. I tried to justify his selfishness as necessary for Art, but I just can't.

Also "That is Susan through and through, just like me, just like you" at the end of Susan Laughs.