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.

Another beautiful Xmas song that gets me blarting every time..

'Mary, did you know?', by Hayley Westenra:

Mary did you know, that your baby boy would one day walk on water
Mary did you know, that your baby boy would save our sons and daughters
Did you know, that your baby boy has come to make you new
And the child that you delivered, will soon deliver you

I came across it the Xmas I was 8 months pregnant with my first child (who I knew was a boy), and I used to sob uncontrollably.

But now that I am old and grey
My dancing nights are done
I've chosen you, great grandchild
To take my place, so come ...

Let me give you Tiger's hand
The moon is rising high
I'll sit and watch you dancing both
Beneath the starbright sky.

The Dancing Tiger, Malachy Doyle - Was DS's favourite book when he was a toddler and I could never get to the end of it without catching my breath! :)

This is a wonderful thread but I am hiding it now because I have to go out in ten minutes and I am SOBBING LIKE A LOON

("I just wanted to be sure of you" I think of that every time I hold my husband's hand for the split second he allows it.) (He's just not very romantic!)

Peaches we have the Bog Baby too it's a gorgeous book. :)

Thank goodness someone else cries to "two little boys" too - it was on the radio recently and I bawled my way home in the car...
I had forgotten Death of a Son but now remember it from school. So so sad.
Also "the almond tree" by Jon Stallworthy and one of Emily Dickinsons about the 'industry in a house after death'. My best friend sent it to me when my Dad died and I sent it to her DP when she died a couple of years ago....

So many beautiful memories here...especially Boo Radley , Mog and The Selfish Giant.
Not a line from a book but the Bomber Command prayer which is inscribed at the memorial at Runnymede...

If I climb up into heaven thou art there
If I go down to hell thou art there also
If I take the wings of the morning
and remain in the uttermost parts of the sea
Even three also shall thy hand lead me
And thy right hand shall hold me.

Half of Bomber Command were killed......my dad was a pilot, and lost 4 of his 7 man crew.

The Bustle in a House
BY EMILY DICKINSON

The Bustle in a House
The Morning after Death
Is solemnest of industries
Enacted opon Earth ?

The Sweeping up the Heart
And putting Love away
We shall not want to use again
Until Eternity ?

I know this is a bit naff, but my grandma used to have the Footprints in the Sand poem on her living room wall. I'm not in the slightest bit religious, but that always made me well up.

Oh and Eric Bogle's The Green Field's of France.

I have yet to get to verse 2!

England's Green and Pleasant Land gets me every time...it's so evocative of the England of the past.

The Steadfast Tin Soldier right at the end.

When she sees in the stove, the little tin heart, and the blackened spangle. That page is always blurred for me.

Sarah and others, I'm sorry for your losses.

Every night I sing the chorus of 'His Eye Is On The Sparrow' to DS, he knows all the words now and sings it with me. I well up every bedtime (knobber that I am!).

I sing because I'm happy
I sing because I'm free
For his eye is on the sparrow
And I know he watches me

I'm not even religious! For me it just encompasses the feeling of safety a child should have, the absolute certainty that someone is watching over them. I think of it as all the people we have loved and lost, the feeling that they never truly leave us.

I'm still wiping tears at this thread, Goodbye Mog I still cant read and I have to make DH do it.

From 'Out of my Mind by Sharon Draper'
'Words have always swirled around me like snowflakes, each one delicate and differed, each one melting untouched by my hands.
Deep within me, words pile up in huge drifts. Mountains of phrases and sentences. Clever expressions, jokes, love songs...
But only in my head.
I have never spoken a single word. I am almost eleven years old.'

Its about a young girl with cerebral palsy who everyoe assumes doesnt understand and treats accordingly. Breaks my heart.

The children's book 'Something Else' - all of it, cant pick a line.

The cover even makes me cry.

Have been trying to remember the title of the book about the nuclear war for about ten years, reading this thread has given me the answer, brother in the land!

All Quiet on the Western Front, several parts in the book but especially when Paul carries Kat on his back only to find that when they arrive at the field hospital (I think) he is dead. Also when Paul goes to visit his friends mother and she is begging for the truth about how her son died, but he refuses to be honest and tells her he died instantly, thinking that she is a silly woman because what difference does it make how he died. I can't remember the wording but that's the gist of it!

[wet hands from wiping face]

In the spirit of the original OP [stern looks at those who are posting things that break your heart], there is a line in The Accidental Tourist which made me stop in my tracks. I can't find the exact line but [spoiler] Macon and Muriel are in bed together and she shows him her Caesarean scar to make him understand that she knows what pain is like. It really got to me.

The end of The Mousehole Cat gets me every time, about the lights on Mousehole harbour every winter

And "that'll do Pig" from The Sheep-Pig/Babe

I am so sorry for the loss of your baby girls Sarah and WeAre.

My children are older now, but Im remembering that 'stuck' feeling in my throat and hot eyes then realising their little faces were looking up at mine expectantly waiting for the next line...

Dogger was difficult!

As a child my heart was broken by The little match girl.

saffron that Dobby quote got me.

Poor poor Dobby.

The end of Dogsbody by Diana Wynne Jones. She leaves you with this little sliver of hope that Sirius and Kathleen can somehow find a way.

I have read through this thread and there is a pile of tissues next to me now.

Has anyone read The Enchanted Horse by Magdalen Nabb? I had the book and a recording on cassette tape and there was this bit where the main character, Irena, is calling to her horse Bella when she runs away and the narrator sounded so choked up as she called "Bella! Bella!" and sad music swelled and then Irena had to walk home barefoot in the cold. Oh, it made me cry every time I listened to it!

Someone has already mentioned Anne's House of Dreams but this is the part that makes me sob, it's when Anne realises.

At first she was too weak and too happy to notice that Gilbert and the nurse looked grave and Marilla sorrowful. Then, as subtly, and coldly, and remorselessly as a sea-fog stealing landward, fear crept into her heart. Why was not Gilbert gladder? Why would he not talk about the baby? Why would they not let her have it with her after that first heavenly-happy hour? Was -was there anything wrong?

"Gilbert," whispered Anne imploringly, "the baby -is all right -isn't she? Tell me -tell me."

Gilbert was a long while in turning round; then he bent over Anne and looked in her eyes. Marilla, listening fearfully outside the door, heard a pitiful, heartbroken moan, and fled to the kitchen where Susan was weeping.

Marking this thread for later. Only got halfway down page 1 and my eyes are leaking. Better touch up my masacara before I go out.

Death of a Son