Beautiful lines from children's books

[NettJarrp]

Just came across this line in DD's current favourite bedtime story:
"Then Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh walked hand in hand down the forest path and they said goodbye. So they went off together. But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the forest a little boy and his bear will always be playing."
I'm in tears. It's times like this that I wish that I could share these feelings with DD's father (I'm widowed - not a thread about that though).

What lines in children's stories pull at your heart strings?

The paper dolls one as well! I always cry when I read it!

It's the pictures and the words.

My favourites are already in the thread (Anne of Green Gables mostly), but I wanted to add:

Owl Babies: And she came, soft and silent she swooped through the trees

When they are waiting for the mummy owl to come back to the nest

I think it's because of how I feel about going to work and wanting my girls not to miss me

YY to the line in WTWTA with where someone loves him best of all
My DS is 17yo, and called Max.
I always quote bits from "Wild Things" at him

Another one that makes me is The Walrus and The Carpenter where they lure the unsuspecting oysters along the beach and eat them all they'd eaten ever one

Oh yes Cuckoo that line in Owl Babies gets me too.

The book is in my daughters' room so excuse if I've misquoted, but...

"Close your eyes and I will keep,
A watch beside you while you sleep."

from Rhymes for Annie Rose by Shirley Hughes. It's too much.

I love peepo too
When older I loved the opening from I Capture the Castle
"I'm sat writing this in the kitchen sink" always makes me smile

Loving this thread.
That Owl baby line is just gorgeous.

I love I Capture the Castle! That first line is so cosy. I could read it again and again. I also love Goodnight Mr Tom but it breaks my heart every time.

I have always been really moved by Why the Owl Behaves as it Does by Ted Hughes.

The birds, tricked into a life of fear and darkness by the mean owl, become so sad that they decide to die, rather than carry on with their miserable existence. They go out to face the darkness, believing it will kill
them. Instead the sun rises and they are still alive and can escape. Rumour has it, he wrote it for his children to help explain Sylvia Plath's depression and suicide. If you read it with that in mind, it is even more poignant. I only have a hard copy, so here are some of the saddest lines.

"Let us die bravely, and at once" said Robin.

Softly, the birds began to sing their old songs.

Oh, they were so tired of their lives. To die like this was better than to live as they had been doing.

I have read tbe whole thread and I'm properly crying so much my nose has swelled up.

I don't even have kids.

I just read the OP and was just about to quote the paper dolls line(s) until I realised loads of you had beaten me to it.

(I just love mumsnet for this - that moment when you realise that no, it's not 'just you' that thinks/feels something...)

From Charlotte's Web: "No one was with her when she died."

I defy anyone to read that line without a lump in your throat and a tear in your eye.

Also a beautiful passage from Understood Betsy: "She had said her 'Now I lay me' every night since she could remember, but she had never prayed till she lay there with her face on the rock, saying over and over, 'Oh, God, please, please, please make Mr. Pond adopt 'Lias.'"

This passage is about an abused child whom Betsy and her friends and family do their best to help, in the hope that he will be adopted by a kind couple they know. There are numerous other parts of the book that are equally wonderful.

I always leave out Paper Dolls for my mum to read to DD. Beautiful for mum's and daughters.

I haven't read the whole thread but I always tear up at On The Night You Were Born:

On the night you were born, the moon smiled with such wonder that the stars peeked in to see you and the night wind whispered, "Life will never be the same.""

Oh and Monkey Puzzle
'Come little monkey, come come come. It's time I took you home to mum.' I think it's a lovely book, especially the discussions about not everyone looking like their mum.

Oh I'd forgotten the Shantih stories! There was another Patricia Leitch book called 'A Dream of Fair Horses that always made me cry'....

I must be missing something with the snail and the whale, will re- read it with fresh eyes!
Paper Dolls gets me every time, as does Giraffes don't dance:
Sometimes when you're different you just be a different song... everything makes music if you really want it to' or something like that. Gets me every time.

This is such a lovely thread...especially for a budding children's author. Would love to one of my lines up here one day

Some of my favourites have already been mentioned like the Paper Dolls, Owl Babies and Oh, the places you'll go (I read this to my DD the day before she started school...what an emotional wreck I was by the time I'did finished it!)

Another favourite line is from 'Harris finds his feet'...utterly beautiful book about the special relationship between a young hare and his grandad. There is a bit that makes my voice wobble every time...

"Grandad!" Harris cried, hopping back. "Why aren't you running with me?"

"Because I'm growing old, little Harris. It's your turn to run. The world is yours to explore."

Gets me every time!

Can't believe this got to page 9 without anyone mentioning Owl Babies!

That, the line from Dogger and Giraffes can't Dance are sure-fire lumps-in-throat for me.

We have a book called 'I took the moon for a walk' too. I can well up reading pretty much any page.

oh god. i am in bits here. i agree with so many of these, and there are so many more that i wont get to read to mine because they are too grown up now. however my grandson is a year old next month so i may have to buy a few of them for him. my favourite, although its still a childrens book its for older children. happy potter, where snape and dumbledore are talking and snape produces lily's patronus. "after all this time?" "always". i have the quote in my living room on a lovely wooden block.

Charlotte's Web:

"Why did you do all this for me?" he asked. "I don't deserve it. I've never done anything for you."
"You have been my friend," replied Charlotte. "That in itself is a tremendous thing."

My friend quoted Charlotte's line when she gave her leaving speech at work, and loads of us were wiping away a tear. It's funny how a book you read as a child can still resonate years later.

And:
"Do you understand how there could be any writing in a spider's web?"
"Oh, no," said Dr. Dorian. "I don't understand it. But for that matter I don't understand how a spider learned to spin a web in the first place. When the words appeared, everyone said they were a miracle. But nobody pointed out that the web itself is a miracle.
"What's miraculous about a spider's web?" said Mrs. Arable. "I don't see why you say I a web is a miracle - it's just a web."
"Ever try to spin one?" asked Dr. Dorian.

I use/paraphrase this one when I'm talking to the DSs about nature etc. Also use it at school and at Cubs when I'm meant to be doing a reflection with the kids. But I have to practise so that my voice doesn't crack. I don't know why it always gets me...

Yy to so many of the others mentioned. My boys just accept that I cry occasionally reading stories, I'm always a bit embarrassed though. I've cried in front of my sixth formers too. I teach tragedy and at the beginning of the year they have to bring in a reading or a clip of something they think is a tragedy, and loads of them make me choke up. I get my revenge by making them watch the beginning of Up! when we talk about catharsis.

Wiping away tears here at the kitchen table.
Just wanted to reiterate Blueberry Girl. I cry every single time I read it. I am amazed the pages aren't all rippled and stick together really.
The Snail and the Whale also gets me, but I've never really understood why! 'She gazed and gazed and gazed at it all, and she said to the whale, "I feel so small." '
Also, obviously, Goodbye Mog. I cried as a teenager whilst just talking about that book with my Mum. 'Mog was tired. Mog was dead tired.' Waaaaaaah!

In The Young King by Oscar Wilde (what I remembered from the Ladybird book):

Near the end when the young king refused to wear his fine clothes (made by slave labour) to be crowned; he stepped onto the high altar, and the sunlight wove about him a robe much more beautiful than the gold robe which had been made for him, and the bishop said:

"One greater than I has crowned you."

Some of those ladybird books and tapes from the 1980s were really poignant, even though they were simplified for children, especially with the music. Snow White when the dwarves were mourning was a very powerful scene.

Ooh, thanks MuchBenham. We haven't listened to it, I'll look for that.

I always give a copy of Where the Wild Things Are as a new baby gift. It's perfect.

I'm at work, so don't have the book to hand, but the last few lines of Danny, The Champion of the World, where he's talking about he admires his Dad makes me howl. I can't get through it at all.

Nancy, Danny is my favourite children's book in the whole world.