What is your favourite line of literature?

[SkaterGrrrrl]

I love the opening line of Rebecca, it gives me the shivers.

Also love this line, which the Literary Book Company have put on mugs, tea towels and so forth:

"'She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain." - Louisa May Alcott.

I much prefer what he really says. It's so stilted! And he says 'admire' before he says love. Whereas the other is too romantic and passionate.

From Othello:

Then must you speak
Of one that loved not wisely, but too well.
Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought,
Perplexed in the extreme.

There were some times, ...... at night and the bus almost empty, when you could sit in the dark with the rise and fall of the land under you, and feel that you had a time out of life, a cool private respite.

From A Hall of Mirrors by Robert Stone

I really like both of them, and don't find "You have bewitched me" unbelievable - Darcy has been captivated by her for so long at the point of the proposal. When he openly admires her "fine eyes" to that bitch Miss Bingley, he's clearly so smitten that he can't stop himself! And I love all that wandering around and bumping into her on her favourite walks stuff too! :)

It does say he is bewitched by her at some point in the book but it's the narrator - I don't think he'd use the words, think he's too formal. But I haven't actually seen the 2005 film so maybe it works for the character in that...

The film is good. Everybody on here hates it, but I like it. Matthew M is a much better Darcy than Colin Firth!

I love me some Beckett:

"you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on"

"the freedom of a slave to crawl east on the deck of a boat travelling west"

Matthew Arnold's "unplumbed, salt, estranging sea" has always come to me whenever I am near the sea.

Yes, Austen says it - she goes on to say something along the lines of that despite him being bewitched, he's still safe from her because of her inferior connections, so he's in no danger.

The Becket line about, 'We give birth astride the grave' excellent too - though v depressing!

"And at home by the fire, whenever you look up, there I shall be -- and whenever I look up there will be you." from Far From the Madding Crowd.

I just assumed I would hate it so didn't watch it. I just got tired of Austen adaptations which turn them into romcoms more or less and this looked like a likely candidate!!

Have you ever seen the mad old version with Greer Garson in it???

Have seen the mad old version but so long ago that I barely remember it.

My favourite JA adaptation is the Kate Beckinsale, 'Emma' one.

"I cannot bear to think that he is alive in the world and thinking ill of me." from P&P

Oh what a lovely thread. Darcy, 'in vain I have tried' and Wentworths, 'you pierce my soul' spring instantly to mind.

There are so so many. Off to peruse.

I do like that one. Much better than the Paltrow one.

The 1940 P&P they change the ending so it turns out Lady Catherine is in cahoots with Darcy and demands that Elizabeth not marry him in order to get her to change her mind and to see if she really loves him. A jolly old wheeze is had by all.

Ugh I detest the Paltrow one.

The idea of Lady C doing anything pleasant is far more far-fetched than Darcy saying, "You have bewitched me" I think.

I adore the Harriet in the Kate B Emma.

The Kate B one is absolutely fantastic. I really like Mr. Knightly, he was very well cast against her Emma.

Oh I just thought of one, I apologise in advance if I don't get it quite right at this time of night.

"You should be kissed often, and by somebody who knows how." Rhett Butler

Struggling to remember if that line was in the book or not, but I am sure it was.

"Happiness was but the occasional episode in a general drama of pain." Mayor of Casterbridge

"He's come to take my soul" she thought, "but I don't remember saying he could have it"

John Le Carre, the Little Drummer Girl

"If he had not wanted me to love him, he should not have looked at me" Graham Green

Oh, I really don't like the Kate B Emma because Mark Strong is so cross all the way through (and also because Kate B has a moustache in it which I just can't get past, even though I know it is shallow and wrong).

I love the way Charlotte Lucas is portrayed in the 2005 adaptation of P&P - the way it makes sense of her decision to marry Mr Collins is brilliant. That actress is always good. I also really like the way they showed the shock when Darcy touches Lizzie's hand without a glove. Brrrrrr.

"There were three thousand six hundred and fifty three days like that in his stretch. From the first clang of the rail to the last clang of the rail. The three extra days were for leap years."
Solzhenitsyn

"...Do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!... I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!"
Emily Bronte

"We can't stop here. This is bat country."
Hunter S Thompson

So brilliantly gonzo.

“And I rose
In rainy autumn
And walked abroad in a shower of all my days...”
Dylan Thomas.

Swoooooooooooon.

"I measured love but the extent of my jealousy, and by that standard of course she could not love me at all." Graham Greene, The End of the Affair

"Non omnis moriar" (I shall never completely die) The Odes of Horace Book III.30

My favourite has to be Bonario in Volpone jumping out and shouting

"Forbear, foul ravisher, libidinous swine! Free the forced lady, or thou diest, imposter!"

I've always wanted to have the chance to act it

For a more serious line, it has to be

"Was this the face that launched a thousand ships
And burned the topless towers of Ilium
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss"

though there are endless lines of Dr Faustus that I love