Most heartbreaking lines from a book ever...

[iamdivergent]

Mine has to be this one...

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

I cried so hard the three times I've read the book (I haven't put the name of the book in case of spoilers) - what lines got to you?

I'm glad some of you - enjoyed? Is that the right word? The Two-Headed Calf.

Another line that always made me cry was in Henry Williamson's Tarka the Otter. I haven't read it for ages, so this may not be word perfect, but Tarka mates with an elderly female, Greymuzzle, and she has a single pup, but because of her age and because it's the wrong time of year she can't take care of it properly.

Later on in the book Tarka returns to the area and spends the night in the same holt on a bed of dry reeds "on which there lay bones, and a little skull."

Oh no Baggypants, there I go again. 😭😭😭😭

I can't read the Little Match Girl without crying, also when Charlotte dies in Charlotte's Web. There's also a short story in Michael Morpurgo's From Hereabout Hill anthology that gets me every time.

From King Lear: "No, no, no life!"

The House at Pooh Corner one mentioned upthread. The jarring end of Anne Frank's diary. There are too many.

"That was all he had to do." - Absalom, Absalom!

But the winner for me is Cormac McCarthy's The Road (I don't know if this counts as a spoiler). Surprised it hasn't been mentioned yet:

Is it real? The fire?
Yes it is.
Where is it? I dont know where it is.
Yes you do. It's inside you. It was always there. I can see it.
Just take me with you. Please.
I cant.
Please, Papa.
I cant. I cant hold my son dead in my arms. I thought I could but I cant. You said you wouldnt ever leave me.
I know. I'm sorry. You have my whole heart. You always did. You're the best guy. You always were. If I'm not here you can still talk to me. You can talk to me and I'll talk to you. You'll see.

‘’and the pieces all joined together, and the paper dolls flew...
into the little girl’s memory
where they found white mice and fireworks,
and a starfish soap,
and a kind granny,
and the butterfly hair slide,
and more and more lovely things each day
and each year’’

The Paperdolls by Julia Donaldson. I lost my Grandma this year and it’s gets me every time 😪

Wow- memories of tears at Charlottes Web, Beth dying in Little Women, Matthew in Anne of Green Gables, getting through some tissues here! Also remember sobbing at the bit when Aslan the lion is killed in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe
‘Between then they rolled the huge Lion over on his back and tied all his four paws together, shouting and cheering as if they had done something brave, though, had the Lion chosen, one of those paws could have been the death of them all. But he made no noise, even when the enemies, straining and tugging, pulled the cords so tight that they cut into his flesh. Then they began to drag him to the Stone Table.’

noradust I loved (I think enjoyed might be the wrong word) The Road, the whole thing is heartbreaking and so beautifully written. Yes, that bit is particularly so.

Oh no, and now Asian... 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

*Aslan, fucking autocorrect.

My husband cried at The Road. Apart from that, I've only ever seen him cry at the births of our children and when his father was diagnosed with cancer.

He advised me not to read it because he thought I'd probably not cope. That makes him sound like a patronising superior man type, he really really isn't, but he knows me inside out and knows my limits. I took his advice.

Bridges of Madison county. The whole book has me howling

Paper Dolls is heart breaking as was Aslan

I just remembered another one, from Terry Pratchett's Nation - names removed.

^'Well, yes, when she died - which was not long after he died - the trousermen were not very happy because they wanted to bury her in a stone box in one of their god houses, but she had the Gentlemen of Last Resort on her side. They brought her here in a steamship full of ice, and she was wrapped up in papervine and weighed down with stones and sent into the dark current, where we had gently sent him only two months before. And then, my great grandfather wrote, everyone cried and cried...as I see the two of you are now, in fact, doing.'

These lines from On The Beach by Neville Shute always set me off!

'It's not the end of the world at all," he said. "It's only the end for us. The world will go on just the same, only we shan't be in it. I dare say it will get along all right without us."

So much of Alan Bennett's A Cream Cracker Under the Settee. We read it in English and I was a wreck.

A Small Person Far Away (third of the When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit books) when Anna and Max visit an exhibition about their father and see a near life size photo of him.

Not a novel but a poem, the last line of Mid term Break always gets me;
"A four foot box. A foot for every year"

So many mentioned on here make me sob now. I wasn't much of a crier until I had dc but now I'm at it all of the time! I can not read my dc 10 little fingers any more, or Winnie the Pooh.

Another Terry Pratchett one, The Shepherd's Crown, his last book when Death comes for one of the favourite characters. Also, there was an excerpt that his daughter wrote with him about Terry Pratchett meeting Death, I think it was published online after he died. Very poignant.

Oh gosh the paper dolls made me cry so much I couldn't see the page. Did not see it coming!!

Oh, what a wonderful thread. I have had a pants day and need a good cry.

Iamdivergant That bit in Terry Pratchett's nation had me a wet mess.

Me too Morvaan

Me too Morvaan

Paper Dolls for me too! We have it out of the library at the moment and I have to grit my teeth and stiffen my upper lip to get through it!

I've got a headache now from trying not to cry on the bus reading this!

I read Paper Dolls to my granddaughter and blubbed like a child. She was very bemused bless her!

“She’s dead, ent she?”
He nodded
“My fault”, he choked out. “My fault. I killed her. I made her die.”
“How?”
“She cried and cried and I nursed her, like. I held her real good. I rocked her. I gives her the milk in the bottle and there wasn’t no more”
“Ent your fault. The milk runnin out.”
“But I should have got out like. I waited. I shouldn’t have waited. I thought me Mum’d be back any minute, only....”

Breaks. My. Heart.

Lady

Lady