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Original poster

Most heartbreaking lines from a book ever...

409 replies

iamdivergent · 17/10/2017 10:36

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?

OP posts:
Original poster
iamdivergent · 21/10/2017 07:24

shopaholic I couldn't get on with that book at all!

OP posts:
LoveDeathPrizes · 21/10/2017 09:31

shopaholic Was that the one with the chimpanzee? I was so cross at the way that the twist was chucked in that I never finished it!

CountDuckulaTheSqueaky · 21/10/2017 11:25

DD read Black Beauty when she was 8, I think, I don't think I'd have let her if I'd known how graphic it was in places! Halloween Shock

ShowMePotatoSalad · 21/10/2017 11:28

"Be with me always—take any form—drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!"

Wuthering Heights

MartinGoresLeftToe · 21/10/2017 11:43

All the birds who were never born, all the songs that were never sung and so can only exist in the imagination
(Plus the line after this which I don’t want to add in case it spoils the ending for someone)
A God in Ruins, Kate Atkinson

Great thread by the way, really enjoying it!

abbsisspartacus · 21/10/2017 13:46

She lifted the small cold body from his lonely coffin kissed his face and tucked him in beside their mother. The crying stopped

Hurts my heart every time

BertrandRussell · 21/10/2017 15:15

"At sunset the little soul that had come with the dawning went away, leaving heartbreak behind it."

JacquesHammer · 21/10/2017 15:33

"At sunset the little soul that had come with the dawning went away, leaving heartbreak behind it."

Is that Anne's House of Dreams?

BertrandRussell · 21/10/2017 16:12

One of the Annes, yes. The bit that follows is about dressing the baby and it's really sad but I can't remember it.

shopaholic85 · 21/10/2017 21:13

iamdivergent and LoveDeathPrizes, I wasn't too sure about it either, but there was just something about the end that really moved me and still does.

shopaholic85 · 21/10/2017 21:15

She lifted the small cold body from his lonely coffin kissed his face and tucked him in beside their mother. The crying stopped

Where is this from?

Farontothemaddingcrowd · 21/10/2017 21:16

Oh Cathy do not leave me where I cannot find you. I cannot live without my life. I cannot live without my soul.

Believeitornot · 21/10/2017 21:23

There’s a bit in Goodnight Mr Tom where they find the boy with his baby sister after he was sent back home.

That really haunted me and I dare not read the book again.

Another book - a Prayer for Owen Meany. Awesome book.

LoveDeathPrizes · 21/10/2017 22:08

@shopaholic yeah I should've stuck with it. It was the phrasing that annoyed me.

"You've probably guess by now, that X was a chimpanzee."

What the hell? Rip the rug from under me by dismantling the most compelling thread of the book and then make me feel like a dick for not anticipating it!

LoveDeathPrizes · 21/10/2017 22:09

No other book has ever made my blood run cold quite like Striped Pyjamas.

BertrandRussell · 21/10/2017 22:11

"There are parties- but I'm not invited to them"

abbsisspartacus · 22/10/2017 03:00

Nation by Terry pratchett, shopoholic

Original poster
iamdivergent · 22/10/2017 06:27

abbs D's mother? I vaguely remember that I think.

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faithinthesound · 22/10/2017 06:37

“Mister Tom, I want you.”

I’m getting choked up just typing it.

The other line was the happy tears line from this book, but this for me is the sobbing in misery line.

Believeitornot · 22/10/2017 07:51

Oh another one, for anyone who’s ever read the Fitz books by Robin Hobb.

I recently discovered the third trilogy and was so excited.

Anyway, no spoilers but I was 😢😢😢😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

ditzychick34 · 22/10/2017 08:22

Sobbing just reading your op, I love Hester. I want to call next D that but DH says no 😁

Original poster
iamdivergent · 22/10/2017 08:47

Omg ditsy why didn't I call any of mine that! There is a local shop that i walk past most days and thry have this wooden rabbit statue in the window and everytime insee it i think of Hester.

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BonnieBlueButler · 22/10/2017 10:26

Lennie said, "I thought you was mad at me, George."

"No," said George. "No, Lennie, I ain't mad. I never been mad, and I ain' now. That's a thing I want ya to know."

This is the moment in 'Of Mice and Men' when I crack. Not good when reading it aloud to a class!

CountDuckulaTheSqueaky · 22/10/2017 10:29

Oh gosh, I've just realised what the quote in the OP is from... poor Hester. 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Jeanvaljean27 · 22/10/2017 10:35

Plenty of them in classic novels by Victorian doom-merchants like Thomas Hardy and George Eliot. Pick any of a number of examples from bleak novels like Jude the Obscure, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Mill on the Floss, Silas Marner, etc.

Or you could venture towards 19th century Russian works by Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky or Gogol. They're full of unremitting, unrelenting misery.