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?

Oh Curly poor Cedric.

Poor Hedwig and Shape and Dobby too

Actually that might be a line from the film, not the book.

'He loved Big Brother'. Closing lines of Nineteen Eighty Four. I don't cry but I feel choked up with frustration and despair when I read them.

Beth dying in Good Wives- 'in the arms in which she took her first breath, she quietly took her last.' Shame it's buried in the middle of a couple of paragraphs of long, long garbled sentences, as if the author was trying to shield herself from its emotional impact.

'When that this body did contain a spirit,/A kingdom for it was too small a bound; But now, two paces of the vilest earth/Is room enough' - Prince Hal's lines on Hotspur in Henry IV part 1. I always had a soft spot for Hotspur.

@CurlyhairedAssassin oh that's made my cry again.

God the bloody book thief. I think the writer uses the appalling sadness and awfulness of the actual holocaust to prop up some dreadful twee shite writing and cliched characterisation. I didn't think it was sad - I thought it was manipulative and weak and made sentimental nonsense out of an atrocious period of history. I am probably a cold hearted bitch but that was my reaction.

On the other hand, I thought Grief is a Thing with Feathers was a moving but not sentimental study of bereavement.

'The secret is not to give into it. It takes 10 times as long to pull yourself together as is does to fall apart'

By the shores of silver lake by Laura ingalls Wilder when her dog dies
'She stroked his head where the fine grey hairs were and she thought of how good he had always been. She had always felt safe from wolves or Indians because Jack was there. And how many times had he helped her bring in the cows at night. How happy they had been playing along Plum Creek and in the pool where the fierce old crab had lived and when she had to go to school he had always been waiting at the ford for her when she came home.
'Good Jack, good dog' she told him. He turned his head to touch her hand with the tip of his tongue. Then he let his nose sink on his paws and he sighed and closed his eyes. He wanted to sleep now.
In the morning when Laura came down the ladder into the lamplight, Pa was going to do the chores. He spoke to Jack, but Jack did not stir.
Only Jack's body, stiff and cold, lay curled there on the blanket.
They buried it on the low slope above the wheatfield, by the path he used to run down so gaily when he was going with Laura to bring the cows. Pa spaded the earth over the box and made the mound smooth. Grass would grow there after they had all gone away to the west. Jack would never again sniff the morning air and go springing over the short grass with his ears up and his mouth laughing. He would never nudge his nose under her Laura's hand to say he wanted her to pet him. There had been so many times that she might have petted him without being asked, and hadn't.'

Oh lambside 😭😭

Completely agree re Jude the Obscure.

I read another book once which referenced that bit of the story and said what a horrible man Hardy was to have written something so awful. At the time I read it I didn't have children. Now I do it's just unbearably sad.

The Bronze Horseman, I might have to reread. A great book and very heart-wrenching.

Thank you, chicken, I will look it up.

mawkish individual here ‘because we are too menny’ for me too but whenever I want to cry: ‘My troubles are all over, and I am at home; and often before I am quite awake, I fancy I am still in the orchard at Birtwick, standing with my friends under the apple trees.’ Black Beauty

and yes ‘my heart has joined The Thousand friend stopped running today’ too

Dean koontz Watchers. The line ‘fiddle broke’ gets me every time

I can’t remember the exact line but there is a child’s book called ‘Badgers parting gift’ and explains death to children I guess.

I haven’t read it in years as I sob every time

For some reason I cry every time I read The Lorax and see "UNLESS, someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better it's not."

Plus;
'It is a far, far better thing that I do, than i have ever done.
It is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever had'.

There was a time when I couldn't read 'broken bird' ( yes, the childrens book) because it was just too sad....

Oh gosh the deaths of Beth and Matthew as quoted here - those were the tears of my childhood.

'One last time, Mariam did as she was told'

A Thousand Splendid Suns.

Not a published book but my son's journal. He committed suicide when he was 22 years old.
The final line in his journal is:

For what it's worth, I'm sorry.

Ginger dying in black beauty. My horse is a chestnut
Another, already mentioned, is my sister keeper. The film totally ruined it.

I don’t know if anyone has said this yet. I was about 14 when I read it, and shocked to the core. It is from Jude the Obscure:

At the back of the door were fixed two hooks for hanging garments, and from these the forms of the two youngest children were suspended, by a piece of box-cord round each of their necks, while from a nail a few yards off the body of little Jude was hanging in a similar manner.

Also this, from The Boy in the striped Pyjamas:

Despite the chaos that followed, Bruno found that he was still holding Shmuel’s hand in his own and nothing in the world would have persuaded him to let go.”

@darumafan I'm so sorry . I can't imagine what you're going through.

Flowers for Algernon, about half way through when he realises how poorly he has been treated. I don't have a specific quote though.

It's heartbreaking. The whole book.

Have to say, I love His Dark Materials but OP your quote doesn't do much for me. It's the ghosts being released that does it for me.

darumafan-

"Daddy, my Daddy".

I now see that Jude has been discussed more than any other book! I’m not surprised.

Can't remember the exact words but in the Storyteller there's a bit in the concentration camp where a mother comforts her daughter who is dying of starvation by pretending to promise to cook her whatever meal she would like when they are rescued and asks her to describe it to her so she can make it. She's no sooner done so when she slips away - already so harrowing but oh god, the mothers last gesture of love, to ensure she died thinking nice thoughts.