Let’s start off this blog about the 23 most beautiful lines in literature by saying these are not the 23 most beautiful lines in literature.
They are just some of them.
I’m sure you can think of others; Feel free to contribute your own favorites at the end.
1. “She wasn’t doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together.”
— J. D. Salinger, “A Girl I Knew”
2. “Sometimes I can feel my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I’m not living.”
— Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
3. “Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” - Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights
4. “The half life of love is forever.”
— Junot Diaz, This Is How You Lose Her
5. You don’t have to live forever, you just have to live - Natalie Babbit, Tuck Forever
6. “Tomorrow is always fresh, with no mistakes in it yet.”
—L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
7. “I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded; not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.”
— Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner
8. “Journeys end in lovers meeting.”
—William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
9.
“And the rest is rust, and stardust.”
- Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
10.
“I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
11.
“Why don’t you tell me that ‘if the girl had been worth having she’d have waited for you’? No, sir, the girl really worth having won’t wait for anybody.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise
12.
“You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.” - Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice.
13.
“I can’t go back to yesterday because I was a different person then.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
14.
Give me my Romeo. And when I shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.
- You Know Who, Romeo and Juliet
15.
The woods are lovely, dark, and deep
But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep
Miles to go before I sleep
- Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, Robert Frost,
16.
Teller, teller, tell me a tale
of love and fear and duty,
I want to die in the arms of love
I want to die for beauty,
For beauty is the only truth
and death the only lie,
I want to sing a final tale
and love before I die
-Troll Bridge, Jane Yollen
17.
“I have one thing to say, one thing only, I’ll never say it another time, to anyone, and I ask you to remember it: in a universe of ambiguity, this kind of certainty comes only once, and never again, no matter how many lifetimes you live.” - Robert James Waller, The Bridges of Madison County
18.
“Oh, Jake,” Brett said, “we could have had such a damned good time together.” Ahead was a mounted policeman in khaki directing traffic. He raised his baton. The car slowed suddenly pressing Brett against me. “Yes,” I said. “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”
The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
19
“Tomorrow, I’ll think of some way to get him back. After all, tomorrow is another day.”
Gone With the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
20.
“Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit em, but remember that it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” — To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
21
“Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aurelio Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon that his father took him to discover ice.”
— One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
22.
Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.
- Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
And my own particular favorite:
23. It’s from the short story Innocence, by Harold Brodkey
Laos 1961: Noelle Bonaventure is young, beautiful, spoiled – and lonely. When she meets a handsome and barnstorming pilot called Crocé, it seems to be everything she is looking for. She will do anything to keep him. But as Indochina descends into chaos around her, she finds that love can lead to dark places she thought she’d never go.
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January 28, 2015 at 2:22 am
I love this, Colin. Some wonderful lines here. ‘And the rest is rust, and stardust’ is astonishing.
January 28, 2015 at 6:04 pm
It’s an amazing line, isn’t it Martin? But it’s an amazing book on so many levels.
January 28, 2015 at 5:49 pm
From “Stairway to the Moon” by Colin Falconer – page 165
How does someone ever live with regret?
You try not to think about the past, you block it out.
You tell yourself to be grateful for the things you have and try not to think about the things you miss. You do it with guilt and with anger. At first it is not so difficult because when the past is fresh it is not completely gone and the memories are still within reach. Regret, like rust, only really takes hold with the passing of time.
January 28, 2015 at 6:03 pm
I must have been clairvoyant when I wrote that, Jan.