What is the best line or paragraph of literature ever???

Question

If you have a memorable line of literature (either book or poem), please share it.....

Answer 1

I'll still stick with the final paragraph of James Joyce's short story, "The Dead", where you can literally FEEL the snow drifting down, silently covering over the hopes & dreams of the protagonist.

"A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead."

Answer 2

I like this paragraph from John Donne's poem "For Whom The Bell Tolls."

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every
man is a piece of the continent, a part of the
main. If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory
were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or
of thine own were: any man's death diminishes
me, because I am involved in mankind, and
therefore never send to know for whom the bells
tolls; it tolls for thee."


John Donne
Devotions upon
Emergent Occasions, no. 17
(Meditation)
1624 (published)

Answer 3

Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice: It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possesion of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

Answer 4

Surely one would have to be the opening sentence of Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina" : "All happy fammilies are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Such a simple expression that speaks volumes the more you think on it.

Answer 5

U will know it on this website:www.wikipedia.com but so that u will not look 4 i'll tell it its :Literature is literally "acquaintance with letters" as in the first sense given in the Oxford English Dictionary (from the Latin littera meaning "an individual written character (letter)"). The term has generally come to identify a collection of texts or works of art, which in Western culture are mainly prose, both fiction and non-fiction, drama and poetry. In much, if not all of the world, texts can be oral as well, and include such genres as epic, legend, myth, ballad, plus other forms of oral poetry, and folktale.

DRAMA

A play or drama offers another classical literary form that has continued to evolve over the years. It generally comprises chiefly dialogue between characters, and usually aims at dramatic / theatrical performance (see theatre) rather than at reading. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, opera developed as a combination of poetry, drama, and music. Nearly all drama took verse form until comparatively recently. Shakespeare could be considered drama. Romeo and Juliet, for example, is a classic romantic drama generally accepted as literature.

- - Greek drama exemplifies the earliest form of drama of which we have substantial knowledge. Tragedy, as a dramatic genre, developed as a performance associated with religious and civic festivals, typically enacting or developing upon well-known historical or mythological themes. Tragedies generally presented very serious Theme. - - With the advent of newer technologies, scripts written for non-stage media have been added to this form. War of the Worlds (radio) in 1938 saw the advent of literature written for radio broadcast, and many works of Drama have been adapted for film or television. Conversely, television, film, and radio literature have been adapted to printed or electronic media.

Answer 6

I have so many, I'll share 'em all.

"The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one."

"People are always clapping for the wrong reasons."
----J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye

"A classic is a book that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read."
----Mark Twain

Hiztreebuff: You read my mind with that Anna Karenina quote. Gotta love it. BTW, I like Hiztree, too. : )

Answer 7

"This above all: To thine own self be true, and it must follow as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man." Shakespeare in "Hamlet"

Answer 8

Personally I would say the last sentences of "Gone with the wind"

I'LL THINK OF T ALL TO-MORROW, AT TARA. I CAN STAND IT THEN. TOMORROW, I'LL THINK OF SOME WAY TO GET HIM BACK. AFTER ALL, TO-MORROW IS ANOTHER DAY.

Answer 9

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Answer 10

I love the opening lines of "Lolita" by Vladirmir Nabakov:

"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul....."