Lines that have provoked a physical reaction...

[sorgoth]

When reading a book, are there any lines that made you cry, or made a chill go down your spine?

I remember the scene in Brave New World where the children are conditioned to not like flowers...they walk towards the flowers and loud noises suddenly come out, causing the children to cry and cower. Sent a chill down my spine.

Also, the last line from 1984.

[Brian]

"It was our 119th year in the computer."
From Harlen Ellisons "I have No Mouth and I Must Scream".
It's about a huge sentient computer that has killed the entire human race except for 4 that he keeps alive and tortures inside itself because it's pi$$ed that they made him exist.
At one point he says to the humans something along the lines of:
"I have [so many billion miles of circutry} if you printed hate on every inch in one micron long letters, that would not begin to express 1 one billionth of how much I hate you."

[sorgoth]

Originally posted by Brian
"It was our 119th year in the computer."
From Harlen Ellisons "I have No Mouth and I Must Scream".
It's about a huge sentient computer that has killed the entire human race except for 4 that he keeps alive and tortures inside itself because it's pi$$ed that they made him exist.
At one point he says to the humans something along the lines of:
"I have [so many billion miles of circutry} if you printed hate on every inch in one micron long letters, that would not begin to express 1 one billionth of how much I hate you."

I've got to read that book.

[shemp]

You'll get plenty of physical reactions if you read Ellison's collection of short stories "Angry Candy," 17 stories and a brilliant preface that all deal with death. I found "Paladin of the Lost Hour" the most emotionally moving.

[Beanbag]

"All the world will be your enemy, prince with a thousand enemies, and when they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you."

Watership Down.

Regards;
Beanbag

[Beanbag]

"Part of me remained forever at Latitude 80 deg 08' South: what survived of my youth, my vanity, perhaps, and certainly my skepticism"

Adm. Richard E. Byrd, Alone. The story of his experiences manning the Bolling Advance Weather Station, completely alone in Antarctica in the winter in 1934. A malfunctioning oil stove, his only source of heat for survival, nearly killed him with carbon monoxide poisoning, and left him to have to do a balancing act between risking freezing to death or continue poisoning himself with the fumes, all the while keeping his situation secret from the other members of the Antarctic expedition in Little America.

Regards;
Beanbag

[RCNelson]

shemp:
I found "Paladin of the Lost Hour" the most emotionally moving.
I just googled and found Paladin of the Lost Hour (http://harlanellison.com/iwrite/paladin.htm) on the web.

[Deviant Pixie]

This particular book offers many lines that provoke physical reaction. This quote is the one that came first to my head when I read the topic of the thread.


“Theodore took another mouthful from the flask, spread his cape over the count and lying down close to him for warmth, let his weary limbs relax, indifferent to danger, void of fear, empty of everything but the imperitive need of sleep”

Violet Needham. The Woods of Windri

If you like, I have more.

The Deviant Pixie

[Mr Manifesto]

Quoting from memory, a line from 1984 always provokes some kind of physical reaction from me:

If you want a vision of the future, picture a jackboot stamping on a human face, forever.

I just googled that and came up with nothing. Let's see how far off I was:

If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face- for ever.

Not too bad, if I do say so myself. :D

[Mr Manifesto]

Originally posted by sorgoth

Also, the last line from 1984.

"It was chiefly in order to allow time for the preliminary work of translation that the final adoption of Newspeak had been fixed for so late a date as 2050."

Doesn't seem like that emotional a line to me. :D

[whitefork]

The beginning of Naked LunchI can feel the heat closing in, feel them out there making their moves, setting up their devil doll stool pigeons, crooing over my spoon and dropper I throw away at Washington Square Station, vault a turnstile and two flights down the iron stairs, catch an uptown A train... Young, good looking, crew cut, Ivy League, advertising exec type fruit holds the door back for me. I am evidently his idea of a character...Especially as read by Burroughs himself.

[Soapy Sam]

How's this for a first line?

"There was a killer loose on the range."

Arthur C.Clarke. "The Deep Range."

[Jon_in_london]

Herman Charles Bosman's short story "The Rooinek" {literally 'redneck' a derogatory phrase for the British}.

You have to read it of course, and I bet no-one else here has, but I challenge even the most stony-hearted person to not shed a tear after the last line.

[lofgoernost]

A story by Isaac Bashevis Singer. I do not recall the title. It is about a young woman who meets a writer she worships. I read the story, left the library, and sat on a bench. I put my head between my knees to keep from vomiting.

The is no lone line which I recall from that story.

*****

"And anything that happened me afterwards, I never felt the same about again." From "Guests of the Nation", a story by Frank O'Connor.

[Brian]

Originally posted by shemp
You'll get plenty of physical reactions if you read Ellison's collection of short stories "Angry Candy," 17 stories and a brilliant preface that all deal with death. I found "Paladin of the Lost Hour" the most emotionally moving.
Did you know that story was made into a very good episode of the New Twilight Zone? Come to think of it I think it was a screenplay first.
A side note, in the short story one of the characters is black and the other is white. Ellison made it unclear which was which on purpose. I have no idea why.

[epepke]

Originally posted by RCNelson

I just googled and found Paladin of the Lost Hour (http://harlanellison.com/iwrite/paladin.htm) on the web.

Thanks. I just read it. I had never done so, although I saw Ellison get the award at Worldcon. It comes across to me as a fairly cynical manipulation of the wish-fulfillment formula. It's almost as if Ellison thought to himself, "Ha ha! I'll sit down and write a tearjerker."

Also in the wish-fulfillment category, but to me not as cynical, is the last line in Ray Bradbury's I Sing the Body Electric. Also from Bradbury, the scene where the father decides to laugh at the Dust Witch, the story about the boy with the birthday and the stars as candles, the story about the luggage shop on Mars, and many others.

From Dick, the scene in Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, in which Felix, after having passed through to a gentler universe, lands at the filling station and presents the picture to the black man.

From Pohl, the last chapter in Gateway.

From Fitzgerald, the scene in The Great Gatsby with the shirts.

From the unknown author of the Poema de Mio Cid, the one line (in modern translation) "de los sus ojos tan fuertamente llorando," roughly, "from those his eyes so strongly crying." Mostly because of the viewpoint of Spanish culture, that crying and expressing emotion is an essential property of masculine strengh, in contrast to the stiff upper lip of Anglo culture.

I have to reread Don Marquis. A lot of good stuff in there.

From Nietzsche, "The Grave Song" and the pre-penultimate line, "Only where there are graves are there resurrections."

This is only the crying and spine-shivering stuff. Projectile vomiting is also a physical reaction, and I'm sure there's more literature that would support that.

[hgc]

The last page of Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath is astounding. The first time I read it, I was moved to tears. I won't reveal here what happens, but if you haven't yet but will read the book, do not read ahead to the last page!

[Wudang]

The last paragraph of Zelazny's "lord of Light".
And pardon a scot for saying so but :
" We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed"

[epepke]

Originally posted by Wudang
The last paragraph of Zelazny's "lord of Light".
And pardon a scot for saying so but :
" We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed"

No pardon needed; those are good ones.

The funny thing is that the lines originally penned by Jefferson really sucked. This version was actually made by committee. It's probably the first and last time a committee has come up with good language.

[The idea]

"Oh my God, it's full of stars!"

paraphrase of a line from 2001: A Space Odyssey

[Wudang]

Originally posted by epepke
This version was actually made by committee.

Oh my &diety, no! It's a mission statement! :eek:

[CJW]

Just about anything by Anais Nin has caused a physical reaction...

However there was a line from the John Irving's "A Son of the Circus" where the main character (the name escapes me) is asked where he is from and he replies...."I'm from the circus". I was in tears.

Also, the scene in "of mice and men" where George "takes care" of Lenny - the first time I ever shed tears from reading a book.

Chris

[Thinking in CT]

There are many short stories that rely on the "surprise ending" for effect, and meaning. "The Necklace" by deMaupausant and "The Gift of the Magi" by O. Henry are good examples and are frequently anthologized and taught in schools (or at least used to be taught). The most moving example of the technique I have ever encountered, however, is "The Star" by Arthur C. Clarke. In it the surprise, revealing and compelling ending is contained in the very last word of the story. I won't reveal the word here, but I recommend the story to anyone but especially to followers of this forum.

[Hexxenhammer]

"Satan receive my soul. Jesus is a fink." --Heinlein in "Job"

[Luciana]

The murder scene of Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky. I was in the middle of a chemistry lesson, and I felt as if the hammer was cracking into my skull. What a disappointment to lose the concentration when the teacher called my name. How dare he to interrupt a reading that, in the long run, was much more important to me than anything he might teach me?

Magic Mountain, Thomas Mann, last couple of pages. I was crying like a baby at the end, although, if read isolated, it's unemotional, even cold. The kiss (who read it knows it's the kids, which is described with excruciating detail, is also very cheerful, I remember being delighted at reading it, with a big smile on my face.

The Myst, by Stephen King. The reading made such an impression on my imagination that later at night I dreamt of it, replaying the best parts, only it became a nightmare and soon I woke up, startled.

Oh, there must be so many others...

[The idea]

Originally posted by Luciana Nery
The murder scene of Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky.What about this part?

"He forgot to shut the door after him, and murdered two people for a theory. [...] consider this: he is a murderer, but looks upon himself as an honest man, despises others, poses as injured innocence. No, that’s not the work of a Nikolay, my dear Rodion Romanovitch!”
All that had been said before had sounded so like a recantation that these words were too great a shock. Raskolnikov shuddered as though he had been stabbed.
“Then … who then … is the murderer?” he asked in a breathless voice, unable to restrain himself.
Porfiry Petrovitch sank back in his chair, as though he were amazed at the question.
“Who is the murderer?” he repeated, as though unable to believe his ears. “Why, you, Rodion Romanovitch! You are the murderer,” he added almost in a whisper, in a voice of genuine conviction.

[sorgoth]

Originally posted by Mr Manifesto


"It was chiefly in order to allow time for the preliminary work of translation that the final adoption of Newspeak had been fixed for so late a date as 2050."

Doesn't seem like that emotional a line to me. :D


lol


That made me laugh quite a bit. Okay, the last line not counting the appendix.

[Morwen]

That I can remember right now... The following dialogue between Pursewarden and Melissa in Lawrence Durrell's "Alexandria Quartet" (francophones excuse the misspellings, my books are seven years and nine time zones afar):

-Comme-vous vous defendez contre la solitude?
-Monsieur, je suis devenue la solitude-même.

It shocked me. A lot. Still does.

[Vitriolis]

I always get a chill from the first paragraph of Poe's Berenice

MISERY is manifold. The wretchedness of earth is multiform. Overreaching the wide horizon like the rainbow, its hues are as various as the hues of that arch — as distinct too, yet as intimately blended. Overreaching the wide horizon like the rainbow! How is it that from beauty I have derived a type of unloveliness? — from the covenant of peace, a simile of sorrow? But thus is it. And as, in ethics, evil is a consequence of good, so, in fact, out of joy is sorrow born. Either the memory of past bliss is the anguish of today, or the agonies which are, have their origin in the ecstasies which might have been.

Such depair.

[Vorticity]

I always loved this line from "The World According to Garp":

http://www.wavsource.com/movies/world_according_to_garp.htm

Click on the link and listen to the .wav file. You don't get the full effect until you hear Hume Cronyn say it...

[epepke]

Originally posted by Brian
A side note, in the short story one of the characters is black and the other is white. Ellison made it unclear which was which on purpose. I have no idea why.

Yeah, that's another thing. Did anybody reading the story care, or even picture either of the main characters as any particular color? I didn't. It's almost as if Ellison felt he had to say, "This transends racial boundaries, so I'm cool. Wow."

Much more deftly handled were the UK/US ambiguities. The US shibboleths of the Vietnam war and the deco diner and grilled cheese sandwiches were there, but there was also the Council (instead of Town Hall) and official starting hours, which nobody in the US gives a wet slap about.

[thrombus29]

Other Ellison endings that get to Me.

The Deathbird.

Shattered like a glass goblin.

Repent Harlequin, Said the Ticktockman.

[Luciana]

Originally posted by The idea
What about this part?

"He forgot to shut the door after him, and murdered two people for a theory. [...] consider this: he is a murderer, but looks upon himself as an honest man, despises others, poses as injured innocence. No, that’s not the work of a Nikolay, my dear Rodion Romanovitch!”
All that had been said before had sounded so like a recantation that these words were too great a shock. Raskolnikov shuddered as though he had been stabbed.
“Then … who then … is the murderer?” he asked in a breathless voice, unable to restrain himself.
Porfiry Petrovitch sank back in his chair, as though he were amazed at the question.
“Who is the murderer?” he repeated, as though unable to believe his ears. “Why, you, Rodion Romanovitch! You are the murderer,” he added almost in a whisper, in a voice of genuine conviction.

That's it, I have to reread that book... thanks, idea.

The Raven, by Poe. I read it for the first time alone, in the wee wee hours of the morning. I was breathless when I finished a silence reading of it.

[Yahweh]

I read a short story, I dont remember the name or author or the title of the story, so sorry to waste this post...

The story revolved around a life destroyed by alcohol, then gradually rebuilt. It was very well written, and very original for a story so common.

[HarryKeogh]

the opening paragraph of shirley jackson's The Haunting of Hill House...

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute relativity; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood for eighty years and might stand eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.


eeeek!

[Boo]

The first time I read Othello I was a classroom aide for my English teacher in High School, as he had nothing for me to do that week I read for the hour while he taught a 9th grade English class. On Friday I had reached the last few pages. I sat in the corner reading as Othello smothers Desdamona, all of the lies are revealed and tears are running down my face. The one line that pushed me right over was "A man who loved not wisely but to well". The whole class is staring at me by this time. I ended giving a brief synopsis of the story to the rather startled group. The teacher then turned to them and said "That is the power of language."


To this day I have neither watched any movie version or been able to bring myself to re-read it.



Boo

[juryjone]

"This day when it had light mother called me retch. You retch she said. I saw in her eyes the anger. I wonder what it is a retch."

--Richard Matheson, "Born of Man and Woman"

Still gets me, 30 years after reading it the first time.

[demon]

Frederick Engels at the funeral of Karl Marx.

"On the 14th of March, at a quarter to three in the afternoon, the greatest living thinker ceased to think."

[metropolis_part_one]

"If you want to imagine the future, picture a boot stamping on a human face, forever"

O'Brien in '1984'

[Brian]

Originally posted by demon
Frederick Engels at the funeral of Karl Marx.

"On the 14th of March, at a quarter to three in the afternoon, the greatest living thinker ceased to think."
Yeah, that me giggle a little bit too.

[billydkid]

Originally posted by Wudang
The last paragraph of Zelazny's "lord of Light".
And pardon a scot for saying so but :
" We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed"

Hey, thanks. Those are lines that still resonate in my heart and mind. I would very much like them to continue to resonate in a meaningful way in hearts and minds of the rest of my countrymen. I would like for folks to remember that the sole legitimate reason for the institution and maintenance of a government is to secure those unalienable rights.

[demon]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by demon
Frederick Engels at the funeral of Karl Marx.

"On the 14th of March, at a quarter to three in the afternoon, the greatest living thinker ceased to think."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Brian
"Yeah, that me giggle a little bit too."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I see your rush to make what you perceived as a clever remark ended up with you writing nonsense.
Not the most impressive thing to do in a Literature forum.

"More haste, less speed"...I always liked that line too.

[Ove]

There's a line from "Catcher in the Rye" that i wish i'd written, goes something like :"I can just picture the sonuvab**h changing gear and asking god to send him some more stiff's" describing a undertaker. :D

In real life i must admit that Winston Churchill's "Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few" are some of the cleverest words written. The story is that he composed the sentence in his car after a visit to fighter command headquarters in the heat of the battle. He had been shown around and in the operations room he witnessed a squadron being directed at a enemy force. He could se that they were heavily outnumbered and asked Park: How many reserves do we have"? Park turned calmly to him and said "None"!!!!

Dowding and Park are the unsung heroes of ww2 IMHO.

[demon]

Harry Keogh:

" the opening paragraph of shirley jackson's The Haunting of Hill House...

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute relativity; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood for eighty years and might stand eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.
eeeek!"

I`ve always loved and feared that paragraph...it`s so damn spooky. You`ll know the way that same paragraph changes at the end of the book too.
May I suggest you read "The Woman in Black" by Susan Hill if you like that kind of spooky stuff....eeeeek as you say;)

[Jabberwock]

From Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451-

"Give the people contests they win by remembering words to popular songs ... cram them full of such non-combustable data, chock them so damned full of 'facts' that they feel stuffed ... then they'll feel they're thinking, they'll get a sense of motion without moving. Then they'll be happy, because these kinds of facts don't change. Don't give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy."

and the scariest line of the book (which about a future where books are forbidden)

"It didn't come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no censorship, no! Technology, mass exploitation and minority pressure carried the trick."

And the line I have on a poster behind my desk at school (I teach English)

"I don't talk things, I talk the meanings of things!"

[Mr Manifesto]

Originally posted by metropolis_part_one
"If you want to imagine the future, picture a boot stamping on a human face, forever"

O'Brien in '1984'

I said it first! :D

[Crow T. Robot]

Originally posted by juryjone
"This day when it had light mother called me retch. You retch she said. I saw in her eyes the anger. I wonder what it is a retch."

--Richard Matheson, "Born of Man and Woman"

Still gets me, 30 years after reading it the first time.


When I first saw this thread, I immediately thought of this short story. I couldn't remember the name, to post my response, but I intended to look it up. I'm just like you. That was one damn distrubing story. And, a perfect indication of how NOT describing something in detail can make it so much more frightening, as each reader is left to imagine the horror...

[chapka]

Don't want to spoil it for those who haven't read it (and you should!), but I felt like I'd been punched in the chest after reading the last few pages of Proust's The Guermantes Way. In retrospect, I don't even know why this affected me so much--much more so than the similar revelation at the end of The Captive.

[DrMatt]

"Gustav Mahler was a saint." --Arnold Schoenberg.

Also--in context--the last line of Midnight's Children. Come to think of it, every line of that book from beginning to end made me laugh and cry. It's a really dense book, 500 pages with no fat, each sentence more outrageous and hilarious and yet vaguely tautological than the last. I sometimes try to make music like that.

[ASRomatifoso]

I don't remember any specific lines word for word but many passages in The Grapes of Wrath moved me. Many passages in The Club Dumas made me think about them, reread them, think some more, then later I would be thinking about them again, Also, Life of Pi has many beautiful passages and is a great story.

[PogoPedant]

"I opened myself to God, and I was raped." Uttered by Father Emilio Somethingorother in "the Sparrow" by Mary Doria Russel. Fabolous book. Great science fiction with very little emphasis on either the science or the fiction...

[Hexxenhammer]

Originally posted by PogoPedant
"I opened myself to God, and I was raped." Uttered by Father Emilio Somethingorother in "the Sparrow" by Mary Doria Russel. Fabolous book. Great science fiction with very little emphasis on either the science or the fiction... I liked "The Sparrow" too, but I couldn't help feeling I was missing something. Getting raped by aliens would be humiliating but I didn't understand why it took him so long to say that's what was being done to him. Or maybe I'm mis-remembering it.

[a_unique_person]

I usually find I get a physical reaction from reading Playboy.

[PogoPedant]

Originally posted by Hexxenhammer
I liked "The Sparrow" too, but I couldn't help feeling I was missing something. Getting raped by aliens would be humiliating but I didn't understand why it took him so long to say that's what was being done to him. Or maybe I'm mis-remembering it.
I don't think it was the raping as much as the betrayal the priest felt. He'd gone through his entire life not as a believer, but as an agnostic who had decided to hope/trust in God. Then, when he arrives on this alien planet, he finally finds faith, only to have it ripped apart. Kinda like growing up... At least that's how I interpreted it.

[Brown]

The last line of Agatha Christie's "Witness for the Prosecution" really jolted me. (I will not quote it, because it only makes sense in the context of the story.) In retrospect, I should have seen it coming, but I didn't.