the top 10 most spine-tingling, teary eyed, life altering moments in Literature. (thus far)

    In no particular rank or order: the words that have burned themselves into my mind. Grab a cup of tea, curl up somewhere quiet, and just inhale the beauty. Some of them are out of context, but hey. Context is overrated right? These words speak for themselves. (P.S. this might be a bit of a long post. *oops*)

   

1. The Return of the King: Aragorn's Speech
    "A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of woes and shattered shields, when the age of men come crashing down, but it is not this day. This day we fight."

2. The Silver Chair: Puddleglum's Speech 
    "'One word, Ma'am," he said, coming back from the fire; limping, because of the pain. "One word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things - trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world, which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play world. I'm on Aslan's side, even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can, even if there isn't any Narnia.'"

3. Lord of the Flies: Ralph Weeps 
    "Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy."

4. 1984: To the Future or to the Past
    "To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free, when men are different from each other and do not live alone - to a time when truth exists and what is done cannot be undone:
    From the age of uniformity, from the age of solitude, from the age of Big Brother, from the age of doublethink - greetings!" 

5. The Book Thief: The Words 
    "I have hated the words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right."

6. The Great Gatsby: The Green Light
    "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms father... And one fine morning -
    So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

7. The Book Thief: Death's Words to Liesel 
    "I wanted to tell the book thief many things, about beauty and brutality. But what could I tell her about those things that she didn't already know? I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race - that rarely do I ever simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant.
    None of these things, however, came out of my mouth.
    All I was able to do was turn to Liesel Meminger and tell her the only truth I know. I said it to the book thief, and I say it now to you.

 ****A LAST NOTE FROM YOUR NARRATOR****

I am haunted by humans" 

8. The Magician's Nephew: Aslan and Digory 
    " But please, please - won't you - can't you give me something that will cure Mother?' Up till then he had been looking at the Lion's great front feet and the huge claws on them; now, in his despair, he looked up at its face. What he saw surprised him as much as anything in his whole life. For the tawny face was bent down near his own and (wonder of wonders) great shining tears stood in the Lion's eyes. They were such big, bright tears compared with Digory's own that for a moment he felt as if the Lion must really be sorrier about his Mother than he was himself.
     'My son, my son,' said Aslan, 'I know. Grief is great. Only you and I in this land know that yet. Let us be good to one another. But I have to think of hundreds of years in the life of Narnia.'"

9. Invictus 

"Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance,

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds and shall find me unafraid. 

It matters not how straight the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul." 

10. Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night 

                                                "Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rage at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right, 

Because their words had forked no lighting they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last way by, crying how bright 

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 

Wild men, who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, to late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night. 

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light."