Lines from famous books you need to know

Famous books are famous for a reason - because of their great lines. Here are some of the finest lines from the finest books, curated by the Greatess review team.

“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

“What fresh hell is this?” —Jane Eyre

“Heart like shale. What you need is a good fracking.” —MaddAddam

“Always.” —Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

“Everything’s profound when there’s guns and zombies.” —Sandman Slim

“To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is the bad dream.” —The Bell Jar

“For one last time, Miriam does as she is told.” —A Thousand Splendid Suns

“And that’s all we are Jefferson, all of us on this earth, a piece of drifting wood. Until we—each of us, individually—decide to become something else. I am still that piece of drifting wood, and those out there are no better. But you can be better.” —A Lesson Before Dying

“As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.” —The Fault in Our Stars

“‘Nobody run off with her,’ Roscoe said. ‘She just run off with herself, I guess.'” —Lonesome Dove

“At the beginning of the summer I had lunch with my father, the gangster, who was in town for the weekend to transact some of his vague business.” —The Mysteries of Pittsburgh

“What keeps you going isn’t some fine destination but just the road you’re on, and the fact that you know how to drive.” —Animal Dreams

“He was dancing, dancing. He says he’ll never die.” —Blood Meridian

“We’re all damaged, somehow.” —A Great and Terrible Beauty

“He’s more myself than I am.” —Wuthering Heights

“Life is pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.” —The Princess Bride

“You know it don’t take much intelligence to get yourself into a nailed-up coffin, Laura. But who in hell ever got himself out of one without removing one nail?” —The Glass Menagerie

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