Passages So Beautiful They Must Be Read Aloud

[freelantzer]

As readers we know them, those passages that make you stop and marvel at their beauty. They demand to be read aloud, which I often do to no one in particular.

I came across this one earlier this week:

Originally Posted by Peace Like a River by Leif Enger

"I remember it as October days are always remembered, cloudless, maple-flavored, the air so gold and so clean it quivers."

Which passages move you to read them aloud?

[HPitty23]

Firstly, I love, love, love that quote!

From Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, this is a passage that I read aloud when I was first reading the book.

Originally Posted by Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

'Stuff your eyes with wonder,' he said, 'live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories. Ask no guarantees, ask for no security, there never was such an animal. And if there were, it would be related to the great sloth which hangs upside down in a tree all day every day, sleeping its life away. To hell with that,' he said, 'shake the tree and knock the great sloth down on his ***.'

Then from Slaughterhouse Five, by Vonnegut-

Originally Posted by Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist. The Tralfamadorians can look at all the different moments just that way we can look at a stretch of the Rocky Mountains, for instance. They can see how permanent all the moments are, and they can look at any moment that interests them. It is just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever.
When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in bad condition in the particular moment, but that the same person is just fine in plenty of other moments. Now, when I myself hear that somebody is dead, I simply shrug and say what the Tralfamadorians say about dead people, which is "So it goes."

(One of my all time favorite quotes, ever)

And this one too-

Originally Posted by Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Billy licked his lips, thought a while, inquired at last: "Why me?"
"That is a very Earthling question to ask, Mr. Pilgrim. Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?"
"Yes." Billy, in fact, had a paperweight in his office which was a blob of polished amber with three ladybugs embedded in it.
"Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why."

(Favorite quote from Slaughterhouse, and most possibly my favorite quote of all time )

It makes me wonder why these passages seem so much greater when said aloud. What difference is there? It doesn't change what's being said at all. But they have so much more meaning when they're spoken.

[freelantzer]

Originally Posted by HPitty23

It makes me wonder why these passages seem so much greater when said aloud. What difference is there? It doesn't change what's being said at all. But they have so much more meaning when they're spoken.

I agree. What is it that makes us feel compelled to voice certain passages? There's something about the language that is so powerful and demands to be spoken aloud. And of course while reading your post I read your quotes out loud.

I adore your Fahrenheit quote. There are so many parts of that book that I savor reading out loud. As you well know, I always read the beginning out loud with a new group of students each year. I adore reading that whole section aloud, where Montag meets Clarisse and wonders about her. I think it's something about the beautiful imagery of that scene and the way Bradbury has with words.

[lilyrose]

What a great topic! I love the passages you've quoted above. I've always felt it more 'romantic' and exciting to read aloud a wonderful passage (It's probably just me who feels so though) A lot of poems work so well when read aloud, but I'll post some of my favourite passages from books here:

The Enchantress of Florence, Salman Rushdie (I think he's an enormously gifted writer and some passages in his books are simply so delightful that I feel I have to read them aloud):

'The emperor Abul-Fath Jalaluddin Muhammad, king of kings, known since his childhood as Akbar, meaning 'the great', and latterly, in spite of the tautology of it, as Akbar the Great, the great great one, great in his greatness, doubly great, so great that the repetition in his title was not only appropriate but necessary in order to express the gloriousness of his glory - the Grand Mughal.......'

'He was Adam's heir, not Muhammad's or the Caliphs', Abul Fazal told him; his legitimacy and authority sprang from his descent from the First Man, the father of all men. No single faith could contain him, nor any geographical territory. Greater than the king of kings who ruled Persia before the Muslims came, superior to the ancient Hindu notion of the Chakravartin - the king whose chariot wheels could roll everywhere, whose movements could not be obstructed - he was the Universal Ruler, king of a world without frontiers or ideological limitations. What followed from this was that human nature, not divine will, was the great force that moved history. He, Akbar, the perfect man, was the engine of time.'

The Uncommon Reader, Alan Bennett (This is a precious book)

'The appeal of reading, she thought, lay in its indifference: there was something undeferring about literature. Books did not care who was reading them or whether one read them or not. All readers were equal, herself included. Literature, she thought, is a commonwealth; letters a republic.' (Possibly my most favourite among the passages I've quoted here. This inspired my 'location' on CoS )

Persuasion, Jane Austen: (Such a particularly insightful quote)

Admiral Croft: '..Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman's fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men.'
Anne: 'Perhaps I shall. Yes, yes, if you please, no reference to examples in books. Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything.

Serious Men, Manu Joseph (Brilliantly sarcastic)

'A mysterious character of UFOs is that they are sighted only in the First World,' she said, 'and no alien conquest of Earth begins until the mayor of New York holds an emergency press conference. When Mars attacks, it attacks America.'

'The dedication of passwords was the new fellowship of marriage. To each other, couples had become furtive asterisks.'

[Sheree]

This is my favorite. It's from Puddleglum's speech in C.S. Lewis' The Silver Chair from the Narnia series...

"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."

[HurrahforHermy]

Two (in my opinion) beautiful passages, both from the book "Wintergirls" by Lourie Halse Anderson:

“If I had lady-spider legs, I would weave a sky where the stars lined up. Matresses would be tied down tight to their trucks, bodies would never crash through windshields. The moon would rise above the wine-dark sea and give babies only to maidens and musicians who had prayed long and hard. Lost girls wouldn't need compasses or maps. They would find gingerbread paths to lead them out of the forest and home again. They would never sleep in silver boxes with white velvet sheets, not until they were wrinkled-paper grandmas and ready for the trip."

Also from the same book (rather disturbing, but still beautiful and really well written:

“Why? You want to know why?

Step into a tanning booth and fry yourself for two or three days. After your skin bubbles and peels off, roll in coarse salt, then pull on long underwear woven from spun glass and razor wire. Over that goes your regular clothes, as long as they are tight.

Smoke gunpowder and go to school to jump through hoops, sit up and beg, and roll over on command. Listen to the whispers that curl into your head at night, calling you ugly and fat and stupid and worst of all, "a disappointment." Puke and starve and cut and drink because you don't want to feel any of this. Puke and starve and drink and cut because you need the anesthetic and it works. For a while. But then the anesthetic turns into poison and by then it's too late because you are mainlining it now, straight into your soul. It is rotting you and you can't stop.

Look in a mirror and find a ghost. Hear every heartbeat scream that everysinglething is wrong with you.

"Why?" is the wrong question.

Ask "Why not?"

[canismajoris]

Some lines from The Parliament of Fowls

With hed enclyned and with ful humble chere
This royal tercel spak and taried nought:
`Unto my sovereyn lady, and noght my fere,
I chese, and chese with wille and herte and thought,
The formel on your hond so wel y-wrought,
Whos I am al and ever wol hir serve,
Do what hir list, to do me live or sterve.

Beseching hir of mercy and of grace,
As she that is my lady sovereyne;
Or let me dye present in this place.
For certes, long may I not live in peyne;
For in myn herte is corven every veyne;
Having reward only to my trouthe,
My dere herte, have on my wo som routhe.