There are countless great lines from novels, but here are a few that come to mind:
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." - Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
"All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." - Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair." - Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." - George Orwell, 1984
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
"The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed." - Stephen King, The Gunslinger
"I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will." - Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre
"I have waited for this opportunity for more than half a century, to repeat to you once again my vow of eternal fidelity and everlasting love." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera
"The first time I saw him, I thought he looked like a lion, his golden hair wild around his head and his eyes narrowed like he was sizing me up for dinner." - Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles
"It's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years." - Abraham Lincoln (quoted in Thornton Wilder's The Bridge of San Luis Rey)
"We accept the love we think we deserve." - Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower
"The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive." - John Green, Looking for Alaska
"It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer." - E.B. White, Charlotte's Web
"I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape." - Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
"Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody." - J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
"The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." - William Gibson, Neuromancer
"Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently." - Rob Siltanen (in the advertisement for Apple)
"The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places." - Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." - Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan
"All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost." - J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
Indian Writers:
Here are some notable lines from Indian novels:
"The only way to deal with fear is to face it head-on." - Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things
"The only language that permits you to talk back to fate is music." - Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance
"Memory is a cruel mistress with whom we all must learn to dance." - Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy
"Sometimes what we learn and who we become in the process of waiting is even more important than what we're waiting for." - Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Sister of My Heart
"It is true that those we meet can change us, sometimes so profoundly that we are not the same afterwards." - Yann Martel, Life of Pi
"You have within you right now, everything you need to deal with whatever the world can throw at you." - Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
"The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven." - Amitav Ghosh, The Shadow Lines
"A book is a dream that you hold in your hand." - Neil Gaiman, The Sandman: A Game of You
"The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of because words diminish your feelings." - Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things
"Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes." - Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo (translated into English by various authors)
"Love is not a feeling of happiness. Love is a willingness to sacrifice." - Ravinder Singh, I Too Had a Love Story
"The world is full of good people. If you can't find one, be one." - Anurag Anand, Love on 3 Wheels
"We are all alone, trapped in these bodies and our own minds, and whatever company we have in this life is only fleeting and superficial." - Jhumpa Lahiri, The Lowland
"The best way to escape from a problem is to solve it." - Amish Tripathi, The Secret of the Nagas
"Life is like a train, it stops at many stations, but you are the one who decides how long to stay at each station." - Ruskin Bond, The Room on the Roof
"The heart never forgets, never lets go, even when the mind has cut the cords, and the memories have been packed away." - Sarita Mandanna, Tiger Hills
"The past is always with us, for it feeds the present." - Anita Desai, Fire on the Mountain
"It's hard to believe in coincidence, but it's even harder to believe in anything else." - Chetan Bhagat, One Night @ the Call Center
"We are all stories in the end. Just make it a good one." - Ashwin Sanghi, The Krishna Key
"We live and breathe words. It was books that made me feel that perhaps I was not completely alone." - Shazaf Fatima Haider, How It Happened
These lines from Indian novels capture the essence of the human experience, from the complexities of love and relationships to the search for meaning and purpose in life. They reflect the diversity of India's literary traditions, from the classic works of Rabindranath Tagore and R.K. Narayan to the contemporary voices of Chetan Bhagat and Ashwin Sanghi. Through these lines, Indian writers offer readers a window into their world, their culture, and their unique perspectives on life.
