![]() ![]() Let’s dig deeper into these four criteria: I’m picking virtually all of these from fiction, not nonfiction (with the exception of one - find it if you can), and I’m not picking first lines of books because those deserve their own list.I’ve also decided to opt for beautiful sentences under 100 words, because anything past that becomes its own beast, and it’s unfair for a 10 word sentence to have to compare to an epic monster sentence (If you want longer sentences, look at the longest sentences in English).I’m also limiting the list to one submission per author.I limited myself to modern authors, authors writing in the last 50 years or so, because there are many websites that list classic lines of literature and I don’t want to repeat them.To limit the sheer number of beautiful sentences, I created some artificial boundaries: Must beautiful sentences make you feel something?Īs I was combing through thousands of lovely sentences to make this list, through my library of books and internet lists and polling my writer friends, I decided that the best sentences accomplished a combination of those four criteria. ![]() Must beautiful sentences be full of risk and ambition, or can they be subtle and simple?.Or are beautiful sentences full of wisdom?.Are beautiful sentences full of nice turns of phrase?.How do you pick the most beautiful sentences in literature? And she had destroyed herself, crushed by an insult that had appalled and amazed that childish soul, had smirched that angel purity with unmerited disgrace and torn from her a last scream of despair, unheeded and brutally disregarded, on a dark night in the cold and wet while the wind howled 100 Beautiful Sentences in Literature ‹ Back to blog She was only fourteen, but her heart was broken. Svidrigaïlov knew that girl there was no holy image, no burning candle beside the coffin no sound of prayers: the girl had drowned herself. The stern and already rigid profile of her face looked as though chiselled of marble too, and the smile on her pale lips was full of an immense unchildish misery and sorrowful appeal. But her loose fair hair was wet there was a wreath of roses on her head. Among the flowers lay a girl in a white muslin dress, with her arms crossed and pressed on her bosom, as though carved out of marble. The coffin was covered with white silk and edged with a thick white frill wreaths of flowers surrounded it on all sides. The birds were chirruping under the window, and in the middle of the room, on a table covered with a white satin shroud, stood a coffin. The floors were strewn with freshly-cut fragrant hay, the windows were open, a fresh, cool, light air came into the room. He was reluctant to move away from them, but he went up the stairs and came into a large, high drawing-room and again everywhere-at the windows, the doors on to the balcony, and on the balcony itself-were flowers. He noticed particularly in the windows nosegays of tender, white, heavily fragrant narcissus bending over their bright, green, thick long stalks. A light, cool staircase, carpeted with rich rugs, was decorated with rare plants in china pots. A fine, sumptuous country cottage in the English taste overgrown with fragrant flowers, with flower beds going round the house the porch, wreathed in climbers, was surrounded with beds of roses. ![]() He kept dwelling on images of flowers, he fancied a charming flower garden, a bright, warm, almost hot day, a holiday-Trinity day. Perhaps the cold, or the dampness, or the dark, or the wind that howled under the window and tossed the trees roused a sort of persistent craving for the fantastic. But one image rose after another, incoherent scraps of thought without beginning or end passed through his mind. He was not thinking of anything and did not want to think. There was a cold damp draught from the window, however without getting up he drew the blanket over him and wrapped himself in it. “It’s better not to sleep at all,” he decided. He got up and sat on the edge of the bedstead with his back to the window. ![]()
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