Breaking Dawn Quotes

The 9 most famous lines from Stephenie Meyer’s Breaking Dawn (2008), each with its speaker and the scene it belongs to. These are the quotes readers underline, copy into essays and put on walls - gathered in one place, explained in a line.

• “When you loved the one who was killing you, it left you no options.”

  - Bella Swan. Book One, Preface - the opening rule of the book, true in more ways than the reader yet knows.

• “Life sucks, and then you die. / Yeah, I should be so lucky.”

  - Jacob Black. Book Two, Preface - the middle third opens in Jacob's voice; two sentences and the saga's funniest narrator is back.

• “Don't be afraid... We belong together.”

  - Bella Swan. Book One, Chapter 5 - the honeymoon; the book's thesis on fear, stated on the night everything changes.

• “Do you want me to sing to you? I'll sing all night if it will keep the bad dreams away.”

  - Edward Cullen. Book One, Chapter 6 - ninety years of restraint finally spent on lullabies; the gentlest line in the saga.

• “The gravity of the earth no longer tied me to the place where I stood.”

  - Jacob Black. Book Two, Chapter 18 - the imprinting, described from inside; the sentence that ends Book Two and Jacob's war.

• “You nicknamed my daughter after the Loch Ness Monster?”

  - Bella Swan. Book Three, Chapter 22 - meeting Renesmee as a newborn vampire; the first sign the old Bella survived the change.

• “I came to witness. I stay to fight.”

  - Garrett. Book Three, Chapter 37 - the American nomad choosing a side on the snowfield; the witnesses' finest hour.

• “Goodbye, Jacob, my brother... my son.”

  - Edward Cullen. Book Three, Chapter 37 - the rivalry settled in one address; the triangle's true last scene.

• “And then we continued blissfully into this small but perfect piece of our forever.”

  - Bella Swan. Book Three, Chapter 39 - the final sentence of the saga: the shield dropped, the mind finally open.

Why these lines survive

Stephenie Meyer’s sentences earn their fame by compression: each line carries the whole book’s argument in a form you can carry in your pocket. Read in order, the 9 quotes above also sketch the novel’s shape - the world it opens, the pressure it applies, the note it ends on. If you meet them before the book, nothing is spoiled beyond mood; if you meet them after, each one lands like a place you have been.

Quote collectors: pair this page with the Breaking Dawn quiz to see which lines actually stuck, the book club questions when you want to argue about them, or how long the reread takes - about 13 hours and 28 minutes at an average pace. If the lines did their job and you want more of the same nerve, the books like Breaking Dawn list is next.

Want the whole shelf’s lines? Our Stephenie Meyer books in order guide lists every book.

How to use a quotes page

Three honest uses. Before reading: skim the first two quotes to taste the prose - if the voice does not pull you, the book will not either. During: mark which quote you actually reach in the text, because the distance between famous line and lived scene is where a book keeps its secrets. After: pick the one quote you would defend at dinner and check it against the discussion questions - a quote you can argue about is a quote you understood. What a quotes page is not for is replacing the book; five lines of Stephenie Meyer are an invitation, not a summary.

More quote collections

Twilight quotes, The Fault in Our Stars quotes, It Ends with Us quotes, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo quotes - or browse quotes from all 133 classics. Then see which of them stuck on the original book quiz.

Frequently asked questions