I like to perceive things in terms of the lasting visual impressions they leave in my head. Like for instance, my favorite books tend to have at least one scene that has left some lasting impact on my imagination. Or at least, I like to think of them in terms of scenes from some great Epic known as the Human Experience:

- Gatsby on a pier chasing after the unreachable green light across the bay - The Great Gatsby

- Holden Caulfield in the rain, lamenting the loss of his childhood - Catcher in the Rye
- Holden catching the kids falling off the cliff - above
- Huck Finn tearing up the letter and "damning himself to hell" - Huckleberry Finn

- Ivan Karamazov's encounter with the Devil - The Brothers Karamazov
- The Grand Inquisitor - The Brothers Karamazov
- Raskolnikov kneeling at the crossroads - Crime and Punishment

- Yossarian holding Snowden's dying body during the accident - Catch-22

- Mr. Ramsey reaching out to catch Mrs. Ramsey in his arms, only to grasp at thin air - To the Lighthouse
- The Ramseys' trip to the lighthouse in the future - above
- Lily Briscoe's vision - above

- All of The Sound and the Fury

Beowulf: Sing of walls!
Grendel: I'm singing of walls!

Grendel: So may you all.
- Grendel

- The final circle of hell - Dante's Inferno

- The bombardment of the rebel camp in the mountains of Spain
- Robert Jordan lying in wait of the approaching soldier - For Whom the Bell Tolls

- Meursault's murder of the Arab in the heat of the sun
- Meursault awaiting his death amid the "cries of hate" - The Stranger

- Rastignac's challenge to society in the cemetery - Pere Goriot

- Havisham's repentance and final moments - Great Expectations

- Paul Baumer in the midst of the battlefield, his return home, and his death - All Quiet on the Western Front

- Antigone's death - Antigone
- Oedipus gouging his eyes out in front of Jocasta's corpse (UGH) - Oedipus Rex
- Arthur's final moments - The Once and Future King

- I find it hard to pinpoint a scene in this book, but I know there was one - A Portrait of the Artist as Young Man

- Biff's struggle with Judas on the cliff after Jesus' death - LAMB

- The last scene of The Grapes of Wrath
- George killing Lennie - Of Mice and Men

- The creation's discovery of beauty - Frankenstein

- Piggy's death
- Simon's meeting with the Lord of the Flies
- Ralph and the boys meeting the rescuers - Lord of the Flies

- Esther imagining herself catching the falling petals from the tree - The Bell Jar

- the last fifty pages of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
- the electroshock therapy sessions from above novel

- The Pilgrim's Progress - Faithful's execution, arriving at the Celestial city

- The Scarlet Letter - Dimmsdale, Hester, and Pearl standing on the scaffold at night

- pretty much every major scene in the Bible

This can be extrapolated to music and games as well, but I won't go there this time.