# The best LAST lines from literature **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 20, 2004, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-last-lines-from-literature/265063 "2004-09-20T00:39:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![ElectricZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/58f4c7/32.png) [@ElectricZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElectricZ)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2004, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-last-lines-from-literature/265063/41 "2004-09-20T19:32:12Z")
More A.C. Clarke, from 2001: “For though he was master of the world, he was not quite sure what to do next. But he would think of something.” I always thought that was a brilliant way to end the story, with David Bowman mirroring the pre-human Moon Watcher’s thoughts after being nudged into the next step of evolution by the monolith. Fantastic! EZ ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2004, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-last-lines-from-literature/265063/42 "2004-09-20T20:35:50Z")
D’oh! How could I forget these? “‘Like a dog!’ he said; it was as if the shame of it should outlive him.” - Kafka, “The Trial” “And it was like a confirmation of their new dreams and good intentions that at the end of their ride the daughter was the first to get up, stretching her young body.” - Kafka, “The Metamorphosis” "I’m going now to close it.” - Kafka, “Before the Law” ---
**Author:** ![Ghanima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Ghanima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ghanima)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2004, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-last-lines-from-literature/265063/43 "2004-09-20T21:33:29Z")
From _Looking for Mr. Goodbar_, can’t remember the exact wording, but something like “Go ahead, get it over with, do it…” It’s what the main character is thinking just before she is murdered. ---
**Author:** ![Made\_in\_Macau](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eada6e/32.png) [@Made\_in\_Macau](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Made_in_Macau)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2004, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-last-lines-from-literature/265063/44 "2004-09-20T21:52:03Z")
from memory - “He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning.” - To Kill a Mockingbird. The books’s always meant a great deal to me - but the night I spent in the hospital bed at my son’s side made it resonate further. ---
**Author:** ![Sternvogel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc79bd/32.png) [@Sternvogel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sternvogel)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2004, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-last-lines-from-literature/265063/45 "2004-09-21T01:31:55Z")
“We must cultivate our gardens.” – Voltaire, _Candide_ ---
**Author:** ![chukhung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e79b87/32.png) [@chukhung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chukhung)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2004, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-last-lines-from-literature/265063/46 "2004-09-21T02:01:20Z")
From [_Through the Looking-Glass_](http://www.gutenberg.net/etext/12) by Lewis Carroll: ``` A boat beneath a sunny sky, Lingering onward dreamily In an evening of July-- Children three that nestle near, Eager eye and willing ear, Pleased a simple tale to hear-- Long has paled that sunny sky: Echoes fade and memories die. Autumn frosts have slain July. Still she haunts me, phantomwise, Alice moving under skies Never seen by waking eyes. Children yet, the tale to hear, Eager eye and willing ear, Lovingly shall nestle near. In a Wonderland they lie, Dreaming as the days go by, Dreaming as the summers die: Ever drifting down the stream-- Lingering in the golden gleam-- Life, what is it but a dream? ``` It wasn’t until I was an adult that I discovered that this last poem was an acrostic, although I did know that there really was an [Alice](http://pup.princeton.edu/carroll/Alice.html) who was Carroll’s inspiration. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2004, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-last-lines-from-literature/265063/47 "2004-09-21T02:05:47Z")
> [@Aesiron](#): > > _The French army had entered Toledo. The Inquisition was in the hands of its enemies._ – The Pit and the Pendulum > > Despite it being in the first person and being obvious that he survived, you get so sucked into the story that you forget that and the last paragraph catches you off guard and the last two sentences make you cheer at the idea of the Inquisition falling. Not to mention the sheer jaw-dropping surprise at discovering that the French army ever invaded Ohio. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2004, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-last-lines-from-literature/265063/48 "2004-09-21T02:09:41Z")
Favorite last line: “How many experience points do I get?” – [The Intercontinental Union of Disgusting Characters](http://home.netcom.com/~rogermw/ADnD/IUDC1.html) ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2004, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-last-lines-from-literature/265063/49 "2004-09-21T02:20:05Z")
> [@tracer](#): > > Not to mention the sheer jaw-dropping surprise at discovering that the French army ever invaded Ohio. Those french people, they are very sneaky. ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2004, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-last-lines-from-literature/265063/50 "2004-09-21T02:29:36Z")
_King Rat_ by James Clavell. “And the strongest was always the King, not by strength alone, but King by cunning and luck and strength together. Among the rats.” You have to understand This book is about British and American and Aussie POWs in Changi prison during WWII. One man, Corporal King, an American, makes a pretty decent life for himself through blackmarket trading. He has cigarettes when others have none, he eats eggs and meat when others subsist on rice. He takes care of his buddies, but they also wait on him (like a King). Then the war ends, and his power is gone. He was only king among the men because they weren’t men. They were “rats.” ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2004, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-last-lines-from-literature/265063/51 "2004-09-21T02:50:32Z")
\*\*When they entered, they found hanging upon the wall a splendid portrait of their master as they had last seen him, in all the wonder of his exquisite youth and beauty. Lying on the floor was a dead man, in evening dress, with a knife in his heart. He was withered, wrinkled, and loathsome of visage. It was not till they had examined the rings that they recognized who it was. \*\* The Picture of dorian Gray, Oscar wilde **At last things grew so exciting that his dear families went off one by one in a hurry to the banks of the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees, to borrow new noses from the Crocodile. When they came back nobody spanked anybody any more; and ever since that day, O Best Beloved, all the Elephants you will ever see, besides all those that you won’t, have trunks precisely like the trunk of the 'satiable Elephant’s Child.** The Elephant’s child, Rudyard Kipling. \*\*“For me,” said Sherlock Holmes, “there still remains the cocaine-bottle.” And he stretched his long white hand up for it. \*\* The Sign Of Four. ---
**Author:** ![Spavined\_Gelding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@Spavined\_Gelding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spavined_Gelding)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2004, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-last-lines-from-literature/265063/52 "2004-09-21T03:10:22Z")
Those have been some memorable last lines. I suppose it depends on your literary taste but this from John Prebble’s _Colloden_, Penguin Books, 1967, has always gotten me: From the green saucer of Glenaladale, dipping down to Loch Shiel, Alexander Macdonald had taken one hundred and fifty men to serve in Clanranald’s regiment. Within a century there was nothing there but the lone shieling of the song. ---
**Author:** ![Mehitabel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8797f3/32.png) [@Mehitabel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mehitabel)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2004, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-last-lines-from-literature/265063/53 "2004-09-21T03:44:42Z")
Plays are literature, right? Since y’all beat me to _Animal Farm,_ which was the first thing I thought of (although the line that made me gasp audibly was the earlier “He carried a whip in his trotter.”) I’ll do some plays. “Listen, I want you to send a wire to the Chief of Police at La Porte, Indiana.-That’s right.-Tell him to meet the twelve-forty out of Chicago-New York Central-and arrest Hildy Johnson and bring him back here. Wire him a full description. The son of a bitch stole my watch!” - Walter Burns, _The Front Page,_ Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur “Hmmm–eleven o’clock in Grover’s Corners. Everybody’s resting in Grover’s Corners. Tomorrow’s going to be another day. You get a good rest too. Good night.” - The Stage Manager, _Our Town,_ Thornton Wilder After deciding that she wants to be a nun, and being told to wait a year by the Mother Superior: “That was in the winter of my senior year. Then in the spring something happened to me. Yes, I remember. I fell in love with James Tyrone and was so happy for a time.” - Mary Tyrone, \*Long Day’s Journey into Night, \* Eugene O’Neill “I learned three things in Zurich during the war. I wrote them down. Firstly, you’re either a revolutionary or you’re not, and if you’re not you might as well be an artist as anything else. Secondly, if you can’t be an artist, you might as well be a revolutionary… I forget the third thing.” - Henry Carr, \*Travesties, \* Tom Stoppard ---
**Author:** ![ageless6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@ageless6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ageless6)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2004, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-last-lines-from-literature/265063/54 "2004-09-21T05:46:33Z")
Hiding in the alternating patterns of digits,deep inside the transcendental number, was a perfect circle,its form traced out by unities in a field of noughts. The universe was made on purpose,the circle said. In whatever galaxy you happen to find yourself,you take the circumference of a circle,divide it by its diameter,measure closely enough,and uncover a miracle–another circle,drawn kilometers downstream of the decimal point. There would be richer messages farther in. It doesn’t matter what you look like,or what you’re made of,or where you come from. As long as you live in this universe,and have a modest talent for mathematics,sooner or later you’ll find it. It’s already here. It’s inside everything. You don’t have to leave your planet to find it. In the fabric of space and in the nature of matter,as in a great work of art,there is,written small,the artist’s signature. Standing over humans,gods,and demons,subsuming Caretakers and Tunnel builders,there is an intelligence that antedates the universe. The circle had closed. She found what she had been looking for. **CARL SAGAN CONTACT** ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Sparky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ac91a4/32.png) [@Saint\_Sparky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Sparky)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2004, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-last-lines-from-literature/265063/55 "2004-09-21T06:47:35Z")
The last line to “Contact” still gives me goosebumps. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Joools](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6de8d8/32.png) [@Joools](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joools)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2004, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-last-lines-from-literature/265063/56 "2004-09-21T07:07:47Z")
From Kim Stanley Robinson’s _Blue Mars_, the third and last of his Mars books: “Waves broke in swift lines on the beach, and she walked over the sand toward her friends, in the wind, on Mars, on Mars, on Mars, on Mars, on Mars.” ---
**Author:** ![ageless6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@ageless6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ageless6)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2004, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-last-lines-from-literature/265063/57 "2004-09-21T09:12:52Z")
> [@Saint Sparky](#): > > The last line to “Contact” still gives me goosebumps. 😃 Someone had already used the 2001 quote that I wanted to offer(which will mess with your tear ducts,if you read the book from the beginning) so I went looking through a few boxes of books to see what might work,and happened upon “Contact”. I haven’t read that book for a decade or more,and was surprised at the depth of emotion that washed over me when I read the last two lines.It was hard to type.I had huge goosebumps and the hair on my arms was standing up.I kept getting catches in my throat. Christ,I miss Sagan. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2004, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-last-lines-from-literature/265063/58 "2004-09-21T17:37:26Z")
“… scar” ( from Harry Potter book seven. ) Well somebody had to say it ---
**Author:** ![Big\_Norse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/big_norse/32/9954_2.png) [@Big\_Norse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Big_Norse)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2004, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-last-lines-from-literature/265063/59 "2004-09-21T22:08:54Z")
“It is when the feet weary and hope seems vain that the heartaches and the longings arise. Know, then, that for you is neither surfeit nor content. In your rocking chair, by your window dreaming, shall you long, alone. In your rocking chair, by your window, shall you dream such happiness as you may never feel.” – _Sister Carrie_, Theodore Dreiser ---
**Author:** ![Cicero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cicero/32/3594_2.png) [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2004, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-last-lines-from-literature/265063/60 "2004-09-22T10:30:30Z")
Tale of Two Cities has gone, so I’ll hijack and go for a movie: Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-last-lines-from-literature/265063.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-best-last-lines-from-literature/265063.md?page=4)