• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Literature's best closing lines

Another one from Clarke.

"Something tells me they will be very determined people", he added. "We had better be polite to them. After all, we only outnumber them about a thousand million to one".

Rugon laughed at his captain's little joke.

Twenty years afterward, the remark didn't seem funny.
 
"Justice" was done, and the President of the Immortals (in Aeschylean phrase) had ended his sport with Tess. And the d'Urberville knights and dames slept on in their tombs unknowing. The two speechless gazers bent themselves down to the earth, as if in prayer, and remained thus a long time, absolutely motionless: the flag continued to wave silently. As soon as they had strength, they arose, joined hands again, and went on.

(I haven't actually read the book...I just remember a literature teacher commenting on the ending.)
 
Not sure if I'd submit this as the best, but it's one I've always appreciated (especially for falling back to very strict iambs after some more excitable prosody):

"And calm of mind all passion spent."
--final line of Milton's Samson Agonistes.


The best has to be the last line of Huck Finn:
"I been there before."

A runner up is the last line of Candide (which I only know in translation--pardon my lack of French):
"'Excellently observed,' answered Candide; 'but let us cultivate our garden.'"
 
Not a particularly notable last line, but the closing image in Grapes of Wrath (Rose'a'sharn nursing the starving adult retarded guy) is one of the most powerful.

Sorry--pahrful. Forgot to say it in Okie. :)

And FWIW, I find the opening short chapter (the description of the weather and the people in only general terms) to be some of the best American writing of all time.
 
"Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away."

and mentioned in another thread (though not strictly the last line):
"You ain't so smart. I've been believing in nothing ever since I was born."
 
RedIbis said:
Oh, Jake." Brett said, "we could have had such a damned good time together."
Ahead was a mounted policeman in khaki directing traffic. He raised his baton. The car slowed suddenly pressing Brett against me.
"Yes," I said. "Isn't it pretty to think so?"
Click to expand...
Hemmingway had some great last lines. The second time you read The Sun Also Rises the line, "Brett walked in." has a whole new meaning.

Here's my entry:
But over the old man’s head they looked at each other and smiled.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
"The last man in the world sat in a room. There was a knock at the door."

This was actually a line offered as the basis for a writing contest. The wiinning entry ended the story with this line.

(Spoiler: The knock was from the last woman in the world.)
 
I have two.

The ending of Shelley's sonnet Ozymandias chills me every single time I recite it. Here, in its entirety:

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away

And the end of "Johnny Got His Gun" by Dalton Trumbo:

If you make a war if there are guns to be aimed if there are bullets to be fired if there are men to be killed they will not be us. They will not be us the guys who grow wheat and turn it into food the guys who make clothes and paper and houses and tiles the guys who build dams and power plants and string the long moaning high tension wires the guys who crack crude oil down into a dozen different parts who make light globes and sewing machines and shovels and automobiles and airplanes and tanks and guns oh no it will not be us who die. It will be you.

It will be you-you who urge us on to battle you who incite us against ourselves you who would have one cobbler kill another cobbler you who would have one man who works kill another man who works you who would have one human being who wants only to live kill another human being who wants only to live. Remember this. Remember this well you people who plan for war. Remember this you patriots you fierce ones you spawners of hate you inventors of slogans. Remember this as you have never remembered anything else in your lives.

We are men of peace we are men who work and we want no quarrel. But if you destroy our peace if you take away our work if you try to range us one against the other we will know what to do. If you tell us to make the world safe for democracy we will take you seriously and by god and by Christ we will make it so. We will use the guns you force upon us we will use them to defend our very lives and the menace to our lives does not lie on the other side of a nomansland that was set apart without our consent it lies within our own boundaries here and now we have seen it and we know it.

Put the guns into our hands and we will use them. Give us the slogans and we will turn them into realities. Sing the battle hymns and we will take them up where you left off. Not one not ten not ten thousand not a million not ten millions not a hundred millions but a billion two billions of us all the people of the world we will have the slogans and we will have the hymns and we will have the guns and we will use them and we will live. Make no mistake of it we will live. We will be alive and we will walk and talk and eat and sing and laugh and feel and love and bear our children in tranquillity in security in decency in peace. You plan the wars you masters of men plan the wars and point the way and we will point the gun.
 
Darn, I see Gazpacho beat me to Ozymandias. Good call, Gaz.
 
I will not quote it, but the ending line of "Witness for the Prosecution" by Agatha Christie was excellent. There were two major twists in the story, and the second twist appeared in the last line of the story, in the last WORD.

If you've seen the movie (with Charles Laughton, Marlene Dietrich and Tyrone Power), you'll see that the filmmakers decided to add at least two more twists. The movie is still very good, and the added stuff isn't exactly putrid, but the Christie short story is pretty darn good on its own.
 
"Poor Grendel's had an accident" I whisper. "So may you all."
 
I've always liked the last lines of Virginia Woolf's last novel, Between the Acts. Simple but effective:

Then the curtain rose. They spoke.
Click to expand...
It's a long time since I read it, but I remember it being a novel about the break-down of language and communication, so in that context the last lines are somehow so positive and life-affirming, as if communication is possible after all.

(And now I have a sudden intense need to re-read VW's novels. Just downloaded the lot to my Kindle).
 
Last edited:
Soapy Sam said:
Another one from Clarke.

"Something tells me they will be very determined people", he added. "We had better be polite to them. After all, we only outnumber them about a thousand million to one".

Rugon laughed at his captain's little joke.

Twenty years afterward, the remark didn't seem funny.
Click to expand...

That was a good one. That was the one where the sun went nova, and the aliens trying to do cultural salvage were mind-boggled that some of the humans escaped, because they themselves had taken thousands of years to develop space flight, right?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom