BS: Books - Best closing lines ever

Subject: BS: Books - Best closing lines ever
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Apr 11 - 10:19 PM

I haven't got anything in mind for this myself at the moment, but I just thought I'd toss* the idea out there and see what others might come up with.

*(UK residents are advised not to misinterpret my use of the word "toss" in the above statement!)

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best closing lines ever
From: J-boy
Date: 08 Apr 11 - 10:21 PM

He loved Big Brother.

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best closing lines ever
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Apr 11 - 10:23 PM

Good one, J-boy!

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best closing lines ever
From: Rapparee
Date: 08 Apr 11 - 10:28 PM

And I have.

The voder answered: "Friend Zebadiah...are you sure?"

"Was it necessary," asked the judge, "to produce this entire lake in evidence?"

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best closing lines ever
From: J-boy
Date: 08 Apr 11 - 10:33 PM

What's that from Rap? Sounds interesting.

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best closing lines ever
From: Rapparee
Date: 08 Apr 11 - 10:38 PM

Which one?

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best closing lines ever
From: J-boy
Date: 08 Apr 11 - 10:47 PM

All of them.

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best closing lines ever
From: Rapparee
Date: 08 Apr 11 - 10:59 PM

1. "Stalky & Co." by Rudyard Kipling
2. "The Number of the Beast" by Robert A. Heinlein
3. "Lady Slings the Booze" by Spider Robinson (if you read this one you MUST read the acknowledgements, for I am named therein)

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best closing lines ever
From: J-boy
Date: 08 Apr 11 - 11:14 PM

Thanks.I will definitely read them. For my own part I insist you read "The things they carried" by Tim O'Brien. It is the best novel about the Vietnam war I've ever found.

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best closing lines ever
From: Rapparee
Date: 08 Apr 11 - 11:41 PM

Yes, I know. I voted it the most "Notable Novel" of 1991, back when I was doing that sort of thing. You might also like "Going After Cacchiato," which is a novel from the 1970s.

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best closing lines ever
From: Mike in Brunswick
Date: 09 Apr 11 - 12:47 AM

Don't know about "best", but certainly one of the best known. "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby.

Mike

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best closing lines ever
From: Nick
Date: 09 Apr 11 - 04:41 AM

A way a lone a last a loved a long the

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best closing lines ever
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 09 Apr 11 - 04:43 AM

"The End"

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best closing lines ever
From: DMcG
Date: 09 Apr 11 - 05:49 AM

"And they lived happily ever after."

Or, if you prefer a fuller version:

"King Shahryar and Queen Shahrazad, King Shahzamin and Queen Dunyazad, and Shahrazad's three small sons, lived year after year in all delight, knowing days each more admirable than the last and nights whiter than days, until they were visited by the Separator of friends, the Destroyer, the Builder of tombs, the Inexorable, the Inevitable.

Such are the excellent tales called THE THOUSAND NIGHTS AND ONE NIGHT, together with all that is in them of wonder and instruction, prodigy and marvel, astonishment and beauty."

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best closing lines ever
From: GUEST,mauvepink
Date: 09 Apr 11 - 07:08 AM

'It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.'

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best closing lines ever
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 09 Apr 11 - 07:09 AM

God's mercy on
the wild ginger man.

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best closing lines ever
From: GUEST,mauvepink
Date: 09 Apr 11 - 07:10 AM

Books: the best 100 closing lines


Plenty to choose from there!

mp

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best closing lines ever
From: GUEST,999
Date: 09 Apr 11 - 10:38 AM

The End.

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best closing lines ever
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Apr 11 - 02:56 PM

"I rest my flippin' case." - The forthcoming "Autobiography and Political Manifesto of Shane McBride", due to be published...in a while, eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best closing lines ever
From: Ebbie
Date: 09 Apr 11 - 03:32 PM

I haven't read it in a long while but my memory says that 'Jane Eyre' ends with:

"Reader, I married him."

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best closing lines ever
From: GUEST,BobL
Date: 09 Apr 11 - 04:24 PM

...and it really was a kitten, after all. (Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass)

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best closing lines ever
From: Micca
Date: 09 Apr 11 - 06:35 PM

" He had a last look around.The earth bore a great curved rut one mile long by ten feet deep.Two thousand Terrans had been there.
then about 18 hundred
then sixteen hundred
Less five
"One left" he said to himself "me"
Giving a fatalistic shrug ,he put on the pressure and rode into town.
And then there were none"

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best closing lines ever
From: Lox
Date: 09 Apr 11 - 06:39 PM

And who could forget ...

... "Z-zero particle
   /ˈziˈzɪəroʊ/ Show Spelled[zee-zeer-oh] Show IPA
–noun Physics .
one of three particles, called intermediate vector bosons, that are believed to transmit the weak force. Symbol: Z 0
Use zzero particle in a Sentence
See images of zzero particle
Search zzero particle on the Web
Also called Z particle, Z boson. "

... ahhhh ..... the memories ...

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best closing lines ever
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 09 Apr 11 - 08:13 PM

"It's time to start," said Genghis Cohen, offering his arm. The men inside the auction room wore black mohair and had pale, cruel faces. They watched her come in, trying each to conceal his thoughts. Loren Passerine, on his podium, hovered like a puppet-master, his eyes bright, his smile practiced and relentless. He stared at her, smiling, as if saying, I'm surprised you actually came. Oedipa sat alone, toward the back of the room, looking at the napes of necks, trying to guess which one was her target, her enemy, perhaps her proof. An assistant closed the heavy door on the lobby windows and the sun. She heard a lock snap shut; the sound echoed a moment. Passerine spread his arms in a gesture that seemed to belong to the priesthood of some remote culture; perhaps to a descending angel. The auctioneer cleared his throat. Oedipa settled back, to await the crying of lot 49.

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best closing lines ever
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 09 Apr 11 - 09:05 PM

"And then I died."

(Well, I haven't actually found a novel with that closing line, but I keep hoping.)

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best closing lines ever
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 09 Apr 11 - 10:38 PM

Actually Jim there is a book with an ending rather like that. its called Handsome Harry by James Carlos Blake. the story is told by Harry Pierpont - member of the Dillinger gang. On the last page Harry dies unrepentant in the electric chair:-

'They put the hood on me, and I hear them all back away a little.
Like they do when you pull the pistol and announce the stickup.
Jesus it was grand.
It was always so grand.....
Under the hood my grin grows and grows and feels like its going to...
WOOOooooooooooooo....'

Also isn't there a William Faulkener book about a guy getting hanged? Don't think I've ever read it, but the whole action takes place in his mind as he stands on the scaffold.

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best closing lines ever
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 10 Apr 11 - 12:12 AM

Actually, I think you're thinking of the short story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce. And of course by saying this, we're spoiling what is supposed to be a surprise ending.

The actual last line of that story is:

"Peyton Farquhar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek bridge."

"And then I died" isn't quite a fair paraphrase because it isn't a first-person narrative.

I think it was made into an episode of The Twilight Zone.

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best closing lines ever
From: Gervase
Date: 10 Apr 11 - 12:01 PM

His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best closing lines ever
From: Gervase
Date: 10 Apr 11 - 12:02 PM

... and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will yes.

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best closing lines ever
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 10 Apr 11 - 12:42 PM

I've often wondered why authors don't take a leaf from the music industry. If they can't think of a good ending just fade out... :-)

Someone pipped me to teh post with 'They all lived hapily ever after' so I will change the goalposts and give you my most significant, if not favourite, fist line.

In a hole, in the ground, lived a Hobbit.

DeG

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best closing lines ever
From: kendall
Date: 10 Apr 11 - 12:59 PM

My pants pockets were so full of Trout that a button popped off my fly and killed a Partridge.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Until the body melts and the brain ceases to gel, a man who has come out whole after having been put through his paces by the Delian* has a heart for living.

* A type of Oracle only with much more power.

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best closing lines ever
From: maple_leaf_boy
Date: 10 Apr 11 - 02:50 PM

Animal Farm. It was #49 on that list.

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best closing lines ever
From: HuwG
Date: 10 Apr 11 - 04:34 PM

Is he dead?
For if he is, then I am dead, and we are dead, and all of sense a mockery.
How green was my Valley then, and the Valley of them that have gone.


Author Richard Llewellyn. No prizes for guessing the title.

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best closing lines ever
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 10 Apr 11 - 05:46 PM

"The shark swam out to his deepest waters and brooded in the old clean waters. He was very hungry that season."

A Canticle for Leibowitz

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best closing lines ever
From: Bainbo
Date: 10 Apr 11 - 06:14 PM

And AC said: "Let there be light." And there was light.

From The Last Question by Isaac Asimov.

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best closing lines ever
From: Joe_F
Date: 10 Apr 11 - 06:19 PM

The three extra ones were because of the leap years....

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best closing lines ever
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 10 Apr 11 - 08:07 PM

"Do not thank me, my friend," said the ape-man. "Thank little Nkima!"

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best closing lines ever
From: Midchuck
Date: 10 Apr 11 - 08:41 PM

He started to sing when they were safely hidden among the gentle hills. He sang the "Elassyon" first, the song for after the fires, the morning song, and made them cry once more. Then it was time for the heart-loosening songs, the ones that made the living laugh and forget the long night in the pleasure of life. But the songs of the People were all strange to them, so he found what seemed a good one in Kruger's mind. They sang it in five-part harmony so clear and true that it would have sliced glass like a laser. They took turns making up the words that were missing, for the song was very old. They laughed very much, and Singer was not sure why. All their words sounded right and good to him. The song had once been called "Why Don't We Get Drunk and Screw." Singer made it sound like a hymn.

- Ann Tonsor Zeddies, Deathgift


This morning, having got back to Athens, I went out to the Academy...The myrtle they planted on Plato's grave is getting thick and tall, and the marble begins to mellow...

He [referring to the young Alexander] will wander through the world like a flame, like a lion, seeking, never finding, never knowing (for he will look always forward, never back) that while he was still a child, the thing he seeks slipped from the world, worn out and spent...

All tragedies deal with fated meetings; how else could there be a play? Fate deals its stroke; sorrow is purged, or turned to rejoicing; there is death, or triumph; there has been a meeting, and a change. No one will ever make a tragedy - and it is as well, for one could not bear it - whose grief is that the principals never met.

- Mary Renault, The Mask of Apollo

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best closing lines ever
From: gnomad
Date: 11 Apr 11 - 06:10 PM

He fell in October 1918, on a day that was so quiet and still on the whole front, that the army report confined itself to a single sentence: All quiet on the Western Front.
He had fallen forward and lay on the earth as though sleeping. Turning him over one saw that he could not have suffered long; his face had an expression of calm, as though almost glad the end had come.

Erich Maria Remarque (Tr. A W Wheen)