20 Favorite Last Lines from Books

Can I share this quote? It's something that I carried it with me since childhood and made me make it through much through life,

Whatever comes," she said, "cannot alter one thing. If I am a princess in rags and tatters, I can be a princess inside. It would be easy to be a princess if I were dressed in cloth of gold, but it is a great deal more of a triumph to be one all the time when no one knows it.”

― Frances Hodgson Burnett, A Little Princess

Ah, I this is not the last line, though.

'You have to know that the life you have is completely yours” from The Girl Who Was Saturday Night

Mine has always been:

I don't know, maybe she was God. If she wasn't, she was everything God should be.

- Christopher Pike, Sati

A Tale of Two Cities: Sydney Carton finishes the book by saying: "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."

'The Great Gatsby' is the clear winner.

"for you a thousand times over"
The kite Runner

"The fingers loosened, and the book they held moved slowly and then swiftly across the still body and fell into the silence of the room.".....Stoner by John Williams

and yes I said yes I will Yes,

from Ulysses by James Joyce

For once, I didn’t look back.

Percy Jackson and the Last Olympian

"Live, then, and be happy, beloved children of my heart, and never forget that, until the day God deigns to reveal the future to man, the sum of human wisdom will be contained in these two words: wait and hope."

The Count of Monte Cristo.

"Lord Tywin Lannister did not, in the end, shit gold." A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin

"I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are still truly good at heart..." The Diary of Anne Frank

I have some favorites - a good closing line will stay with you for years to come, even when you forget why you liked a certain book, leaving a lasting impression on your soul.

But, from above, "All was well", is satisfying. It is the feeling of coming to rest after a long mission, and deserving the results.

“Sooner or later...one has to take sides. If one is to remain human.” Graham Greene

The last line of Wuthering Heights has to be one of my favourites:

"I lingered round them, under that benign sky; watched the moths fluttering among the heath, and hare-bells; listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass; and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth."

Totally agree!!

Jason wrote: "'The Great Gatsby' is the clear winner."

(The Outsiders wins by a long shot, but this is a favorite)


'The girl was holding out her hand, but I could only give a pathetic shrug. I had nothing to give her.
I'd finally faded away.'

-Scott Heim 'We Disappear'.

Ella wrote: "The last line of Wuthering Heights has to be one of my favourites:

"I lingered round them, under that benign sky; watched the moths fluttering among the heath, and hare-bells; listened to the soft..."

I was reading the comments just to see if someone had mentioned this line. One of my all time favorites!

They shoulda put Requiem on here. :)

If you have not read most of these books, which I haven't, then most of these last lines do not impress.

My favorite out of these 20 was the one from The Return of the King.

Gone with the wind and the book thief are the best

“And you say, ‘Just a moment, I’ve almost finished If on a winter’s night a traveler by Italo Calvino.’"

That deserves a mention, methinks.

"Thank goodness!" said Bilbo, and handed him the tobacco jar.
The hobbit Tolkien, my favorite line

I love Eleanor & Park's last line.



Sarcasm.

"'God's in his heaven, all's right with the world' whispered Anne softly." Anne of Green Gables L.M. Montgomery

The Nineteen Eighty-Four one still makes me shiver.

'' You just—you look so familiar. I could have sworn we've met somewhere before.'' — Rapture by Lauren Kate
There is an epilogue, but this is the last line from the last chapter. I loved this series so, so much. The last chapter, this line especially, gives me the feels.

Off this list I like Little Women, Gone with the Wind, and The Last Battle.

Lines I like that didn't make the list are:

"But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs."-- Middlemarch

"And the ashes blew towards us with the salt wind from the sea." --Rebecca

"It is no ordinary skeleton." --The Phantom of the Opera

Phoenix2 wrote: ""Thank goodness!" said Bilbo, and handed him the tobacco jar.
The hobbit Tolkien, my favorite line"


That's a good one, too. :)

"For the first time since the night at the asylum my problem wasn't that I was hallucinating or that I was the murderer. It was that Jude's still alive."

Last line from Unbecoming of the Mara Dyer. It made me crave for reading the next book(evolution of Mara dyer)

Jason wrote: "'The Great Gatsby' is the clear winner."

sooo true

"She was seventy-five and she was going to make some changes in her life." - The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

My favourites are,

1. "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." - A tale of two cities

2. "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." - The Great Gatsby

3. "for you a thousand times over" - The kite Runner

These blog posts are a really good idea, Goodreads is definitely improving with its layout and features!

Aaleya wrote: ""for you a thousand times over"
The kite Runner"

Oh dear, this quote still make me shiver

'I ran'
The Kite Runner.

“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”

-- Animal Farm by George Orwell

Jason wrote: "'The Great Gatsby' is the clear winner."

agree:)

"You can sort of tell this things."

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainance

Mary wrote: "A Tale of Two Cities: Sydney Carton finishes the book by saying: "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.""

My favorite Dickens' character-and line.

"Once there were brook trouts in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery." - The Road, Cormac McCarthy

The line from The Outsiders, "When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house,.."
I could have sworn that was the opening line of that book.
Is it really the last line?

Kidgreg wrote: "The line from The Outsiders, "When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house,.."
I could have sworn that was the opening line of that book.
Is it really the last ..."

It's both, Kidgreg.

Thanks, Jason.

"I look at the sky. The kite has reached to God." - Kiss the Lovely Face of God, Mostafa Mastoor

The whole time I was reading this I was thinking The Book Thief had better be on here, it had better be on here. Then it was and life is good :)

"But it was an ending." - A Memory of Light, The Wheel of Time

"The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed," is the first line of The Gunslinger, not the last. (view spoiler)[It is the last line of The Dark Tower. (hide spoiler)]

"The knife came down, missing him by inches, and he took off."
~Catch-22