20 Favorite Last Lines from Books

Whereon the pillars of this earth are founded, toward which the conscience of the world is tending, a wind is rising, and the rivers flow. Thomas Wolfe, You Can't Go Home Again

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

always makes me tear up

Striking that I recognise two of those as both the first and last lines of the book (or in the case of the Dark Tower, the first and last lines of the seven book series.)

It's supremely effective, in both the cases listed, for quite different reasons, so I'm surprised (and a little glad) that it hasn't been copied more often.

"When the day shall come that we do part," he said softly, and turned to look at me, "if my last words are not 'I love you' - ye'll ken it was because I didna have time."

The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon

"I am haunted by waters" is the clear winner and I have read most of the books listed.

"The places we have known do not belong only to the world of space on which we map them for our own convenience; they were only a thin slice, held between the contiguous impressions that composed our life at that time; the memory of a particular image is but regret for a particular moment, and houses, roads, avenues are as fleeting, alas, as the years."

-- from Swann's Way by Marcel Proust (technically not the "last" line of the entire work [In Search of Lost Time], just the first volume, but too wonderful not to mention, though a bit lengthier than the others listed)

Anastasiya wrote: "If I had to chose from these 20, The Book Thief would be a winner."

Me too!

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

*cry*

OMG!! I was just telling my mom about the "best first lines" blog post because it was one of my favorite Goodreads blog posts, but I shouldn't have come to this page!!!

I have most of these on my to read list and spoilers are here. So tired I didn't even think before I clicked the link on my home page. Luckily I didn't see more than two before I put my hand over the screen where the last lines are and just scrolled to see the chosen books.

being one I'll be reading soon and it was almost ruined from seeing the last line. :-(

"It was a cool day and very clear. You could see a long way-but not as far as Velma had gone" - Raymond Chandler, FAREWELL, MY LOVELY

"We each owe a death, there are no exceptions, I know that, but sometimes, oh God, the Green Mile is so long" - Stephen King, THE GREEN MILE

(I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams) "I hope" - Stephen King, THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION

For though he was master of the world, he was not sure what to do next.
But he would think of something.

2001, Arthur C. Clarke


And on far-off Earth, Dr. Carlisle Perera had as yet told no one how he had wakened from a restless sleep with the message from his subconscious still echoing in his brain: The Ramans do everything in threes.

Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke

The last line from Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities is my favourite but I have to mention "He loved Big Brother" from 1984 as the one that really guts you.

Such a great line!

Gunay wrote: "“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"

"It's never too late to have a happy childhood."

Tom Robbins, "Still Life with Woodpecker"

"And in that moment, I swear we were infinite".
-The Perks of Being a Wallflower

"I know myself," he cried, "but that is all."

-This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald

love this!

fair certain winner is:

They, looking back, all the eastern side beheld
Of Paradise, so late their happy seat,
Waved over by that flaming brand, the gate
With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms:
Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon;
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide;
They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way.

Andy wrote: "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"
Oh man! I LOVED that book! I still have my tattered, original copy from high school!

"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, George Eliot

I would say that the best and worse line it's ''I Love Big Brother'' from Orwell's 1984. Because even though you know what's going to happen in the end, you still have some sort of hope that the end will be different... But then Orwell wants to make sure you get that in the there's no hope in his terrifying dystopian world and gives you such an awful closure to kill all the remaining hope inside you and that's the most beautiful thing in his novel, that just that one line can make feel all the hopeless feelings his characters feel (and will continue to).

Definitely Orwell's "1984" ending is beautiful, and at the same time horrible.

"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 by George Eliot

Reading Faerie wrote: "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 diffusiv..."

I picked Middlemarch, too! It sums up life for most of us - highly valuable to the very few who know us. It's a great message in this world where everyone dreams of becoming a celebrity.

Lori wrote: ""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"

I completely agree with you Lori, this is one of my favourite endings too.

"For some minutes, before she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep, she just lay quiet, smiling at the ceiling."
Franny and Zooey - JD Salinger

All Quite on he Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque:

"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 the 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."

My absolute favorite!

I've always loved the last line of The Fountainhead: "Then there was only the ocean and the sky and the figure of Howard Roark."

"Then, once the echo of his laughter had faded, he began to mix the glorious rainbow of his new palette."
- The Dream Life of Sukhanov by Olga Grushin.

Not only because it's beautiful, because it sums up the struggle and the triumph and the creativity that underlies the entire book. Also I just really like this book and more people need to read it.

I'll post this one in spanish because I read the Maze Runner trilogy in this language. It's the las line in "the Death Cure" and it's one of my favorites:

"Como intentamos inculcarles una y otra vez a cada uno de los reclutados, CRUEL es bueno."

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

Also my favorite!!!

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

this one.

"For you a thousand times over."

In The kite runner, by Khaled Hosseini.
Its my fav.

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

YES!

"P.S. please if you get a chanse put some flowrs on Algernons grave in the bak yard."
~Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes

This was an emotional read and this last line just about made me lose it.

"May the undeserved kindness of the Lord Jesus Christ be with the holy ones." (Revelation 22:21)

"Magic," she says. ~ Skulduggery Pleasant, Derek Landy

"And if the Thames that ran beside them, sure and silver in the afternoon light, recalled a night long ago when the moon rose shone as brightly as a shilling on this same boy and girl, or if the stones of Blackfrairs knew the tread of their feet and thought to themselves, At last, the wheel comes full circle, the kept their silence." ~ The Infernal Devices, Cassandra Clare

"I could hear my heart beating. I could hear everyone's heart. I could hear the human noise we sat there making, not one of us moving, not even when the room went dark." - What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, Raymond Carver

“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.

"Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?” - Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell

Aaleya wrote: ""for you a thousand times over"
The kite Runner"
Yes, agree that's a good one

I tried to vote for Gone with the Wind but was unable to get it to work! However, a last line I like even more is from Afternoon of an Autocrat which is: "With the skill of long practice she began to put forward her pleas."

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

Although a fantastic line, it was not the last in the book. There was an epilogue with the appearance of Lady Stoneheart, no?

"And it was still hot." - Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak

"In the world according to Garp, we are all terminal cases." - The World According to Garp, John Irving

I like all last lines from John Irving, as those are the first he writes.

My three favorite last lines are: "For now he knew what Shalimar knew: If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it." - Toni Morrison, SONG OF SOLOMON

"She called in her soul to come and see." - Zora Neale Hurston, THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD

"Ah: runs. Runs." - John Updike, RABBIT, RUN

The final lines from Martin Eden by Jack London blow all of those out of the water.

"And all the nice bright colors of the past that she thought were gone for good came flowing back into her life like a wave of nostalgia flooding over her, reds, yellows, blues and greens, drenching her gray memories in psychedelic ribbons and glittering fireworks… she hoped that the world would always hold those minuscule yet beautiful, deep and mysterious traces of memory."

Smog City by Rebecca McNutt

"We each owe a death, there are no exceptions, I know that, bu..."

Love that line from The Green Mile (and the Shawshank Redemption is lovely too) - Stephen King is a master storyteller and I think in the future he will studied much as today we study Dickens. Both were dismissed as just writing for the masses in their lifetimes - time will tell.

Only the Spirit, if it breathe upon the clay, can create Man. From Wind, Sand And Stars, by Antoine De Saint Exupery.

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

I vote for the last lines of Thornton Wilder's The Bridge of San Luis Rey: "There is a land of the living and a land of the dead, and the bridge is love. The only survival, the only meaning."