09 January 2021

Last lines of novels

But I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me and I can’t stand it. I been there before. –Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885)

He loved Big Brother. –George Orwell, 1984 (1949)

‘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 (1859)

Before reaching the final line, however, he had already understood that he would never leave that room, for it was foreseen that the city of mirrors (or mirages) would be wiped out by the wind and exiled from the memory of men at the precise moment when Aureliano Babilonia would finish deciphering the parchments, and that everything written on them was unrepeatable since time immemorial and forever more, because races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth. –Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967; trans. Gregory Rabassa)

It was the devious-cruising Rachel, that in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan. –Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (1851)

He was soon borne away by the waves and lost in darkness and distance. –Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818)

He knew what those jubilant crowds did not know but could have learned from books: that the plague bacillus never dies or disappears for good; that it can lie dormant for years and years in furniture and linen-chests; that it bides its time in bedrooms, cellars, trunks, and bookshelves; and that perhaps the day would come when, for the bane and the enlightening of men, it would rouse up its rats again and send them forth to die in a happy city. –Albert Camus, The Plague (1947; trans. Stuart Gilbert)

“Good grief—It's Daddy!” –Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg, Candy (1958)

And so, as Tiny Tim observed, "God bless Us, Every One!" –Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol (1843)

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. –George Orwell, Animal Farm (1945)

But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing. –A. A. Milne, The House at Pooh Corner (1928)

The old man was dreaming about the lions. –Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea (1952)

“Tomorrow, I’ll think of some way to get him back. After all, tomorrow is another day.” –Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind (1936)

4 comments:

  1. "Isn't it pretty to think so?"

    The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for the reminder of some wonderful books; the lines brought back some amazing memories of time spent in other worlds.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Here you go =

    https://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2008/07/opening-lines-from-science-fiction.html

    https://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2009/09/opening-lines-from-famous-movies.html

    ReplyDelete