Best closing lines of books EVER

[Bellerophon]

I regret that I haven't read anything by McCarthy, but fortunately I have a few weeks set aside between the end of work and the start of school to remedy that.

Anyway, how's this for a closing line?

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.

[Mockingbird]

I know what you mean aklebury, those closing lines gave me on those quick, stunned chills. Matt, I would recommend The Road definitely, but I would also recommend one his earlier works, Outer Dark, so you can see who he was before the literati got wind of him.

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.

Lovely. And the creationists find this idea bleak?


Another chill-inducer for me:

Maybe it would make an interesting survey (what kind would be your decision) to examine the present and divide the onlookers into two groups: those whose eyes fell upon a bleeding man, slumped across a table, and those who watched the getaway of a small brown rebel mouse. Archie, for one, watched the mouse. He watched it stand very still for a second with a smug look as if it expected nothing less. He watched it scurry away, over his hand. He watched it dash along the table, and through the hands of those who wished to pin it down. He watched it leap off the end and disappear through an air vent. Go on my son! thought Archie.

It's nothing special out of context, but within context, it's an audaciously optimistic anticipation of a post-borders world.

[Philharmonic]

Was that...sarcasm?

No. Authors who don't try are, as may lodically be expected, terrible.

[sxygreenshoelace]

Candles on Bay Street was great... I don't remember the closing line, wish I could because it made a huge impact on my life at the time... hmmm anyone know it ? leave it to me to forget... especially something profound...

[tyche]

I love the ending of Wicked: The life and times of the witch of the west. I mean the ending is a forgone conclusion but it still manages to be incredibly tragic.

And of the Witch? In the life of a Witch, there is no after, in the ever after of a Witch, there is no happily; in the story of a Witch there is no afterword. Of that part that is beyond the life story, beyond the story of life, there is - alas, or perhaps thank mercy - no telling. She was dead, dead and gone, and all that was left of her was the carapace of her reputation for malice.

“And there the wicked old Witch stayed for a good long time.”
“And did she ever come out?”
“Not yet.”

[kezmondo]

Was that...sarcasm?

No. Authors who don't try are, as may lodically be expected, terrible.

I'd have to disagree. A Million Little Pieces by James Frey isn't proof read at all, and it has to be one of the best books I've read in a while. Sadly, the ending is rubbish.

I love the ending to 'The Raven' by Edgar Allen Poe:

And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted - nevermore!

It's so depressing

[boojumlol]

I have many, but I'll limit it to a couple that I don't think have been mentioned.

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

Wuthering Heights

He rode with the sun coppering his face and the red wind blowing our of the west across the evening land and the small desert birds flew chittering among the dry bracken and horse and rider and horse passed on and their long shadows passed in tandem like the shadow of a single being. Passed and paled into the darkening land, the world to come.

All the Pretty Horses

That's my favourite Cormac McCarthy. The Road was a little too grim for me - I'll stick to his light, fluffy stuff.

Is it odd that I take pleasure both in Emily Bronte excessive use of semicolons and McCarthy's complete absense of commas?

[Kinders]

[spoiler="Count of Monte Cristo"]

"Darling," replied Valentine, "has not the count just told us that all human wisdom is summed up in two words? -- 'Wait and hope.'"

[/spoiler]

[Philharmonic]

This one's from Monsters of Men
(To get this one you need to know what happened at the end. Explanation in the spoiler)

Spoiler:

After the complete resolution (death) of the problem of Mayor Prentiss that had spanned 3 books, someone had inadvertantly shot the main man, Todd, with a fancy acid rifle type thing. Todd had nearly died, and was essentially comatose. He had a girl, Viola, and his adoptive father, Ben, coaxing him on where he was being kept. Viola was reading from his mothers journal, and the epilogue is Todd in a dystopia of memories, and from time to time he hears Viola's voice.

Keep calling for me, Viola.

Cuz here I come

[Aletheia Dolorosa]

Oh wow, have you read Monsters of Men already. I only started reading the series earlier this year, but I haven't got a copy of it yet. Is it worth it? I thought the first book was much better than the second...

[Palagrin]

"It was a dark, blustery afternoon in spring, and the city of London was chasing a small mining town across the dried-out bed of the old North Sea."
This is the first line of the closing paragraph of A Darkling Plain (Mortal Engines Quartet) by Philip Reeve. That man is a genius...It's also the first line of the first book, Mortal Engines.