Last Line of Time and Again

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The 100 virtually powerful and poignant closing lines from literature

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Abi Jackson

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2 years ago

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From classics such every bit George Orwell's Animal Farm to L. Frank Baum'southward The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Stylist rounds up the most memorable 100 last lines from literature ever written.

Don't judge a book by its cover - instead, endeavor and await for the last line.

Following our massively popular and lovingly selected list of the 100 best opening lines from books, information technology's now time for the closing lines to smooth. Because, whilst the outset of a volume may get all the glory, information technology'south the ending that really stays with yous. A vague final line casts a shadow over the entire novel, whereas a powerful and poignant 1 will keep you lot wondering for weeks to come.

From classics such every bit George Orwell's Beast Farm to 50. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Jung Chang's Wild Swans, we've scoured the Stylist book shelf for the best closing lines (or, in some cases to give context, the best concluding few lines) e'er written.

If y'all don't want to know the final idea of a book you're yet to read, wait away now…

• The Peachy Gatsby

  "So we beat on, boats against the electric current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

  The Bully Gatsby, F.Scott Fitzgerald

• Gone with the Wind

  "After all, tomorrow is another day."

  Gone with the Current of air, Margaret Mitchell

• To Kill a Mockingbird

  "He turned out the light and went into Jem'south room. He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning."

  To Impale a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

• The Bell Jar

  "The optics and faces all turned themselves towards me, and guiding myself by them, as by a magical thread, I stepped into the room."

  The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath

• Animal Subcontract

  "The creatures outside looked from pig to homo, and from man to hog, and from pig to human being again; simply already it was impossible to say which was which."

  Animal Farm, George Orwell

• Life of Pi

  "Very few castaways can claim to have survived so long at sea as Mr. Patel, and none in the company of an adult Bengal tiger."

  Life of Pi, Yann Martel

• The House At Pooh Corner

  "Just wherever they get, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the elevation of the Forest a lilliputian boy and his Conduct will always be playing."

  The House At Pooh Corner, A.A. Milne

• The Time Traveler's Wife

  "He is coming, and I am here."

  The Fourth dimension Traveler'south Married woman, Audrey Niffenegger

• The One-time Man and the Ocean

  "The onetime man was dreaming most the lions."

  The Old Human being and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway

• Memoirs of a Geisha

  "Whatsoever our struggles and triumphs, however nosotros may suffer them, all too shortly they drain into a launder, merely like watery ink on paper."

  Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Aureate

• Pride and Prejudice

  "With the Gardiners, they were always on the most intimate terms. Darcy, also equally Elizabeth, really loved them; and they were both e'er sensible of the warmest gratitude towards the persons who, by bringing her into Derbyshire, had been the means of uniting them."

  Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

• P.S. I Beloved Y'all

  "In the concurrently, she would just live."

  P.S. I Love You, Cecelia Ahern

• 1984

  "He loved Large Blood brother."

  1984, George Orwell

• Charlotte'due south Spider web

  "It is not often that someone comes forth who is a truthful friend and a expert writer. Charlotte was both."

  Charlotte's Web, E.B. White

• The Catcher in the Rye

  "It's funny. Don't ever tell everyone anything. If you practise, you start missing everybody."

  The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger

• Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

  "For Siddalee Walker, the need to sympathise has passed, at least for the moment. All that was left was dearest and wonder."

  Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Rebecca Wells

• A Clockwork Orange

  "Then adieu from your little droog. And to all others in this story profound shooms of lip-music brrrrr. And they can kiss my sharries. But you, O my brothers, remember sometimes thy footling Alex that was. Amen. And all that cal."

  A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess

• A Tale of Two Cities

  "Information technology is a far, far amend affair that I practise, than I take ever washed; information technology is a far, far amend rest that I go to than I accept e'er known."

  A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens

• Dracula

  "Later on he will sympathise how some men so loved her, that they did dare much for her sake."

  Dracula, Bram Stoker

• Where the Wild Things Are

  "Max stepped into his private boat and waved adieu and sailed dorsum over a year and in and out of weeks and through a day and into the nighttime of his very own room where he institute his supper waiting for him—and information technology was even so hot."

  Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak

• The End of the Matter

  "I wrote at the beginning that this was a record of hate, and walking there beside Henry towards the evening glass of beer, I found the 1 prayer that seemed to serve the winter mood: O God, You've done enough, Y'all've robbed me of enough, I'g too tired and erstwhile to learn to dearest, leave me alone forever."

  The Stop of the Affair, Graham Greene

• The Color Purple

  "But I don't call up us experience one-time at all. And the states so happy. Matter of fact, I call up this the youngest us ever felt."

  The Colour Purple, Alice Walker

• The Unbearable Lightness of Being

  "Upwards out of the lampshade, startled by the overhead lite, flew a large nocturnal butterfly that began circling the room. The strains of the pianoforte and violin rose upwards weakly from below."

  The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera

• Wild Swans

  "As I left Communist china farther and farther behind, I looked out of the window and saw a dandy universe beyond the aeroplane's silver wing. I took one more than glance over my past life, then turned to the time to come. I was eager to embrace the earth."

  Wild Swans, Jung Chang

• Origin of Species

  "At that place is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator 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 elementary a beginning endless forms most cute and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved."

  Origin of Species, Charles Darwin

• Brokeback Mountain

  "There was some open infinite between what he knew and what he tried to believe, but nothing could be done well-nigh it, and if you can't gear up it, you lot've got to stand it."

  Brokeback Mountain, Annie Proulx

• The Makioka Sisters

  "Yukiko's diarrhoea persisted through the twenty-6th, and was a problem on the train to Tokyo."

  The Makioka Sisters, Junichiro Tanizaki

• Offense and Punishment

  "But that is the beginning of a new story - the story of the gradual renewal of a human, the story of his gradual regeneration, of his passing from 1 world into another, of his initiation into a new unknown life. That might be the field of study of a new story, only our present story is ended."

  Crime and Penalty, Fyodor Dostoyevsky

• Like Water for Chocolate

  "How wonderful the flavor, the odor of her kitchen, her stories as she prepared the repast, her Christmas Rolls! I don't know why mine never plough out like hers, or why my tears flow so freely when I set up them - possibly I am as sensitive to onions as Tita, my great-aunt, who will go on living as long as there is someone who cooks her recipes."

  Like H2o for Chocolate, Laura Esquivel

• Piffling Women

  "Oh, my girls, yet long you may live, I never tin wish y'all a greater happiness than this."

  Little Women, Louisa May Alcott

• Sarah's Key

  "We sat there for a long fourth dimension, till the oversupply around us thinned, till the dominicus shifted and the lite changed. Till we felt our eyes could run into again, without the tears."

  Sarah'southward Key, Tatiana de Rosnay

• The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

  "'From the Land of Oz,' said Dorothy gravely. 'And here is Toto, besides. And oh, Aunt Em! I'm so glad to exist at abode once more!'"

  The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, 50. Frank Baum

• The Book Thief

  "A LAST NOTE FROM YOUR NARRATOR. I am haunted past humans."

  The Volume Thief, Markus Zusak

• The Awakening

  "In that location was the hum of bees, and the musky odor of pinks filled the air."

  The Awakening, Kate Chopin

• The Beach

  "I'm fine. I take bad dreams but I never saw Mister Duck again. I play video games. I smoke a little dope. I got my thousand-yard stare. I carry a lot of scars. I similar the way that sounds. I carry a lot of scars."

  The Beach, Alex Garland

• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

  "The scar had not pained Harry for xix years. All was well."

  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling

• Frankenstein

  "He was soon borne abroad 
by the waves and lost in darkness and distance."

  Frankenstein, Mary Shelley

• Watership Down

  "He reached the top of the bank in a single, powerful jump. Hazel followed; and together they slipped abroad, running hands down through the woods, where the commencement primroses were commencement to flower."

  Watership Down, Richard Adams

• Rebecca

  "And the ashes blew towards usa with the table salt wind from the body of water."

  Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier

• The Handmaid's Tale

  "Are there any questions?"

  The Handmaid'due south Tale, Margaret Atwood

• Moby Dick

  "It was the devious-cruising Rachel, that in her retracing search after her missing children, only plant some other orphan."

  Moby Dick, Herman Melville

• The Kite Runner

  "I ran with the air current blowing in my face, and a smile as wide as the valley of Panjsher on my lips. I ran."

  The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini

• The Stranger

  "For all to be accomplished, for me to feel less solitary, all that remained to promise was that on the solar day of my execution there should be a huge oversupply of spectators and that they should greet me with howls of execration."

  The Stranger, Albert Camus

• The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet'due south Nest

  "She opened the door wide and let him into her life again."

  The Daughter Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, Stieg Larsson

• Of Mice and Men

  "Curley and Carlson looked subsequently them. And Carlson said, 'Now what the hell ya suppose is eatin' them two guys?'"

  Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck

• Never Let Me Go

  "I just waited a bit, then turned back to the auto, to drive off to wherever it was I was supposed to be."

  Never Let Me Get, Kazuo Ishiguro

• Moll Flanders

  "My married man remained in that location some time after me to settle our diplomacy, and at first I had intended to go back to him, but at his desire I altered that resolution, and he is come over to England also, where we resolve to spend the remainder of our years in sincere penitence for the wicked lives we accept lived."

  Moll Flanders, Daniel Defoe

• The Devil Wears Prada

  "And then, while the pretty brunette daughter finished singing her verse, he buzzed me through like I was someone who mattered."

  The Devil Wears Prada, Lauren Weisberger

• The Green Mile

  "We each owe a death, there are no exceptions, I know that, but sometimes, oh God, the Green Mile is and then long."

  The Green Mile, Stephen King

• The Historic period of Innocence

  "At that, as if it had been the signal he waited for, Newland Archer got up slowly and walked back lonely to his hotel."

  The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton

• The Cellist of Sarajevo

  "Her lips movement and a moment earlier the door splinters off its hinges she says, her voice strong and tranquility, 'My name is Alisa.'"

  The Cellist of Sarajevo, Steven Galloway

• Middlesex

  "I lost rails after a while, happy to be domicile, weeping for my father, and thinking almost what was next."

  Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides

• Suite Francaise

  "The men began singing, a grave, wearisome vocal that drifted away into the night. Shortly the road was empty. All that remained of the High german regiment was a little cloud of grit."

  Suite Francaise, Irene Nemirovsky

• A Sun at the Pool in Kigali

  "Valcourt is at peace with himself."

  A Lord's day at the Puddle in Kigali, Gil Courtemanche

• The Fiery Cross

  "'When the mean solar day shall come, that we practice part,' he said softly, and turned to expect at me, 'if my last words are not 'I love you' – ye'll ken it was because I didna have fourth dimension.'"

  The Fiery Cantankerous, Diana Gabaldon

• Chocolat

  "She closes her optics again and I begin to sing softly:

  '''5'la l'bon vent, five'la l'joli vent

  V'la fifty'bon vent, ma mie grand'appelle.'''

  Hoping that this time information technology will remain a lullaby. That this time the current of air will not hear. That this fourth dimension - please just this in one case - it will leave without us."

  Chocolat, Joanne Harris

• Take hold of-22

  "The pocketknife came down, missing him by inches, and he took off."

  Catch-22, Joseph Heller

• Wuthering Heights

  "I lingered circular them, under that benign heaven; watched the moths fluttering among the heath, and hare-bells; listened to the soft wind animate through the grass; and wondered how anyone could e'er imagine unquiet slumbers, for the sleepers in that serenity globe."

  Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte

• The Hand That Outset Held Mine

  "His torso stirs beneath the sheets. He twists his head from 1 side to the other. His optics, she sees, are open. Then she feels a pressure on her hand and he speaks his first words for a week. 'Go on going, El,' he says, 'Keep going.' And and so she does."

  The Hand That Get-go Held Mine, Maggie O'Farrell

• The Long Goodbye

  ''I never saw whatever of them again — except the cops. No mode has yet been invented to say goodbye to them."

  The Long Goodbye, Raymond Chandler

• Winter in Madrid

  "She watched every bit Sandy Forsyth walked across the talmac towards them, smiling like an eager curious schoolboy as he lifted his face to the sunny English afternoon."

  Winter in Madrid, C. J. Sansom

• The Pianist

  "I went on my mode. A stormy wind rattled the flake-iron in the ruins, whistling and howling through the charred cavities of the windows. Twilight came on. Snow fell from the darkening, leaden sky."

  The Pianist: The Extraordinary True Story of Ane Man'south Survival in Warsaw, 1939-1945, Wladyslaw Szpilman

• Don't Allow's Go to the Dogs This night

  "This is non a full circle. It's Life carrying on. It's the side by side breath we all take. It'due south the choice nosotros make to get on with it."

  Don't Let's Get to the Dogs This evening: An African Childhood, Alexandra Fuller

• Midnight's Children

  "Yes, they will trample me underfoot, the numbers marching one two 3, iv hundred million five hundred six, reducing me to specks of voiceless dust, simply as, in all good time, they will trample my son who is not my son, and his son who will not be his, and his who will not exist his, until the g and first generation, until a thousand and ane midnights accept bestowed their terrible gifts and a one thousand and one children have died, because it is the privilege and the curse of midnight'south children to be both masters and victims of their times, to abdicate privacy and be sucked into the annihilating whirlpool of the multitudes, and to be unable to live or die in peace."

  Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie

• A Hundred and One Days

  "The white floodlight shines through the wispy tule and makes sparse shadows. A sudden breeze over the Tigris forms a tiny cyclone. Information technology floats through the balustrade doors and makes the curtains dance."

  A Hundred and Ane Days: A Baghdad Journal, Asne Seierstad

• Cider With Rosie

  "Information technology was then that I began to sit on my bed and stare out at the nibbling squirrels, and to make upwards powems from intense brainchild, hour after unmarked hour, imagination scarcely unpleasing once, rhythm hardly skipping a crush, while sisters called me, suns rose and fell, and the poems I made, which I never remembered, were the first and final of that time…"

  Cider with Rosie, Laurie Lee

• Vile Bodies

  "And before long, similar a circling typhoon, the sounds of battle began to return."

  Vile Bodies, Evelyn Waugh

• The House Of The Spirits

  "It begins similar this: Barrabás came to us by sea…"

  The Firm Of The Spirits, Isabel Allende

• Madame Bovary

  "He now has more patients than the devil himself could handle; the regime treat him with deference and public opinion supports him. He has just been awarded the Cross of the Legion of Honor."

  Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert

• A Thousand Excellent Suns

  "But the naming game involves only male names, because if information technology's a girl, Laila has already named her."

  A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini

• A Moveable Banquet

  "But this is how Paris was in the early on days when we were very poor and very happy."

  A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway

• Lord of the Flies

  "He turned away to requite them time to pull themselves together; and waited, assuasive his eyes to remainder on the trim cruiser in the altitude."

  Lord of the Flies, William Golding

• Breaking Dawn

  "And and then we continued blissfully into this small merely perfect piece of our forever."

  Breaking Dawn, Stephenie Meyer

• The Grapes of Wrath

  "She looked up and across the barn, and her lips came together and smiled mysteriously."

  The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck

• The Kitchen God's Wife

  "Of course, it's just superstition, but for fun. But run across how fast the fume rises--oh, even faster when nosotros express mirth, lifting our hopes, college and higher."

  The Kitchen God's Married woman, Amy Tan

• The Hours

  "And here she is, herself, Clarissa, not Mrs. Dalloway anymore; at that place is no one now to call her that. Here she is with another hour before her. 'Come in, Mrs. Dark-brown,' she says. 'Everything's prepare.'"

  The Hours, Michael Cunningham

• The Sound and the Fury

  "The broken bloom drooped over Ben'due south fist and his eyes were empty and bluish and serene again as cornice and facade flowed smoothly once more than from left to right, post and tree, window and doorway and signboard each in its ordered place."

  The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner

• The Good Earth

  "'Balance assured, our father, balance assured. The state is not to be sold.' But over the old man'southward head they looked at each other and smiled."

  The Good Earth, Pearl S. Buck

• Les Miserables

  "This stone is entirely bare. The only idea in cut information technology was of the essentials of the grave, and there was no other care than to make this stone long plenty and narrow plenty to cover a human. No name tin can be read there."

  Les Miserables, Victor Hugo

• Dauntless New World

  "Slowly, very slowly, like two unhurried compass needles, the feet turned towards the correct; n, north-due east, south-east, s, south-south-west; then paused, and, after a few seconds, turned as unhurriedly dorsum towards the left. South-south-w, s, south-east, east ... "

  Brave New World, Aldous Huxley

• Adventures of Blueberry Finn

  "I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Emerge she's going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can't stand it. I been in that location before."

  Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain

• Amende

  "But at present I must sleep."

  Atonement, Ian McEwan

• Alice'south Adventures in Wonderland

  "Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the after-fourth dimension, be herself a grown woman; and how she would go on, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her babyhood: and how she would gather about her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago: and how she would feel with all their elementary sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summertime days."

  Alice'due south Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

• Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

  "When they finally did dare it, at offset with stolen glances then candid ones, they had to smile. They were uncommonly proud. For the first fourth dimension they had done something out of Love."

  Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, Patrick Süskind

• A Portrait of the Artist as a Beau

  "Old begetter, old artificer, stand up me now and always in good stead."

  A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce

• Bridget Jones's Diary

  "An excellent twelvemonth's progress."

  Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding

• Anne of Green Gables

  "'God's in his heaven, all's right with the world,' whispered Anne softly."

  Anne of Green Gables, Lucy Maud Montgomery

• Man and Wife

  "And and so we stayed out in the garden of the old house until we couldn't run into to kick a brawl, laughing in the gathering twilight, my female parent and son, my wife and our daughter, making the nigh of the expert weather condition and all the days that were left, our little game watched only by next door'south cat, and every star in the heavens."

  Homo and Wife, Tony Parsons

• Norwegian Wood

  "Over again and again I called out for Midori from the expressionless centre of this place that was no identify."

  Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami

• Emma

  "Just, in spite of these deficiencies, the wishes, the hopes, the confidence, the predictions of the small band of truthful friends who witnessed the ceremony, were fully answered in the perfect happiness of the union."

  Emma, Jane Austen

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• Slaughterhouse-Five

  "One bird said to Billy Pilgrim, 'Poo-tee-weet?'"

  Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut

• White Teeth

  "Archie, for one, watched the mouse. He watched it stand up very still for a 2d with a smug wait as if it exepcted zilch less. He watched information technology scurry away, over his hand. He watched information technology dash along the table and through the hands of those who wished to pin it down. He watched it leap off the stop and disappear through an air vent. Go on my son! thought Archie."

  White Teeth, Zadie Smith

• The Hound of the Baskervilles

  "Might I problem you then to be ready in half an hour, and we tin stop at Marcini's for a petty dinner on the way?"

  The Hound of the Baskervilles, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

• Whatever Human Heart

  "My personal rollercoaster. Not so much a rollercoaster - a rollercoaster'due south too polish - a yo-yo rather - a jerking, spinning toy in the hands of a maladroit child, more similar, trying too difficult, besides impatiently eager to acquire how to operate his new yo-yo."

  Any Human Heart, William Boyd

• The Lovely Bones

  "I wish yous all a long and happy life."

  The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold

• Heart of Darkness

  "The offing was barred by a black banking concern of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading to the utmost ends of the world flowed sombre under an overcast sky — seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness."

  Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad

• The Outcast

  "He didn't recall about it, he went direct to a seat facing forwards, then that he could encounter where he was going."

  The Outcast, Sadie Jones

• Lonely in Berlin

  "Because it is written that y'all reap what you sow, and the boy had sown good corn."

  Solitary in Berlin, Hans Fallada

• Half of a Yellow Sun

  "She had started to cry softly. Odenigbo took her in his arms."

  Half of a Yellow Sunday, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

• Earlier I Die

  "Light falls through the window, falls onto me, into me. Moments. All gathering towards this one."

  Earlier I Dice, Jenny Downham

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Source: https://www.stylist.co.uk/books/the-best-100-closing-lines-from-books/123681

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