Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (1936) Set around the American Civil War, the Pulitzer-winning epic about collapsing worlds, rape and murder, slavery, starvation, war and doomed love not only gave literature the most brutal break up line in literature ("My dear, I don't give a damn"), but also one of the most hopeful final flourishes. Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigue, I have had my vision.From To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. A book's final sentence is the ribbon on a packaged plot, tied neatly and prettily before an author hands her story over to her readers' imaginations for good. Elliott is visibly upset about having to part, so his intergalactic buddy lights up his finger, points it at the boy, and informs him "I'll be right here. Here are 23 final lines that I have never forgotten. He watched it dash along the table and through the hands of those who wished to pin it down. Gordon reluctantly agrees. ", "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 anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers, for the sleepers in that quiet earth. Best wonderfully mangled last line from a wonderfully mangled novel: Prettiest description of oblivion and both the interconnectedness and meaninglessness of worldly phenomena that also sounds something like a dehumanized version of the last line of The Great Gatsby: The wake itself remains, etched out across the waters surface; then it fades as well, although no one is there to see it go. Here are a few examples. 12. The Falls, George Saunders (From Pastoralia ). The Finish Line - 10 questions - 3 mins. Americans have consistently called Mitchells Pulitzer Prize-winning novel one of their very favorites. ", Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll, "When they finally did dare it, at first with stolen glances then candid ones, they had to smile. Best closing lines in movies 1. Here she is with another hour before her. Most superhero stories end triumphantly with the good guy taking down the villain and receiving public adoration as a result. ' Et tu Brute ' is the definitive accusation of someone who has deceived you or let you down. Although two centuries have passed since Dr. Victor Frankenstein turned loose into the world a depraved wretch, his creatures plaintive cry still moves anyone who has a beating heart. She lures screenwriter Joe Gillis (William Holden) into her scheme. We don't think so. ", "And the ashes blew towards us with the salt wind from the sea. Sign up for the latest news and must-read features from Stylist, so you don't miss out on the conversation. please." Jay Gatsby, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald "Well, good-by." God, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams "Oh dear, I hadn't thought of that." Hamlet, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare Amazon's most highlighted quotes of all time on Kindle, By entering my email I agree to Stylists. The most excellently crafted, strange, funny and ambiguous ending I have ever met: They said, please, please make love with Helen, we require an assertion of value, we are frightened. That final line, with its simple, imploring repetition, concludes the novel with just the right spirit of affirmation and regret. To honour it, we have curated eight thought-provoking lines from some of the world's most famous plays- from Macbeth to Harry Potter And The Cursed Child. E.T. thought Archie. After all, tomorrow is another day. It's dusty and desolate, and there's not much to do. Of course, former slaves and historians had described the horrors of slavery before, but nearly 125 years after Emancipation, Morrison made the psychological legacy of the Souths peculiar institution palpable as no other book ever had. God, is anything more beautifully, simply written than these final lines? As a man, he makes his way into the Mafia, where he's guided by three mentors: Paulie Cicero (Paul Sorvino), Jimmy "the Gent" Conway (Robert DeNiro), and the volatile Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci). ", "The knife came down, missing him by inches, and he took off. Together, they attempt to assemble a "phone" that E.T. (Hemingway condemned this section as cheating.) But that last lonely line is pure genius. Wake up to the day's most important news. Following our massively popular and lovingly selected list of the 100 best opening lines from books, its now time for the closing lines to shine. The children were excited. Ron Charles writes about books for The Washington Post. 2. She gets her wish when a tornado hits and whisks her off to the magical land of Oz, where she makes some hip new friends and has to contend with a wicked witch and her flying monkeys. Mitchell's famous last lines are at once heartbreaking and hopeful. Everyone is now free to have a good time at the club no matter who they are, where they come from, or how much money they have. ", "I went on my way. The last line of DFW's first novel hints at what else he had in store. ", "Oh, my girls, however long you may live, I never can wish you a greater happiness than this. In Grand Hotel John Barrymore plays a baron and jewel thief, Wallace Beery plays a tycoon, Joan Crawford plays a stenographer, and Greta Garbo plays a ballerina who utters an even more famous line, "I want to be alone." 4. For a movie as fantastical as Back to the Future, there could be no more perfect final words, and it's not because they set up a sequel. and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes. ", "Up out of the lampshade, startled by the overhead light, flew a large nocturnal butterfly that began circling the room. When the creature is finally killed, Brody quips, "I used to hate the water." The scene takes place before the Battle of Agincourt in Northern France, specifically on October 25th, 1415 (a day known as Saint Crispin's Day). I carry a lot of scars. Wherein I lived, the greatest prince o' the world, The noblest; and do now not basely die, Not cowa. And to all others in this story profound shooms of lip-music brrrrr. Dont judge a book by its cover - instead, try and wait for the last line. Gone With the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell (1936). ", "Max stepped into his private boat and waved goodbye and sailed back over a year and in and out of weeks and through a day and into the night of his very own room where he found his supper waiting for himand it was still hot. The Awakening,by Kate Chopin (1899). Its desultory plot and muffled despair still feel strikingly modern. ", "But the naming game involves only male names, because if it's a girl, Laila has already named her. The strains of the piano and violin rose up weakly from below. Over the course of the movie, he sees evidence that the world can be a pretty horrible place. Gillian Anderson quiz: A Streetcar Named Desire or The X Files? ", "And here she is, herself, Clarissa, not Mrs. Dalloway anymore; there is no one now to call her that. by J.D. ", The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera, "As I left China farther and farther behind, I looked out of the window and saw a great universe beyond the plane's silver wing. 4 min. Neo's final words in the film play directly into this idea, even going so far as to suggest that reality is what people make it. The story ends with the protagonist, Neo (Keanu Reeves), destroying the evil Agent Smith and learning how to control the Matrix. There are few lines in all of cinema as cynical as that one. Osgood announces his intention to marry Daphne, at which point Jerry rips off the wig and exposes himself as a man. Scholars of Elizabethan drama believe that William Shakespeare wrote at least 38 plays between 1590 and 1612. Long Day's Journey Into Night by Eugene O'Neill This autobiographical play about O'Neill's young adulthood scorches from start to finish. If On a Winters Night a Traveler , Italo Calvino. The plot of Sebolds debut novel sounds equally gruesome and mawkish: Susie, a 14-year-old girl, is raped and murdered by a neighbor, and then she describes her familys reaction from heaven. 01. of 10. A stormy wind rattled the scrap-iron in the ruins, whistling and howling through the charred cavities of the windows. If you don't stop and look around once and a while you might miss it." Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick) 111 27 3. Those words are meaningful because the entire theme of The Dark Knight is meaningful. For the first time they had done something out of Love. The strains of the piano and violin rose up weakly from below. ", "There was some open space between what he knew and what he tried to believe, but nothing could be done about it, and if you can't fix it, you've got to stand it. Hamlet's dying 'The rest is silence,' is the perfect end of anything. "From My Antonia by Willa Cather. In the end, though, he puts her on a plane to safety. Let me cry, my love. Here are 21 of our favorite last lines in literature: "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. Where we're going, we don't need roads!" There is no better portrayal of 20th-century white men than the Pulitzer Prize-winning Rabbit series, which went on to include Rabbit Redux, Rabbit Is Rich, Rabbit at Rest and the novella Rabbit Remembered. Each book ends with an echo of the first novels last word, a subtle coda that ties together the stages of Rabbits life. Helen came and embraced me. Brody is, of course, being ironic. ", "She had started to cry softly. 'You can trust me,' R.V. Ethereal and evocative, this line nicely wraps up Capote's deeply personal and heart-wrenching story. "Everything we need that is not food or love is here in the tabloid racks. Gittes is not happy. He wanted money and power and influence, and he had those things. What Jack tells Marla at the end of the film underscores the primary idea behind the story which is that he has lost himself and can't quite find his way back. 'Come in, Mrs. Brown,' she says. It was a bestseller when it was published during the Great Depression, and just last year, it ranked No. Advertisement Famous Last Lines in Movies Quiz. 1. Image: Warner Brothers/Getty Images . LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT by Eugene O'Neill [1956]. Her simple, final wish looks banal out of context, but after watching her family and her murderer for years, its devastatingly pure. ", "Later on he will understand how some men so loved her, that they did dare much for her sake. But even more arresting is the books moral struggle to understand and forgive his parents failings and his own. ", "Again and again I called out for Midori from the dead centre of this place that was no place. All kinds of spot-on criticisms have been leveled against the novel (and producer David Selznicks 1939 movie) for its romanticized racism. The audience is told he's offensive to Smails and the others because he's brash and tacky, but the unspoken implication is that he's unwelcome because he's Jewish. The father of the four March sisters is just a minor character in Louisa May Alcotts beloved Little Women (1868), but Geraldine Brooks put him at the center of her historical novel March, which won a Pulitzer Prize. Now, of course, his story about a handsome gangster is considered one of the greatest novels of the 20th century. Alices Adventures in Wonderland , Lewis Carroll. In Sunset Boulevard, Gloria Swanson plays Norma Desmond, a one-time silent film star who dreams of being a big deal again. A sudden breeze over the Tigris forms a tiny whirlwind. During its initial release in 1999, Fight Club was widely misunderstood. The butterfly motif brings the concept of "lightness" to life; this final vignette captures the mood of the book perfectly. The Extra-Terrestrial. Here's to it!" Anthony Marston "I'm all right now. But you, O my brothers, remember sometimes thy little Alex that was. The Extra-Terrestrial, 10 Best Comedy Movies Of 2021, According To IMDb. 1. "The Maltese Falcon" "Key Largo" . The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold (2002). Holden Caulfield would scoff at the idea, but hes served ably as the patron saint of disaffected teens for almost 70 years. "In a place far away from anyone or anywhere, I drifted off for a moment. score: 5,129 , and 56 people voted. Everything about The Matrix is designed to make the viewer's head spin. '", "I just waited a bit, then turned back to the car, to drive off to wherever it was I was supposed to be. The there was a knock on the door, I opened the door, and the new gerbil walked in. They succeed, and, in the end, they're forced to say an emotional goodbye before the little Reese's Pieces-eater hops on his starship. This pays off in the final scene, where they're driving a yacht away from a pier. The movie lines so famous you forgot where they came from. And like that he is gone. ", The Time Traveler's Wife, Audrey Niffenegger, "The old man was dreaming about the lions. "Oh, poor,. In the final pages, the narrator knows some readers will continue to ignore the relevance of his life: Youll fail to see how any principle that applies to you could apply to me. But he knows thats not true. h'd. Now my spirit is going; Its possible to measure the weight of a novel by the size of its impact crater. the heroines decision to walk into the sea and drown herself. Knowing that the complex power of her book is already complete, the very ending offers a sigh of emotional relief: a wry repudiation of Jane Eyre., Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson (2004). "Go, my book, and help destroy the world as it is. The bottom line, though, is that it's about the way that the desire for anything valuable, monetary or otherwise, can lead people down dark roads in their efforts to obtain it. Orwells protagonist, Winston Smith, works as a reviser of historical records in the Ministry of Truth before becoming a member of a doomed resistance movement. Peter Pan. "As you from crimes would pardoned be,Let your indulgence set me free. She responds by shooting him. So it was that Giles Corey's last lines in "The Crucible" endure in popular culture. William Shakespeare is widely considered to be the greatest dramatist of all time. ", In the all-time classic Casablanca, American expatriate/nightclub owner Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) is reunited with an old lover, Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman). It was Beauty killed the Beast.". Ending an entire book in the middle of a sentence is a bold and playful choice. It's why Batman, Spider-Man, and so many others wear masks. ", "She looked up and across the barn, and her lips came together and smiled mysteriously. Ford is better known for his books about real estate agent Frank Bascombe, for which he won a Pulitzer Prize, but this novel is his finest. ", "Of course, it's only superstition, just for fun. The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway (1926). Plays Sonnets Poems Concordance Advanced Search About OSS. I play video games. What early event in American history was the backdrop for Arthur Miller's play in which this line appears? From old-school classics like Casablanca to modern masterpieces like Inglorious Basterds, these are the most remarkable final movie lines of all time. This writers personal favorite. Only six of our top 10 plays won Pulitzers. In the movie's final minutes, the limping Verbal exits the police station, and viewers see his disability immediately disappear. ", A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali, Gil Courtemanche, "'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 yell ken it was because I didna have time.'". Most visually representative ending to a novel: this way this way this way this way this way this way this way out this way out O, 17. He's asked what it is, to which he replies "the stuff that dreams are made of.". "A sound of clicking heels on the pavement punctured the quiet. By this point in the movie, fans have fallen completely in love with E.T., so his departure affects them as much as it does Elliott. Finding it so much like myselfso like a brother, reallyI felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again. But, eventually, he's caught in a pinch by the Feds. We're all gonna get laid!". I have bad dreams but I never saw Mister Duck again. And us so happy. We arrive at the final page in a state of utter desolation. The Handmaids Tale, by Margaret Atwood (1985), If you havent read Atwoods dystopian novel since it was first published, you may have forgotten what follows the story of Offreds resistance to the Republic of Gilead. Go on my son! No, those words are phenomenal because they contain the promise of adventure and the mystery of a future filled with all kinds of amazing possibilities. Rabbit eventually crawls home, determined to be better, but his flight instinct is not so easily quelled. "She was seventy-five and she was going to make some changes in her life. I am haunted by humans. You may deny me, but I'll be your servant, Whether you will or no. by Mary Shelley (1818). It's Chinatown.". The light of a single lamp brought into his dark parlor arrives like a foretaste of grace. Charlotte was both. If you do, you start missing everybody. I was eager to embrace the world. In Hucks sweet accent, Twain captures the spirit of an adolescent nation determined to resist domestication and to keep exploring the unknown. His days in the mob are officially over. In prose of striking clarity, Rev. 10 quizzes and 105 trivia questions. Clear rating. The Catcher in the Rye, And so she does. ", "He didn't think about it, he went straight to a seat facing forwards, so that he could see where he was going. by Mark Twain (1884). Given that Caddyshack is filled with undertones about prejudice of all stripes, Al's victory statement sends a message that a new day has dawned at Bushwood. Crime, however, does not payor at least not for very longand his house of cards comes crumbling down. After ratting out Paulie and Jimmy, he enters the Witness Protection Program. Tony Stark, never one to do things in a conventional manner, defies tradition by letting the world know who the iron-clad hero they've been following really is. The car slowed suddenly pressing Brett against me. II,1,385. The framing device entails the only guy who can pinpoint Soze, Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacey) telling customs agent Dave Kujan (Chazz Palminteri) a long, complex story about how he entered the villain's world and took part in a heist. Now, they are on the same side of a political cause. Ellisons masterpiece, which won the 1953 National Book Award, remade the terrain of African American fiction and American fiction. OPTIONS: Show cue speeches Show full speeches # Act, Scene, Line (Click to see in context) Speech text: 1. ", A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce, "'God's in his heaven, alls right with the world,' whispered Anne softly. (Hamlet) "To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the . (Caliban, Act 3 Scene 2) Our revels now are ended. The point, driven home so forcefully in those five words, is that corruption is so deeply ingrained in the situation Jake is investigating that he's wasting his time trying to expose or change it. I kissed her a few times on the brow. He announces his arrival . But it was another girl, young and new to the city, fiddling with her keys. Though were of the opinion that you could take any of Nabokovs sentences at random and put them on any best-of list with no problems, this may be the best ending to an impressionistic memoir about perception, memory and the haziness of reality: There, in front of us, where a broken row of houses stood between us and the harbor, and where the eye encountered all sorts of stratagems, such as pale-blue and pink underwear cakewalking on a clothesline, or a ladys bicycle and a striped cat oddly sharing a rudimentary balcony of cast iron, it was most satisfying to make out among the jumbled angles of roofs and walls, a splendid ships finnel, showing from behind the clothesline as something in a scrambled picture Find What the Sailor Has Hidden that the finder cannot unsee once it has been seen. ", "The white floodlight shines through the wispy tule and makes thin shadows. That this time the wind will not hear. Renault, for starters, has come around and decided to take up the Allied cause. He raised his baton. Fight Club's ending scene is seriously audacious, offering a somewhat bleak outlook for the character going forward. Its a plaintive acknowledgment that his wandering confession to us has brought him no comfort. About confronting the end?! If not, I'll die your maid: to be your fellow. Isnt it pretty to think so?, 2. A Good Man Is Hard To Find, Flannery OConnor (From The Complete Stories ). Following a lengthy series of complications, Joe essentially tells Norma that her dream will never come to fruition. ", "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. The Catcher in the Rye , J.D. Not so Gilead, the first book in Robinsons Pulitzer Prize-winning trilogy about two families in Iowa. ", Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain, "Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood: 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 simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days. Hamlet ponders life, death, and the merits . written and illustrated by Maurice Sendak (1963). A Gate at the Stairs, by Lorrie Moore (2009), Novels and short stories make different demands on their forms and their readers. ", "And then we continued blissfully into this small but perfect piece of our forever. ", "I ran with the wind blowing in my face, and a smile as wide as the valley of Panjsher on my lips. '", "Archie, for one, watched the mouse. Only after getting away from it for a while does she realize just how happy she is there. Into this upper-crust club comes condo developer Al Czervik (Rodney Dangerfield). In a phone call, he promises to essentially dismantle it all, creating a new world order, free of rules and controls. ", "It's funny. "'Excellently observed,' answered Candide; 'but we must cultivate our garden. As Woody watches him fade into the distance, he utters the bittersweet words, "so long, partner.". The opening sentence in a story is often considered the most important because it sets the tone for everything that's still to come. His story about a reformed miser was an immediate bestseller, and, a few years later, he began offering public readings that attracted enormous crowds in England and America. The entire Toy Story series deals with the connection between playthings and the children who own them. Having a perfect capper ensures the movie will linger in the viewer's head long after it's over. You can feel the rawness as soon as it starts, as a. First Line: "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.". Ten memorable Shakespeare lines. If you do, you start missing everybody. I said that they shouldnt be frightened (although I am often frightened) and that there was value everywhere. ", "The eyes and faces all turned themselves towards me, and guiding myself by them, as by a magical thread, I stepped into the room. When we first meet 26-year-old Harry Rabbit Angstrom, he decides on a whim to run away from his wife and toddler. Killer John Doe (Kevin Spacey) reveals that he cut off the head of protagonist Mills' pregnant wife and stuck it in a box. Some last lines have the power to disrupt the course of an entire story, shaking up our expectations. Good . ", "His body stirs beneath the sheets. At the end, an attempt to kill the shark takes place. '", "I lost track after a while, happy to be home, weeping for my father, and thinking about what was next. Alcott gives little indication of what horrors may have shaken Father during his fight for abolition, and Little Women ends with Mrs. March saying, Oh, my girls, however long you may live, I never can wish you a greater happiness than this. But by the time March returns to his happy home at the end of Brookss novel, we know him as the haunted survivor of carnage and a crushing spiritual crisis. Lapsing into the bland objectivity of academia, the professor warns his fellow scholars to be cautious about passing moral judgment upon the Gileadean.

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