You can see in this novels last words how successfully Moore switches registers. Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked, I cried to dream again. 2. 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). The Finish Line - 10 questions - 3 mins. Best post-modern, self-referential ending to a post-modern, self-referential book about reading and writing: And you say, Just a moment, Ive almost finished If on a winters night a traveler by Italo Calvino.. Its a plaintive acknowledgment that his wandering confession to us has brought him no comfort. ", "For Siddalee Walker, the need to understand has passed, at least for the moment. . Torn between two very different men, Madeleine endures real tragedy before finally correcting her course, which we, her desperate fans, cant know for sure until that very last word. "She was seventy-five and she was going to make some changes in her life. He's a silent guardian. "He loved Big Brother. Hooper plays along with the joke, and the audience gets a laugh that breaks the tension before the credits roll. ", "He turned out the light and went into Jem's room. Where we're going, we don't need roads!" Make fun all you want, but after everything that Harry went through, this may be the most well-deserved last line weve ever read: The scar had not pained Harry for nineteen years. From classics such as George Orwells Animal Farm to L. Frank Baums The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Stylistrounds up the most memorable 100 last lines from literature ever written. Speeches (Lines) for Puck in "Midsummer Night's Dream" Total: 33. print/save view. 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. Stock-still at their desks, novelists face a similar demand for a perfectly choreographed last move. That this sentence is the last line from Cheever's last novel makes it even more of a quaint, humble nod to his role as a teller of quiet, suburban stories. The elitist snobs are no longer in charge. Rabbit eventually crawls home, determined to be better, but his flight instinct is not so easily quelled. William Shakespeare is widely considered to be the greatest dramatist of all time. By the movie's end, he has a super-suit of his own, which he uses to battle Stark, but Iron Man wins. Matter of fact, I think this the youngest us ever felt. ", 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. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The now-college-aged Andy gives all his old toysincluding Buzz Lightyear and beloved cowboy doll Woodyto a little girl. Eventually, all is revealed to be a dream, one from which she gladly awakens. The ending would be a downer were it not for Gordon's admiring words. ", Half of a Yellow Sun, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, "Light falls through the window, falls onto me, into me. Helen came and embraced me. I'm all for crime. Here are a few examples. Warning: This graphic requires JavaScript. You may deny me, but I'll be your servant, Whether you will or no. 3.66 avg rating 137,082 ratings. Advertisement. I was eager to embrace the world. "From The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. When Max gave up being king of where the wild things are, sailed back to his room and found dinner waiting for him, his mothers love is confirmed, and the natural order of his world is restored. Here's looking at you, kid. The last line is so important to nail because it will send the audience out of the theater on the right emotional note. I ran. "Tomorrow, Ill think of some way to get him back. The there was a knock on the door, I opened the door, and the new gerbil walked in. Orwells classic dystopian novel about a totalitarian state has never gone out of print, but it got a huge boost two years ago from the election of Donald Trump. At the end of Henrik Ibsens play Hedda Gabler (1891), a trapped and passionate woman shoots herself in the head, and her old friend exclaims, Good God! Part of HuffPost News. Most superhero stories end triumphantly with the good guy taking down the villain and receiving public adoration as a result. ", "The eyes and faces all turned themselves towards me, and guiding myself by them, as by a magical thread, I stepped into the room. 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. The late Kirk Douglas stars in Billy Wilder's film noir classic Ace in the Hole as Chuck Tatum, a disgraced newspaperman who's willing to do anything to get back on top. "The cults of the famous and the dead" is such a punchy last line, it could just as well serve as the book's subtitle. Plays Sonnets Poems Concordance Advanced Search About OSS. The Marriage Plot, by Jeffrey Eugenides (2011), Every once in a while a novel ends with the satisfaction of a final puzzle piece snapping into place somehow both inevitable and surprising at the same time. The Matrix, released in 1999, dazzled audiences with its then-groundbreaking visuals and trippy philosophical elements. "From Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. He and Rick suddenly have things of substance in common. In that haunting last line, we see the ultimate success of Big Brothers deception, and we feel the full atrocity of whats been done to Winston. The Catcher in the Rye, He twists his head from one side to the other. Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigue, I have had my vision.From To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. But, eventually, he's caught in a pinch by the Feds. Its also worth noting that Mitchell didnt coin the phrase; it appeared as a well-known maxim in the first volume of Harpers Weekly in 1857. The Grapes of Wrath, 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. The first line was 'The first place that I can well remember was a large pleasant meadow with a pond of clear water in it.'. Angsty teens everywhere can relate to Holden's desire to quell his heightened emotions. The last words of some of Shakespeare's characters are not only among the most famous last words but the most quoted lines of all time. And they can kiss my sharries. "Oh, Jake, Brett said, we could have had such a damned good time together. Ahead was a mounted policeman in khaki directing traffic. After playing for a few moments, Andy hops in his car and drives away. It's an action-filled finale that leads to Neo's poignant last words. ", "There was the hum of bees, and the musky odor of pinks filled the air. But how painfully ironic that Americas most macho author should be remembered for a novel about an impotent man. said, watching her hand. The last chapter of Ulysses is Molly Bloom's stream of consciousness, and it's simply amazing. You are also agreeing to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. After escaping a Broadway theater, the titular ape grabs Fay Wray's Ann and climbs up the Empire State Building. "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." 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. 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. 'Keep going, El,' he says, 'Keep going.' The mystery ends with a revelation of incest, the death of a major character, and a lot of bad people still left to do their thing. ", The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway, "Whatever our struggles and triumphs, however we may suffer them, all too soon they bleed into a wash, just like watery ink on paper. "From In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. A vague last line casts a shadow over the entire novel, whereas a powerful and poignant one will keep you wondering for weeks to come. Twilight came on. His mix of treacly self-pity, witty cynicism and clinical depression speaks for millions of lonely people forced to endure a world of phonies. 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. ", "He turned away to give them time to pull themselves together; and waited, allowing his eyes to rest on the trim cruiser in the distance. 11. A Perfect Day for Bananafish, J.D. These famous lines appear in the fourth act of Henry V, one of Shakespeare's most commonly read history plays. He raised his baton. It was, in so many ways, a film ahead of its time. The Extra-Terrestrial, 10 Best Comedy Movies Of 2021, According To IMDb. The above is only a portion (we wouldn't be able to fit all of it in this article), but we couldn't NOT include one of the longest last sentences in literature. His testimony, sealed with that line from King Lear, is enough to convert anyone to the power of great fiction. We know, he laments, that our first dreams can never be realized, but we cant help pining for them anyhow. Caddyshack takes place at Bushwood Country Club, an establishment filled with rich uptight socialites, most notably Judge Elihu Smails (Ted Knight). I carry a lot of scars. Here, Voltaire provides his final advice regarding constant philosophizing: sometimes it's more prosperous to do than to contemplate. "From The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen. 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. Brody is, of course, being ironic. Rick wants to help Ilsa and her husband escape to America. Woody's final words, therefore, speak to the fact that things that were once vitally important get left behind later on in life. LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT by Eugene O'Neill [1956]. Everything will crumble. These days, the movie is seen as something of a modern classic, as well as a treatise on the cost of living in a world that is becoming increasingly materialistic and soulless. John Keats 101. Even today, millions of people think of the ravages of the Great Depression through the lens of Steinbecks story. The DeLorean then launches into the air and zooms right toward the camera. Tortured by loneliness, the monster ultimately flees to the North Pole, and the doctor dies in pursuit. ", A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini, "But this is how Paris was in the early days when we were very poor and very happy. The miserable change now at my end. "Go, my book, and help destroy the world as it is. 19. This is the last we hear from the Bard; it's the final line of his final play, a humble request for applause before he leaves the stage. Perhaps the greatest failure of American literature, which is so bravely explicit about all other aspects of life, is its nervous avoidance of anything explicitly religious. Play. 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. We can stop at Mancini's and have a little dinner on the way. ", "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. ", "And the ashes blew towards us with the salt wind from the sea. I kissed her a few times on the brow. I am serious, and dont call me Shirley. All that remained of the German regiment was a little cloud of dust. '", The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum, "A LAST NOTE FROM YOUR NARRATOR. Filmmaker Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) corrects the officer, saying "no, it wasn't the airplanes. In the end, though, he puts her on a plane to safety. Roman Polanski's Chinatown provides Jack Nicholson with one of his most iconic roles, that of private investigator Jake Gittis. Toy Story 3 ends on a note that is both beautiful and sob-inducing. 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. Shakespeare's Opening Lines: The Quiz If music be the food of love, play on; Give me excess of it. A beautiful, or at least effective, final sentence anchors a story in a reader's mind long after the book is finished. He announces his arrival . Best reason to go adventuring in Wonderland: 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. The children cheered wildly. The offing was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed sombre under an overcast sky seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness.From The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. If you do, you start missing everybody. 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This the youngest us ever felt, 10 Best Comedy Movies of 2021, According to IMDb have a dinner... Also agreeing to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy Pole, and the musky odor pinks. The officer, saying `` no, it was n't the airplanes better but... Andy gives all his old toysincluding Buzz Lightyear and beloved cowboy doll Woodyto a little girl the ashes towards! Downer were it not for Gordon 's admiring words choreographed last move Ann and climbs up the Empire State.. ( Robert Armstrong ) corrects the officer, saying `` no, it was n't the airplanes and! Painfully ironic that Americas most macho author should be remembered for a few moments, Andy hops in car... Wants to help Ilsa and her husband escape to America 'keep going, El, ' says. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L. Baum... Wizard famous last lines of plays Oz, L. Frank Baum, `` and the doctor dies pursuit... The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum, `` a last note from your.! 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He turned out the light and went into Jem 's room 2021, to...

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