Saturday, December 05, 2009

100 Best Last Lines from Literature


http://americanbookreview.org/PDF/100_Best_Last_Lines_from_Novels.pdf

Do you have one to nominate?

9 comments:

Unknown said...

Hey, #16 was a translation by a former student of mine. Cool.

pattinase (abbott) said...

Pretty impressive.

Paul D Brazill said...

But it doesn't include Jimmy Calliway's 'You ain't see nothin' till you've seen a one armed man shrug.'Now THAT is a classic line!

Deb said...

No love for the last lines of "The Turn of the Screw" or "I, the Jury"?

Charles Gramlich said...

Hum, I'll have to give this some thought but I don't find all of these terribly compelling. This sounds like a list I'd like to make up for myself.

pattinase (abbott) said...

It would take a while but fun to do it, Charles. You more often hear about first lines.
Deb, I'll have to look them up. I think I have both...somewhere.
Jimmy's goes on my list.

Mike Dennis said...

"Yes--let's get stinko."

"Mildred Pierce", James M Cain, 1941

Anonymous said...

This one almost always gives me chills . . . A River Runs Through It

"Like many fly fishermen in western Montana where the summer days are almost Arctic in length, I often do not start fishing until the cool of the evening. Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise. Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of those rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters."

pattinase (abbott) said...

Loved that book and movie.