Last Lines That Linger

     Usually, the focus is on the best first lines in literature. We are guilty of this, too. After all, the first lines are what draw you into a book. These are the ones we remember best. Shouldn't the last lines leave you feeling that the journey was worthwhile? Here are some of our favorites:

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
     ~ The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald

"'Yes,' I said. 'Isn't it pretty to think so?'"
     ~ The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway

"I don't hate it he thought, panting in the cold air, the iron New England dark; I don't. I don't! I don't hate it! I don't hate it!"
     ~ Absalom, Absalom! - William Faulkner

"After all, tomorrow is another day."
     ~ Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell

"'All that is very well,' answered Candide, 'but let us cultivate our garden.'"
     ~ Candide - Voltaire

"Whether or not they lived happily ever after is not easily decided."
     ~ The African Queen - C. S. Forester

"Go, my book, and help destroy the world as it is."
     ~ Continental Drift - Russell Banks

"I am haunted by waters."
     ~ A River Runs Through It - Norman MacLean

"Happiness was but the occasional episode in a general drama of pain."
     ~ The Mayor of Casterbridge - Thomas Hardy

"To us - and snails, God bless them!"
     ~ The Book and the Brotherhood - Iris Murdoch

"And the ashes blew towards us with the salt wind from the sea."
     ~ Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier


Funnily enough, Rebecca also made it on our list of best first lines!


- Frances & Rose