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
The last line from Gatsby is one of my favorites!
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