"From Oh What a Paradise It Seems by John Cheever. And to all others in this story profound shooms of lip-music brrrrr. Endings, as we all know, are important. Here are 23 final lines that I have never forgotten. Shakespeare's plays and sonnets are some of the most quoted in all of literature. You may deny me, but I'll be your servant, Whether you will or no. I carry a lot of scars. Quiz: Is this acting advice from Laurence Olivier or @Tips4Actors? Best closing lines in movies 1. Fight Club's ending scene is seriously audacious, offering a somewhat bleak outlook for the character going forward. She knew firsthand the deleterious effects of that lack of demand. ", "Yukiko's diarrhoea persisted through the twenty-sixth, and was a problem on the train to Tokyo. The only thought in cutting it was of the essentials of the grave, and there was no other care than to make this stone long enough and narrow enough to cover a man. I am haunted by humans. It was, in so many ways, a film ahead of its time. Play: Mixed 'Famous Last Lines' Quiz. It's a last chance for a good first impression. "From The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen. Clear rating. A character in one of Jess Walters novels says, A book can only end one of two ways: truthfully or artfully. Alas, most dont end truthfully or artfully, but there are rare exceptions: novels that conclude with such gracefully calibrated language that we close the back cover and feel physically imprinted, as though the words were pressed into us by a weight we can hardly fathom. Batman knows that, if the citizens of crime-ridden Gotham learn of Dent's killing spree under his guise of Two-Face, all hope will go out the window. ", "The offing was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading to the utmost ends of the earth flowed sombre under an overcast sky seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness. 'Everything's ready. A Christmas Carol, ", In the all-time classic Casablanca, American expatriate/nightclub owner Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) is reunited with an old lover, Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman). "Whatever we had missed, we possessed together the precious, the incommunicable past. 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. That this time - please just this once - it will leave without us. 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 readers were shocked by Image: Warner Brothers/Getty Images . The Catcher in the Rye, That this time the wind will not hear. The movie's suggestion that power and corruption are inextricably connected certainly gave it resonance for audiences of that era. We held each other. Previously, their dealings were driven by individual self-interest. It's virtually impossible not to tear up in this touching, heartfelt moment. Sophocles. Salinger (1951). ", "There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved. I am serious, and dont call me Shirley. ", A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini, "But this is how Paris was in the early days when we were very poor and very happy. He raised his baton. This is a moment of much-needed levity after the nail-biting intensity of the final battle which everything else in Jaws skillfully builds toward. No name can be read there. "If music be the food of love, play on" Twelfth Night Romeo and Juliet A Midsummer Night's Dream Reveal 2. The whole film is a sardonic look at show business and the way that people who have experienced the limelight have a hard time when it no longer shines on them. John Keats 101. I carry a lot of scars. An entire novel can be ruined by a disappointing ending, but by the same token, an entire novel can be made by a wonderful one. 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 ", "But that is the beginning of a new story - the story of the gradual renewal of a man, the story of his gradual regeneration, of his passing from one world into another, of his initiation into a new unknown life. Crime, however, does not payor at least not for very longand his house of cards comes crumbling down. The now-college-aged Andy gives all his old toysincluding Buzz Lightyear and beloved cowboy doll Woodyto a little girl. 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars. The butterfly motif brings the concept of "lightness" to life; this final vignette captures the mood of the book perfectly. "She closes her eyes again and I begin to sing softly: Hoping that this time it will remain a lullaby. 11. A Perfect Day for Bananafish, J.D. He wanted money and power and influence, and he had those things. I don't know why mine never turn out like hers, or why my tears flow so freely when I prepare them - perhaps I am as sensitive to onions as Tita, my great-aunt, who will go on living as long as there is someone who cooks her recipes. The movie ends with police boss Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains) suggesting that he and Rick join the Free French army. Gordon reluctantly agrees. Were you paying attention before the curtain fell? ", "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 definitiveness of this brusque sentence has a blunting effect, highlighting the bleakness of Orwell's predictions. NEXT: 10 Best Comedy Movies Of 2021, According To IMDb, 13 Best Shark Movies To Watch This Summer (That Aren't Jaws), 10 Unpopular Opinions About E.T. Hooper plays along with the joke, and the audience gets a laugh that breaks the tension before the credits roll. Speeches (Lines) for Puck in "Midsummer Night's Dream" Total: 33. print/save view. He's asked what it is, to which he replies "the stuff that dreams are made of.". In order to avoid being found, they dress up as women and invent new personas for themselves: Josephine and Daphne. Tortured by loneliness, the monster ultimately flees to the North Pole, and the doctor dies in pursuit. . There is deep, delicious irony in this line. "From The Tempest by William Shakespeare. I got my thousand-yard stare. Everything will crumble. At that moment, McCarthy suddenly breaks away from his characters and describes trout that once swam in mountain streams. 'And here is Toto, too. ", 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.'". And they can kiss my sharries. In response to that challenge, 18-year-old Mary Shelley conceived of the worlds most famous monster. Its desultory plot and muffled despair still feel strikingly modern. "From Ulysses by James Joyce. Let me cry, my love. ", A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce, "'God's in his heaven, alls right with the world,' whispered Anne softly. No wonder she dreams of going "somewhere over the rainbow." people dont do such things. A few years later, Chopin ran right up against those same stultifying expectations in her last novel, The Awakening, about a wife and mother who falls in love with another man and begins to imagine a different life. Twilight came on. 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. ", "Later on he will understand how some men so loved her, that they did dare much for her sake. 'Keep going, El,' he says, 'Keep going.' It'd be a glaring omission to not mention Fitzgerald's oft-quoted thesis about the American Dream. Mitchell's famous last lines are at once heartbreaking and hopeful. Rick speaks it later in the movie to bid Ilsa farewell and the odd, unsentimental phrase has come to be one of the most romantic . ", "But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest a little boy and his Bear will always be playing. The miracle vitamins, the cures for cancer, the remedies for obesity. In the final pages, at the worst possible moment, he flees again, which Updike captures in that closing line swelling with deliverance and cowardice. After playing for a few moments, Andy hops in his car and drives away. When the applause dies down, he asks, Are there any questions? Those of us staring at a Supreme Court now tipping away from womens reproductive rights probably have several questions. His mix of treacly self-pity, witty cynicism and clinical depression speaks for millions of lonely people forced to endure a world of phonies. He has just been awarded the Cross of the Legion of Honor. 'Come in, Mrs. Brown,' she says. ", Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling, "He was soon borne away by the waves and lost in darkness and distance. All gathering towards this one.". "She was seventy-five and she was going to make some changes in her life. The children were excited. Because, whilst the beginning of a book may get all the glory, its the ending that really stays with you. It determines if parting is such sweet sorrow or a thudding disappointment. The line also offers up a little hope for Rick, who just sent the love of his life away. If not, I'll die your maid: to be your fellow. After a near-catastrophic experience that nearly erases his own existence, Marty McFly (Michael J. Anyone who has ever seen Se7en cannot forget its harrowing ending. Snow fell from the darkening, leaden sky. After so much trauma and the exhausting exorcism that concludes the novel, what other ending would do but a final invocation of that child who represents so many snuffed out by our nations foundational sin? That contrast is most evident in the final moments. 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. Goodfellas ends with him stuck in the kind of lifestyle he always hoped to avoid. 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. Her simple, final wish looks banal out of context, but after watching her family and her murderer for years, its devastatingly pure. Following a lengthy series of complications, Joe essentially tells Norma that her dream will never come to fruition. If you do, you start missing everybody. It's dusty and desolate, and there's not much to do. Salinger. Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot revolves around two musicians, Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry (Jack Lemmon), who witness a gangster murder. '", "I just waited a bit, then turned back to the car, to drive off to wherever it was I was supposed to be. A flubbed dismount sullies even the most awe-inspiring routine. 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. And us so happy. Lorrie Moore, one of the best short story writers alive, once said, The end of a story is really everything, and for many years it seemed she had abandoned novel writing altogether. Their land will then be re-watered, leading to growth and prosperity for the new owners. ", "But the naming game involves only male names, because if it's a girl, Laila has already named her. ", "He turned out the light and went into Jem's room. For films, we offer Citizen Kane to the world.For TV shows, Breaking Bad . The strains of the piano and violin rose up weakly from below. The movie lines so famous you forgot where they came from. This novel, about a man and his little boy walking through an apocalyptic wasteland, mesmerized and terrified readers. ", "And here she is, herself, Clarissa, not Mrs. Dalloway anymore; there is no one now to call her that. 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. Her extraordinary novel Their Eyes Were Watching God fell out of print and was essentially forgotten, until Alice Walker rediscovered it in the 1970s. Stock-still at their desks, novelists face a similar demand for a perfectly choreographed last move. "From The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. By entering your email and clicking Sign Up, you're agreeing to let us send you customized marketing messages about us and our advertising partners. He and Rick suddenly have things of substance in common. For generations of us, this is the first final line that knocked our booties off. 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). Over the course of the movie, he sees evidence that the world can be a pretty horrible place. Even today, Chopins final image of sensuous natural beauty is deeply unsettling. It eats Quint (Robert Shaw), escapes an effort by Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) to spear it with poison, then attacks Brody, who is on a sinking boat. The there was a knock on the door, I opened the door, and the new gerbil walked in. The ending would be a downer were it not for Gordon's admiring words. He announces his arrival . Amen. 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. Most Beckettian closing to a Beckett novel: Perhaps its done already, perhaps they have said me already, perhaps they have carried me to the threshold of my story, before the door that opens on my story, that would surprise me, if it opens, it will be I, it will be the silence, where I am, I dont know, Ill never know, in the silence you dont know, you must go on, I cant go on, Ill go on. ", Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak, "I wrote at the start that this was a record of hate, and walking there beside Henry towards the evening glass of beer, I found the one prayer that seemed to serve the winter mood: O God, You've done enough, You've robbed me of enough, I'm too tired and old to learn to love, leave me alone forever. But see how fast the smoke rises--oh, even faster when we laugh, lifting our hopes, higher and higher. 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 great thing about this final line is that it finds Tony Stark doing something few superheroes ever do, which publicly identifying himself. But it was another girl, young and new to the city, fiddling with her keys. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald. "I've shat in better places than this" Saved Blasted Hamlet Reveal 3. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925). 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. "To be, or not to be: that is the question." "Hamlet". The entire Toy Story series deals with the connection between playthings and the children who own them. Then she feels a pressure on her hand and he speaks his first words for a week. We're all gonna get laid!". Amazon's most highlighted quotes of all time on Kindle, By entering my email I agree to Stylists. "A sound of clicking heels on the pavement punctured the quiet. "But that is another tale, and as I said in the beginning, this is just a story meant to be read in bed in an old house on a rainy night. The plays . Ron Charles writes about books for The Washington Post. The king doth keep his revels . ", 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. Chinatown was released in 1974, when Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal were on the US's collective mind. Four decades later, I can still feel the shock of reaching the end of Steinbecks novel about an Oklahoma family traveling to California in search of work. Only six of our top 10 plays won Pulitzers. 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. Here's to it!" Anthony Marston "I'm all right now. And Carlson said, 'Now what the hell ya suppose is eatin' them two guys? 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. Its also one of the most poetic novels ever written, as this gorgeous closing line demonstrates. ", The Time Traveler's Wife, Audrey Niffenegger, "The old man was dreaming about the lions. The final moments find the Caped Crusader (Christian Bale) in a tough spot. We arrive at the final page in a state of utter desolation. Long Day's Journey Into Night by Eugene O'Neill This autobiographical play about O'Neill's young adulthood scorches from start to finish. 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. Its no real pleasure in life., 3. II,1,385. John Huston's 1941 noir masterpiece The Maltese Falcon is the story of private detective Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart), who is investigating a case involving a quest by multiple individuals to procure a falcon statue that is encrusted with jewels. Here, Voltaire provides his final advice regarding constant philosophizing: sometimes it's more prosperous to do than to contemplate. While nowhere close to historically accurate, it's a fine example of cinematic wish fulfillment. Wake up to the day's most important news. The Maltese Falcon has a plot that confuses a lot of viewers, at least on first viewing. His opponent duly humiliated, Al turns to the throng of spectators and gleefully announces "Hey, everybody! ", The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest, Stieg Larsson, "Curley and Carlson looked after them. And like that he is gone. It's dark and psychological, but also exciting as all get out. Ames describes adventures both historical and spiritual. In Sunset Boulevard, Gloria Swanson plays Norma Desmond, a one-time silent film star who dreams of being a big deal again. ", RELATED: 10 Most Iconic Shots In Goodfellas. The right parting words help to drive the story's theme home in a meaningful way, encapsulating its entire point. This is certainly one of the most famous lines of dialoguefinal or notin cinematic history. I justgave me a turn." 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. ", "'From the Land of Oz,' said Dorothy gravely. From classics such as George Orwells Animal Farm to L. Frank Baums The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Jung Changs Wild Swans, weve scoured the Stylist book shelf for the best closing lines (or, in some cases to give context, the best final few lines) ever written. Of all time on Kindle, by F. Scott Fitzgerald ( 1925 ) poetic novels ever written, as gorgeous... `` she closes her eyes again and I begin to sing softly: that... Andy gives all his old toysincluding Buzz Lightyear and beloved cowboy doll Woodyto a little hope for Rick, just... In pursuit but it was another girl, Laila has already named her was, in so many ways a... Closes her eyes again and I begin to sing softly: Hoping this... Dealings were driven by individual self-interest a big deal again old toysincluding Buzz Lightyear beloved! The rainbow. male names, because if it 's a girl, Laila has already her! Deleterious effects of that lack of demand Larsson, `` Later on he will understand some! To historically accurate, it 's dusty and desolate, and the Watergate scandal were on us. 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