We've had a lot of fun in the other thread trying to identify first lines--how about some closing lines?

No wonder of it: sheer plod makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

Here's one that's both an opening and closing line:
I have been one acquainted with the night.

And here's one for the start of Spring:
These flowery waters and these watery flowers
From snow that melted only yesterday.

The play is the tragedy, Man,
And its hero, the Conqueror Worm.

Saints and sinners, go your way.
Youths and maidens, let us pray.

Nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

Done...the seventeenth day of September, in the year of our LORD one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven."

The truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind-

"Oh no...it wasn't the airplanes...It was beauty killed the beast!"

-

"...For tomorrow is another day!"

-

"This *one* time...I'll let you ask me about my business."
"...Is it true?"
"No."

-

"'Winston is back?' Hmm!...AND SO HE BLOODY WELL IS!!"

-

"If you would have the goodness to touch the bell, Doctor, we will begin another investigation in which also a bird will be a chief feature".

-

"...In all, six people were saved from the water...six!...out of fifteen hundred!...In the end, the only thing the people in the boats could do was wait...wait to die...wait to live...wait for an absolution..."*

*this is actually inaccurate. In real life, 10 people were saved from the water when the Titanic sank. Two would later die from exposure, making eight people saved.

- King Kong



- Gone With the Wind



- The Godfather



- The Maltese Falcon?

Yes,
Yes,
Yes,
...no.

The bird quote comes from "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

More than a line, but I really like this, the ending of Willa Cather's "Death Comes to the Arc Bishop".


"He had an intellectual curiosity about dying, about the changes that take place in a man's beliefs. He observed that there was no longer any perspective in his memories; he remembered when he was a little boy as clearly as he remembered the building of the cathedral. He sat in the middle of his own consciousness. None of his former states of mind were lost or outgrown, they were all within reach of his hand, and all comprehensible. Something whispered to the ear on the pillow, lightened the heart, softly, softly picked the lock, and slid the bolts, released the imprisoned spirit of man into the wind, into the blue and gold, into the morning, into the morning."

Dan

--Edgar Allan Poe

And so they lived happily ever after.

Fun thread. Here's one (nobody said it had to be a book or a movie...)

Over and over, the crow cries uncover the cornfield.
Over and over, the thresher and hover the wheat field.

Cheers,

Jon

"Never was there a tale of more woe, than that of Juliet and her Romeo..."

"The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."

"I am haunted by waters."

You'll be a man my son. If by Rudyard Kipling.

On the Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin

Not trying to start a flame, just think it's a nice way of looking at evolution.

Doug

Hmm. I'm not an expert, but I had always remembered it:

"For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo."

Doug

As you can see, Doug, my Shakespeare is not as good as it could be!

Hopkins, "The Windhover";
Robert Frost;
Frost's "Spring Pools"

Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy,
And his dark secret love
Does they life destroy.

Cast a cold eye
On life, on death.
Horseman, pass by!

From "Tales of the two cities":

"It's a far, far better thing I do than I have ever done. It's a far, far better rest I go to than I have ever known."

I would be amazed if I was the only person to nominate this so far.

I am going to do this one from memory so:

"The dark man fled through the desert and the Gunslinger followed"

Last line of "The Gunsliger" books by Stephen King. It is also the first line in the first book.

I gave up on those books after the Badlands or Outlands or whatever it was. With the train. But I loved that line from The Gunslinger. It has been one of my favorites for years.

For me, "The Wolves of Calla" almost did me in. It was the 5th book and I struggled but all the others held my interest.

Edit - It just dawned on me that the original OP was looking for "poems, plays and prose". I am pretty sure my contributiion to this thread is incorrect

"And all men kill the thing they love,
By all let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!"

****

"They bequeathed the whole mystery to their successors and heaved a sigh of relief when they were rid of a business that had puzzled them without amusing them in the least."

****

This one is actually a least favorite closing line because I liked the villian much better than the heroes:

"We want no proofs. We ask none to believe us! This boy will some day know what a brave and gallant woman his mother is. Already he knows her sweetness and loving care. Later on he will understand how some men so loved her, that they did dare much for her sake."

Why? A novel is most certainly prose.

This one's quite famous:

Die Philosophen haben die Welt nur verschieden interpretiert, es kömmt drauf an, sie zu verändern.



At the end of a rather long book, one finds

下痢はとうとうその日も止まらず、汽車に乗ってからもまだ続いていた

(Her diarrhea did not stop that day, but went with her even on the train.)

That's the ending of the Ballad of Reading Gaol.

"O bitter ending! I'll slip away before they're up. They'll never see. Nor know. Nor miss me. And it's old and old it's sad and old it's sad and weary I go back to you, my cold father, my cold mad father, my cold mad feary father, till the near sight of the mere size of him, the moyles and moyles of it, moananoaning, makes me seasilt saltsick and I rush, my only, into your arms. I see them rising! Save me from those therrble prongs! Two more. Onetwo moremens more. So. Avelaval. My leaves have drifted from me. All. But one clings still. I'll bear it on me. To remind me of. Lff! So soft this morning, ours. Yes. Carry me along, taddy, like you done through the toy fair! If I seen him bearing down on me now under whitespread wings like he'd come from Arkangels, I sink I'd die down over his feet, humbly dumbly, only to washup. Yes, tid. There's where. First. We pass through grass behush the bush to. Whish! A gull. Gulls. Far calls. Coming, far! End here. Us then. Finn, again! Take. Bussoftlhee, mememormee! Till thous- endsthee. Lps. The keys to. Given! A way a lone a last a loved a long the "

... and yes I said yes I will Yes

That made my brain hurt, so I guess it must be Finnegan's wake by that Joyce fellow.

Not quite the closing lines, but I love them anyway:



Here's the closing line:



Doubtless all you smart people out there will recognise it at once

----------



----------

That's a wonderful image, I'd love to know where it's from.

That is the final line of the exquisitely tender poem “Somewhere I Have Never Traveled, Gladly Beyond” by the American poet E.E. Cummings.

"Henry! Indy! I know the way, follow me! Yaaah!"

"Once got lost in his own museum, huh?"
"Yeah..."
"Come on, Junior!"
"Junior?"
"Yeah, that's his name! Henry Jones Junior!"
"My name is India--"
"WE CALLED THE DOG INDIANA!"

"You are named...after...THE DOG??? AHahahahahahahahaahaha!!!"

Charlie settled into his chair. He took a sip of rum, put a gentle hand atop his cat's head and said, "Don't fall in love my friend."

La commedia è finita!

(The best rendering of that line I've heard was in a production that had Canio deliver it, instead of Tonio. Talk about ironic.)

My favorite disturbing ending line of any book, very easy to recognize.

"Winston loved Big Brother."

This is fun. here are two of my favorites:

"But his gaze at the foot of the bed relaxed slowly. The hold over himself relaxed too, finally and the next day it was very slack and he cried very easily at little things that were of no importance."

"How green was my Valley, then, and the Valley of them that have gone."

Skyp

1984 - George Orwell!

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Some more last lines:

"Honey!...Uh...you wanna know who really killed JFK?"

"Double-O-Seven! WHAT do you think you're doing?"
"Keeping the British end up, sir."

"Shoot straight, you bastards! Don't make a mess of it!"*

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*Last lines in the film 'Breaker Morant'. Also the last words spoken (Or a variation thereof) by Lieutenant Harry Harboard Morant, minutes before his execution.

Yep! Doesn't it just give you shivers?


Oh, man - this is killing me. I KNOW this, but I can't dredge it up.


Moonraker?

"STOP! STOP! VANDALS! STOP!!!"
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry, I'm sorry! COME ON HONEY! LET'S GO!!"
"STOP!! Vandals!!"

"Honey!...uh...you wanna know who really killed JFK?"

It's the last lines from 'The Rock'. Goodspeed and his girlfriend were just married and Stanley ripped apart one of the church pews to find the microfilm canister that Mason had told him about. He's looking at the film-stills through a loupe (presumably at the assasination of Kennedy) when he says the final line.

Of course!

Apparently the "Winners go home with the prom queen" exchange used up all my quote memory for that movie.

"I'll do my best!"
"your...'best'? Losers always whine about their 'best'. WINNERS go home and **** the prom-queen!"
"Carla was the prom-queen..."
"Oh really?"
"Yeah!"

I loved that bit.

Here are a few off the top of my head:

"氣持ち惡い."

"I'm cold."

Belatedly - thank you!

I've never read any of e.e.cummings' work, but clearly I should.

~Callida

cummings is alternately inspiring, beautiful, disturbing, and confusing. Sometimes a mixture.

Makes me want to dig out my book when I get home.

Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.