Some closing lines for the Road
"He stayed that way for a long time and when he aroused himself and again looked out of the car window the town of Winesburg had disappeared and his life there had become but a background on which to paint the dreams of his manhood.
Those are the final words from "Depart" in Sherwood Anderson's 1919 book "Winesburg, Ohio." You may have read a column here a few weeks ago about great opening lines in literature. We promised to devote a future column to great last lines. Here's that column.
These last lines-like the first lines printed in the previous column were selected by a fellow named David A Spector, who collected them in an intriguing little book titled "Call Me Ishmael." His premise is that authors take great care in coming up with the opening, and closing, lines of their books. Today, some of those last lines - the lines with which the authors chose to end their stories.
"I put on my dinner-jacket, swallowed a strong whisky, and went
downstairs to begin the evening round." -
Kingsley Amis, "The Green Man" (1969).
"Whether they lived happily ever after is not easily decided." -
C.S. Forester, "The African Queen" (1935)
The old man was dreaming about the lions." -
Ernest Hemingway, "The Old Man and the Sea" (1952).
"He walked towards the faintly humming, glowing town, quickly." -
D.H. Lawrence, "Sons and Lovers" (1913).
"Honey, never you mind . . . .
Larry McMurtry, 'The Last Picture Show" (1966).
"But Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cot-ton-tail had bread and milk and blackberries
for supper." -
Beatrix Potter, 'The Tale of Peter Rabbit" (1900).
"Michael watched her walk, thinking what a pretty gal, what nice legs." -
Irwin Shaw, "The Girls in Their Summer Dresses" (1939).
"Possibly all is for the best." -
E.F. Benson, "The Freaks of Mayfair" (1916).
"He was not of our faith, nor of our skin,' she says, 'but he was a man of
greatness, of an utter devotion."-
William E. Barrett, "The lilies of the Field" (1962).
"Fortunate is he who, with a case so desperate as mine, finds a judge so
merciful." -
Edward Bellamy, "Looking Backward" (1888).
"Therefore he will construct funhouses for others and be their secret
operator - though he would rather be among the lovers for whom funhouses
are designed." -
John Barth, "Lost in the Funhouse" (1967).
"And oh, Aunt Em! I'm so glad to be at home again!"-
L. Frank Baum, "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" (1900).
"The guy we counted on, well, he moved on." -
Edward Abbey, "Black Sun" (1971).
"Then, with the faint, fleeting smile playing around his lips, he faced
the firing squad; erect and motionless, proud and disdainful, Walter Mitty
the Undefeated, inscrutable to the last." -
James Thurber, "'The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" (1939).
"Such are the changes that a few years-bring about, and so do things
pass away, like a tale that is told!" -
Charles Dickens, "The Old Curiosity Shop" (1840).
"And so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly
into the past." -
F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Great Gatsby" (1925).
"He loved Big Brother."
George Orwell, "1984" (1949).
"Cabs and omnibuses hurried to and fro, and crowds passed, hastening
tening in every direction, and the; sun was shining." -
W. Somerset Maugham, "Of Human Bondage" (1915).
"George Apley died in his own house on Beacon Street on the thirteenth
December, 1933, two weeks after John Apley returned to Boston." -
John P. Marquand, "The Late George Apley"(1937).
"And so long as men labored, and other men took and used the fruit of
those who labored, the name of Spartacus would be remembered,
whispered sometimes and shouted loud and clear at other times." -
Howard Fast, "Spartacus" (1951).
"He turned now with a lover's thirsty, to images of tranquil skies, fi'esh
meadows, cool brooks; an existence of soft and eternal peace."
- Stephen Crane, "The Red Badge of Courage" (1895).
"I was back in plenty of time for work." -
Philip Roth, "Goodbye, Columbus" (1959).