closing line

Sometimes we see lists of opening lines, opening sentences. Mostly these are lists containing 'best' openings. But there are many shades: memorable, indifferent, button-holing ("boy-have-i-got-a-story-for-you" --not the same as memorable); or, perhaps, let's at least see what the next line says. Sometimes these lists are meant to encourage artistic, sometimes commercial, qualities. And I don't recall seeing a list of last lines. Of course these are not teasers: We can be leery of spoilers...but I wonder how much damage it can do to disclose, provided neither the climax nor fallout/denouement are revealed.

Closing lines:

THE SUN ALSO RISES: "Yes," I said. "Isn't it pretty to think so?"

A SWIFTLY TILTING PLANET: In this fateful hour, it was herself she placed between us and the powers of darkness:

(not a spoiler for its relation is purely repeated talismanic.)

NIGHT OPERATION: . . .is a tale that cannot be told for the sufficient reason that it is not yet known.

(second-to-the-last phrase that)

EAGER SPRING: Much less did he have any inkling of a truth it is now fitting to disclose:

FREDDY'S BOOK: There was no light anywhere, except for the yellow light of cities.

Wharton's THE HOUSE OF MIRTH: . . . and in the silence there passed between them the word which made all clear.

MOBY DICK: It was the devious-cruising 'Rachel', that, in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan.

Ralph Ellison’s INVISIBLE MAN: Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?

Lewis Jenkins’ Diary of a Robot: “He thrust them at the attorney and said," Get to work.”

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, 1818 edition: He was soon borne away by the waves, and lost in darkness and distance.

S. Dorman's Gott’im’s Monster 1808: My mother was waiting; and all that needs doing on a farm in spring.