Famous Last Words

“Yaroo!” I shouted, and I didn’t give a beetle’s bottom who heard me.

“Yaroo!”

(Last words of the novel:  “I Am Half-Sick of Shadows” by Alan Bradley).

Oh, how I love that man, er, writer!

As it’s nearly the end of the year, I decided to look up a few of the last lines of some of my favorite books.  We always hear how important first lines can be, but I don’t often hear writers praised for how they end their books.  So, I did a little digging.  I learned one thing:  great writers care about every word.  I think they end their books perfectly.  Here are a few of my favorite last words:

·         “All was well.”

(Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J.K. Rowling)

 

·         “With the Gardiners, they were always on the most intimate terms. Darcy, as well as Elizabeth, really loved them; and they were both ever sensible of the warmest gratitude towards the persons who, by bringing her into Derbyshire, had been the means of uniting them.”

(Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen)

 

·         “But there are much worse games to play.”

(Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins)

 

·         “But they never learned what it was that Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which had to do, for there was a gust of wind, and they were gone.”

(A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L’Engle)

 

·         "I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths fluttering among the heath and hare-bells; listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass; and wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth."

(Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte.)            

 

·         "He drew a deep breath. 'Well, I'm back,' he said."  (Sam Gamgee speaking).

(The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkein)

 

·         “He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning.”

(To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee)

 

·         “Oh my girls, however long you may live, I can never wish you greater happiness than this!”

(Little Women, by Louise May Alcott)

 

I’d love to hear some of your favorite last lines!  And, by the way, Merry Christmas!never can wish you a greater happiness than this!