Powerful Closing Lines from Literature

You may have read some of these books or even watched the films, but if you haven’t, here are just some of the most powerful closing words from literature.

"When they finally did dare it, at first with stolen glances then candid ones, they had to smile. They were uncommonly proud. For the first time they had done something out of Love."

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, Patrick Süskind

"Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead."

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce

"An excellent year's progress."

Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding

"'God's in his heaven, all’s right with the world,' whispered Anne softly."

Anne of Green Gables, Lucy Maud Montgomery

"And so we stayed out in the garden of the old house until we couldn’t see to kick a ball, laughing in the gathering twilight, my mother and son, my wife and our daughter, making the most of the good weather and all the days that were left, our little game watched only by next door’s cat, and every star in the heavens."

Man and Wife, Tony Parsons

"Again and again I called out for Midori from the dead centre of this place that was no place."

Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami

"But, in spite of these deficiencies, the wishes, the hopes, the confidence, the predictions of the small band of true friends who witnessed the ceremony, were fully answered in the perfect happiness of the union."

Emma, Jane Austen

"One bird said to Billy Pilgrim, 'Poo-tee-weet?'"

Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut

"Archie, for one, watched the mouse. He watched it stand very still for a second with a smug look as if it exepcted nothing less. He watched it scurry away, over his hand. He watched it dash along the table and through the hands of those who wished to pin it down. He watched it leap off the end and disappear through an air vent. Go on my son! thought Archie."

White Teeth, Zadie Smith

"Might I trouble you then to be ready in half an hour, and we can stop at Marcini’s for a little dinner on the way?"

The Hound of the Baskervilles, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

"My personal rollercoaster. Not so much a rollercoaster - a rollercoaster's too smooth - a yo-yo rather - a jerking, spinning toy in the hands of a maladroit child, more like, trying too hard, too impatiently eager to learn how to operate his new yo-yo."

Any Human Heart, William Boyd

"I wish you all a long and happy life."

The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold

"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."

Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad

"He didn't think about it, he went straight to a seat facing forwards, so that he could see where he was going."

The Outcast, Sadie Jones

"Because it is written that you reap what you sow, and the boy had sown good corn."

Alone in Berlin, Hans Fallada

"She had started to cry softly. Odenigbo took her in his arms."

Half of a Yellow Sun, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

"Light falls through the window, falls onto me, into me. Moments. All gathering towards this one."

Before I Die, Jenny Downham

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