Po-tee-weet!"Po-tee-weet!" is the last line of Slaughterhouse Five.The last scene in Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men made me cry. I loved the last paragraph of Murakami's Norwegian Wood because it is full of the adrenaline rush of anticipated reciprocal love and would quote it if I had the book.

great concept, JamelahMy favorite short story ends - "All this was going on in Josh's head, with the click of a different gadget to signal each thought." That's Bill Ectric's "The Little Robot." Another great ending is Don Eminizer's book "Midnight in America." I won't give it away since the book is due out in September. But I suggest everybody grab a copy when it's available.Kerouac's 'Town and the City' was very emotional for me. The last few pages I could barely read through the tears.

186,000 endings per secondThen there are more and more endings: the sixth, the 53rd, the 131st, the 9,435th ending, endings going faster and faster until the book is having 186,000 endings per second. Richard Brautigan "A Confederate General from Big Sur"

I immediately thought of this"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms further...and one fine morning--So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."The Great GatsbyF. Scott Fitzgerald

and by the way, that On the Road ending, "So in America when the sun goes down..." is one of my all-time favorite endings, too. If you've never heard the recording of Kerouac actually reading that...well, you just have to hear it.

ishmael afloatGreat examples so far. And, well, this just proves that Herman Melville is the master of endings because I didn't have to hesitate for one second to nominate the finale of "Moby Dick" as my favorite ending ..."Round and round, then, and ever contracting towards the button-like black bubble at the axis of that slowly wheeling circle, like another Ixion I did revolve. Till, gaining that vital centre, the black bubble upward burst; and now, liberated by reason of its cunning spring, and, owing to its great buoyancy, rising with great force, the coffin life-buoy shot lengthwise from the sea, fell over, and floated by my side. Buoyed up by that coffin, for almost one whole day and night, I floated on a soft and dirgelike main. The unharming sharks, they glided by as if with padlocks on their mouths; the savage sea-hawks sailed with sheathed beaks. On the second day, a sail drew near, nearer, and picked me up at last. It was the devious-cruising Rachel, that in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan."

I love karaoke.Ok lit fans it's up to you to find whom wrote each!' I passed the Grotto again and saw the cross on the top of that hump of rocks, saw some old French Canadian ladies praying step by step on their knees. I found another rose, and put another rose in my hair, and went home. By God'This is the day, which down the void abysmAt the Earth-born's spell yawns for Heaven's despotism, And Conguest is dragged captive through the deep:Love, from its awful throne of patient powerIn the wise heart, from the last giddy hour Of dread endurance, from the slippery, steep,And narrow verge of crag-like agony, springsAnd folds over the world its healing wings.Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, and Endurance,These are the seals of that most firm assurance Which bars the pit over Destruction's strength;And if, with infirm hand, Eternity,Mother of many acts and hours, should free The serpent that would clasp her with his length;These are the spells by which to reassumeAn empire o'er the disentangled doom.To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite;To forgive wrongs darker than death or night; To defy Power, which seems omnipotent;To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates From his own wreck the thing it contemplates; Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent;This, like thy glory, Titan, is to beGood, great and joyous, beautiful and free;This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory. And now it's late, close to the wolfing hour of soul-lack.But she knows, lying curled here, behind him, in the darkness Of this small room, with the somehow liquid background sounds of Paris, that hers has returned, reeled entirely in on its silver thread and warmly socketed. She kisses his sleeping back and falls asleep.Most of the big shore places were closed now and there were hardly any lights except the shadowy, moving glow of a ferryboat across the Sound. And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors' eyes-a fresh, green breast of the new world. It's vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby's house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder. And as I sat there, brooding on the old unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it.He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night. Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter -- tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. And one fine morning ---- So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.I might go to Canada eventually, but I think I'll stop along the Columbia on the way. I'd like to check around Portland and hood River and The Dallas to see if there's any of the guys I used to know back in the village who haven't drunk themselves goofy. I'd like to see what they've been doing since the government tried to buy their right to be Indians. I've even heard that some of the tribe have took to building their old ramshackle wood scaffolding all over that big million-dollar hydroelectric dam, and are spearing salmon in the spillway. I'd give something to see that. Mostly, I'd just like to look over the country around the gorge again, just to bring some of it clear in my mind again.I been away a long time.The Seven Secret Sayings of God1)Before the beginining when God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form, and void: and darkness was upon the face of the deep, God said I AM THAT. And it is so.2) Also, being in eternity which is neither linear nor sequential, where all is nowever, God said, YOU MUST DRAW THE LINE SOMEWHERE. And it was drawn.3) But it was no dreary straight line or flat wall, for God then said, HAVE A BALL..And there was a ball, in the image whereof all stars and planets came to be formed.4) Thereupon God said, THERE ARE TWO SIDES TO EVERYTHING. And there are: the inside and the outside, the dense and the spacious, the right and the wrong, the left and the taken, for, as it is written, One shall be taken, and the other left.5) And God said, IT MUST BE IN TIME.And thereafter it was, is, and will be, for as it is written again, As it was in the beginning is now, and ever shall be, through all ages of ages. Amen.6) And forthwith God said, SPACE IT OUT.Where upon it came to pass that, beside this and that and now and then, there is also here and there.7) And God beheld how firm a foundation this was and said unto himself, GET LOST.And there you are. Gen. 1.1-2Ps. 33.6Acts. 14.15 Ex. 3.14Jno. 8.58 Mat. 24.40-41 Lit.St. JohnChrys. Hymn 564.

You've been through allof F. Scott Fitzgerald's books.But this is the part that stayed with you:"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter -- tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. ... And one fine morning ---- So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

Billectric --Totally missed yours and posted this one myself -- yes, this screamed to me, as well!

Most ominousGeorge Orwell, 1984:"He loved Big Brother."

Fucking Beautiful!

it's so obviousI didn't even have to think about this one:"...and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes."-UlyssesAlthough, now that I AM thinking about it, the "I been away a long time" ending from "Cuckoo's Nest" (listed above by bluefire) is an absolute killer. Also killer, for that matter, are the last few pages of "Underworld." After thinking about it, maybe "Ulysses" isn't so obvious. But I still stand behind it. I actually cried the first time I read it, and I'm not one to cry at anything, generally.BEST. ENDING. EVER.

Farewell to 'Farewell...'"But after I had got them out and shut the door and turned off the light it wasn't any good. It was like saying good-by to a statue. After awhile I went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain." I'm usually pretty lukewarm when it comes to Hemingway, but I've always admired his ability to withhold a seemingly unremarkable detail until just the right moment, then unleashing it with devastating effect.I'll never forget the image of the main character walking alone in the rain at the end of "A Farewell to Arms." Picture pefect.

A FewThe last line of The Tunnel: "Or lay my mind down by sorrow's side." And The Recognitions: "He was the only person caught in the collapse, and afterward, most of his work was recovered too, and it is still spoke of, when it is noted, with high regard, though seldom played." And the long last line of The Death of Virgil. And The Last Novel's: "Als ick can."