书摘:100 Best Last Lines from Novels(3)

100 Best Last Lines from Novels(3) Source: Amercian Book Review 51. So I mean listen I got this neat idea hey, you listening? Hey? You listening…? –William Gaddis, J R (1975) 52. Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody. –J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye (1951) 53. The aircraft rise from the runways of the airport, carrying the remnants of Vaughan’s semen to the instrument panels and radiator grilles of a thousand crashing cars, the stances of a million passengers. –J. G. Ballard, Crash (1973) 54. Whatever we had missed, we possessed together the precious, the incommunicable past. –Willa Cather, My Ántonia (1918) 55. We shall come back, no doubt, to walk down the Row and watch young people on the tennis courts by the clump of mimosas and walk down the beach by the bay, where the diving floats lift gently in the sun, and on out to the pine grove, where the needles thick on the ground will deaden the footfall so that we shall move among the trees as soundlessly as smoke. But that will be a long time from now, and soon now we shall go out of the house and go into the convulsion of the world, out of history into history and the awful responsibility of Time. –Robert Penn Warren, All the King’s Men (1946) 56. He knelt by the bed and bent over her, draining their last moment to its lees; and in the silence there passed between them the word which made all clear. –Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth (1905) 57. “All that is very well,” answered Candide, “but let us cultivate our garden.” –Voltaire, Candide (1759; trans. Robert M. Adams) 58. He was the only person caught in the collapse, and afterward, most of his work was recovered too, and it is still spoken of, when it is noted, with high regard, though seldom played. –William H. Gaddis, The Recognitions (1955) 59. Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead. –James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) 60. One bird said to Billy Pilgrim, “Poo-tee-weet?” –Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) 61. For now she knew what Shalimar knew: If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it. –Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon (1977) 62. I never saw any of them again—except the cops. No way has yet been invented to say goodbye to them. –Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye (1953) 63. The key to the treasure is the treasure. –John Barth, “Dunyazadiad” from Chimera (1972) 64. After a while I went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain. –Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms (1929) 65. This is the difference between this and that. –Gertrude Stein, A Novel of Thank You (1958) 66. But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing. –A. A. Milne, The House at Pooh Corner (1928) 67. “Vaya con Dios, my darklin’, and remember: vote early and vote often, don’t take any wooden nickels, and”—by now I was rolling about helplessly on the spare-room floor, scrunched up around my throbbing pain and bawling like a baby—“always leave ’em laughin’ as you say good-bye!” –Robert Coover, The Public Burning (1977) 68. Then there are more and more endings: the sixth, the 53rd, the 131st, the 9,435th ending, endings going faster and faster, more and more endings, faster and faster until this book is having 186,000 endings per second. –Richard Brautigan, A Confederate General from Big Sur (1964) 69. She sat staring with her eyes shut, into his eyes, and felt as if she had finally got to the beginning of something she couldn’t begin, and she saw him moving farther and farther away, farther and farther into the darkness until he was the pin point of light. –Flannery O’Connor, Wise Blood (1952) 70. He heard the ring of steel against steel as a far door clanged shut. –Richard Wright, Native Son (1940) 71. So that, in the end, there was no end. –Patrick White, The Tree of Man (1955) 72. The old man was dreaming about the lions. –Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea (1952) 73. Somebody threw a dead dog after him down the ravine. –Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano (1947) 74. Tell me how free I am. –Richard Powers, Prisoner’s Dilemma (1988) 75. “We shall never be again as we were!” –Henry James, The Wings of the Dove (1902)