The Last Lines of the Semester
As we draw toward the end of another Fall Semester here at FSU- some of us our first, some of us our last- it comes time to relish endings. We did it. We made it through our classes with only finals and reviews left, which may or may not be the hardest part. As we approach Thanksgiving break, we also approach a mixture of feelings: excitement, hope, relief, and in the cases of those of us with hard finals or iffy feelings, panic. In celebration of our almost-end, I’ve compiled a list of the best last lines of books (perhaps prematurely) to remind us that no matter how this small part of our lives ends, it still leads to new beginnings we haven’t imagined yet. Here’s to upcoming Spring Semesters and lost Fall Semesters, Thanksgiving Breaks and Winter Breaks, football games past and basketball games to come, ends and beginnings. Here’s to an almost new year and an almost-made-it-home-again. Here’s to another semester at our favorite college, and here’s to daydreaming about Thanksgiving for the next three days.
1) “Yes,” I said. “And isn’t it pretty to think so?” – Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
2) ”The knife came down, missing him by inches, and he took off.” – Joseph Heller, Catch-22
3) ”He was soon borne away by the waves and lost in darkness and distance.” – Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
4) ” This is not the scene I dreamed of. Like much else nowadays I leave it feeling stupid, like a man who lost his way long ago but presses on along a road that may lead nowhere.” –J. M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians
5) ”So I mean listen I got this neat idea hey, you listening? Hey? You listening…?” –William Gaddis, J R
6) ”Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.” –J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
7) ”Whatever we had missed, we possessed together the precious, the incommunicable past.” –Willa Cather, My Ántonia
8) ”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
9) “So that, in the end, there was no end.” –Patrick White, The Tree of Man
10) “We shall never be again as we were!” –Henry James, The Wings of the Dove
11) “A sound of clicking heels on the pavement punctured the quiet. Alex snapped open his eyes, and he and Bennie both turned—whirled, really, peering for Sasha in the ashy dark. But it was another girl, young and new to the city, fiddling with her keys.” – Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad
12) “She was seventy-five and she was going to make some changes in her life.” – Jonathan Franzen The Corrections
Congratulations, good luck, and take another study break. You’ve almost made it, and we’re all proud. Maybe read one of these books, or just listen to Adele’s new songs. Either way, enjoy your vacation.