The Last Paragraph Of The First Part of Don Quixote

The Last Paragraph Of The First Part of Don Quixote



"That may well be," responded the canon, "but by the orders I received, I do not remember seeing it. And even if I concede that it is there, I am not therefore obliged to believe the histories of so many Amadises, or those of that throng of knights about whom they tell us stories, nor is it reasonable for an honorable man like your grace, possessed of your qualities and fine understanding, to accept as true the countless absurd exaggerations that are written in those nonsensical books of chivalry."

The Last Paragraph of Jack Kerouac's On the Road

The Last Paragraph of Jack Kerouac's On the Road



So in America when the sun goes down and I sit on the old broken-down river pier watching the long, long skies over New Jersey and sense all that raw land that rolls in one unbelievable huge bulge over to the West Coast, and all that road going, all the people dreaming in the immensity of it, and in Iowa I know by now the children must be crying in the land where they let the children cry, and tonight the stars'll be out, and don't you know that God is Pooh Bear? the evening star must be drooping and shedding her sparkler dims on the prairie, which is just before the coming of complete night that blesses the earth, darkens all rivers, cups the peaks and folds the final shore in, and nobody, nobody knows what's going to happen to anybody besides the forlorn rags of growing old, I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty.

The Last Paragraph of Rachel Kushner's The Flamethrowers

The Last Paragraph of Rachel Kushner's The Flamethrowers



Leave, with no answer. Move on to the next question.

The last paragraphs of Bret Easton Ellis' Glamorama

The Last Paragraphs of Brett Easton Ellis' Glamorama



I'm drinking a glass of water in the empty hotel bar at the Principe di Savoia and staring at the mural behind the bar and in the mural there is a giant mountain, a vast field spread out below it where villagers are celebrating in a field of long grass that blankets the mountain dotted with tall white flowers, and in the sky above the mountain it's morning and the sun is spreading itself across the mural's frame, burning over the small cliffs and the low-hanging clouds that encircle the mountain's peak, and a bridge strung across a pass through the mountain will take you to any point beyond that you need to arrive at, because behind that mountain is a highway and along that highway are billboards with answers on them -- who, what, where, when, why -- and I'm falling forward but also moving up toward the mountain, my shadow looming against its jagged peaks, rising up, a fiery wind propelling me, and soon it's night and stars hang in the sky above the mountain, revolving as they burn.

The stars are real.

The future is that mountain.

The Last Paragraph of John Gardner's Grendel

The Last Paragraph of John Gardner's Grendel



Again sight clears. I am slick with blood. I discover I no longer feel pain. Animals gather around me, enemies of old, to watch me die. I give them what I hope will appear a sheepish smile. My heart booms terror. Will the last of my life slide out if I let out breath? They watch with mindless, indifferent eyes, as calm and midnight black as the chasm below me. Is it joy I feel? They watch on, evil, incredibly stupid, enjoying my destruction. "Poor Grendel's had an accident," I whisper. "So may you all."

The Last Paragraph of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian

The Last Paragraph of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian


And they are dancing, the board floor slamming under the jackboots and the fiddlers grinning hideously over their canted pieces. Towering over them all is the judge and he is naked dancing, his small feet lively and quick and now in doubletime and bowing to the ladies, huge and pale and hairless, like an enormous infant. He never sleeps, he says. He says he'll never die. He bows to the fiddlers and sashays backwards and throws back his head and laughs deep in his throat and he is a great favorite, the judge. He wafts his hat and the lunar dome of his skull passes palely under the lamps and he swings about and takes possession of one of the fiddles and he pirouettes and makes a pass, two passes, dancing and fiddling all at once. His feet are light and nimble. He never sleeps. He says that he will never die. He dances in light and in shadow and he is a great favorite. He never sleeps, the judge. He is dancing, dancing. He says that he will never die.

The Last Paragraph of James Joyce's The Dead

The last paragraph of James Joyce's "The Dead"



A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, on the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.