His Last Bow Quotes & Sayings

Good night," I whisper to the bow in my hand and feel it go still. I raise my left arm and twist my neck down to rip off the pill on my sleeve. Instead my teeth sink into flesh. I yank my head back in confusion to find myself looking into Peeta's eyes, only now they hold my gaze. Blood runs from the teeth marks on the hand he clamped over my nightlock. "Let me go!" I snarl at him, trying to wrest my arm from his grasp. "I can't," he says. As they pull me away from him, I feel the pocket ripped from my sleeve, see the deep violet pill fall to the ground, watch Cinna's last gift get crunched under a guard's boot. — Suzanne Collins

Death, thy servant, is at my door. He has crossed the unknown sea and brought thy call to my home.

The night is dark and my heart is fearful---yet I will take up the lamp, open my gates and bow to him my welcome. It is thy messenger who stands at my door.

I will worship him placing at his feet the treasure of my heart.

He will go back with his errand done, leaving a dark shadow on my morning; and in my desolate home only my forlorn self will remain as my last offering to thee. — Rabindranath Tagore

Otrera, we meet at last,' he said. 'Dang, girl, you're fine.' Otrera's knees shook. It's not every day you meet one of your favourite gods. But she didn't bow or kneel. She was done bowing to men, even Ares. Also, — Rick Riordan

There was a land of Cavaliers and Cotton Fields called the Old South. Here in this pretty world, Gallantry took its last bow. Here was the last ever to be seen of Knights and their Ladies Fair, of Master and of Slave. Look for it only in books, for it is no more than a dream remembered, a Civilization gone with the wind ... — Ben Hecht

Finally Bill Mixter would lower his head, lay his bow upon the strings, and draw out the first notes of a tune, and the others would come in behind him. The music, while it lasted, brought a new world into being. They would play some tunes they had learned on the radio, but their knowledge was far older than that and they played too the music that was native to the place, or that the people of the place were native to. Just the names of the tunes were a kind of music; they cal l back the music to my mind still, after so many years: "Sand Riffle," "Last Gold Dollar," "Billy in the Low Ground," "Gate to Go Through," and a lot of others. "A fiddle, now, is an atmospheric thing," said Burley Coulter. The music was another element filling the room and pouring out through the cracks. When at last they'd had their fill and had gone away, the shop felt empty, the silence larger than before. — Wendell Berry

Experience supplies painful proof that traditions once called into being are first called useful, then they become necessary. At last they are too often made idols, and all must bow down to them or be punished. — J.C. Ryle

Old Year! upon the Stage of Time You stand to bow your last adieu; A moment, and the prompter's chime Will ring the curtain down on you. — Robert W. Service

=The Burial of Love= His eyes in eclipse, Pale cold his lips, The light of his hopes unfed, Mute his tongue, His bow unstrung With the tears he hath shed, Backward drooping his graceful head. Love is dead; His last arrow sped; He hath not another dart; Go--carry him to his dark deathbed; Bury him in the cold, cold heart-- Love is dead. — Alfred Tennyson

She calls me 'bird boy' and Hawkeye every time she gets a chance. Last year she bought me a bow and arrow for my birthday and told me it was for when the Avengers were called into action. — Lila Felix

He had really a movement of anger against her at that moment, and it impelled him to go away without pause. It was all one flash to Dorothea - his last words - his distant bow to her as he reached the door - the sense that he was no longer there. She sank into the chair, and for a few moments sat like a statue, while images and emotions were hurrying upon her. Joy came first, in spite of the threatening train behind it - joy in the impression that it was really herself whom Will loved and was renouncing, that there was really no other love less permissible, more blameworthy, which honor was hurrying him away from. They were parted all the same, but - Dorothea drew a deep breath and felt her strength return - she could think of him unrestrainedly. At that moment the parting was easy to bear: the first sense of loving and being loved excluded sorrow. It was as if some hard icy pressure had melted, — George Eliot

Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now;
Now, while the world is bent my deeds to cross,
Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,
And do not drop in for an after-loss:
Ah, do not, when my heart hath 'scoped this sorrow,
Come in the rearward of a conquer'd woe;
Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,
To linger out a purposed overthrow.
If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,
When other petty griefs have done their spite
But in the onset come; so shall I taste
At first the very worst of fortune's might,
And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,
Compared with loss of thee will not seem so. — William Shakespeare

I have got my leave. Bid me farewell, my brothers! I bow to you all and take my departure.

Here I give back the keys of my door---and I give up all claims to my house. I only ask for last kind words from you.

We were neighbours for long, but I received more than I could give. Now the day has dawned and the lamp that lit my dark corner is out. A summons has come and I am ready for my journey. — Rabindranath Tagore

Venus of Eryx, from her mountain throne,
Saw Hades and clasped her swift-winged son, and said:
'Cupid, my child, my warrior, my power,
Take those sure shafts with which you conquer all,
And shoot your speedy arrows to the heart
Of the great god to whom the last lot fell
When the three realms were drawn. Your mastery
Subdues the gods of heaven and even Jove,
Subdues the ocean's deities and him,
Even him, who rules the ocean's deities.
Why should Hell lag behind? Why not there too
Extend your mother's empire and your own ... ?
Then Cupid, guided by his mother, opened
His quiver of all his thousand arrows
Selected one, the sharpest and the surest,
The arrow most obedient to the bow,
And bent the pliant horn against his knee
And shot the barbed shaft deep in Pluto's heart. — Ovid

I cannot at the moment recall any possible blunder which you have omitted. From His Last Bow — Arthur Conan Doyle

[Jesus] is, at the moment, present with us, but hidden behind that invisible veil which keeps heaven and earth apart, and which we pierce in those moments, such as prayer, the sacraments, the reading of scripture, and our work with the poor, when the veil seems particularly thin. But one day the veil will be lifted; earth and heaven will be one; Jesus will be personally present, and every knee shall bow at his name; creation will be renewed; the dead will be raised; and God's new world will at last be in place, full of new prospects and possibilities. — N. T. Wright

My death..I mean..will it be quick,and with dignity? How will i know when the end is coming?"
"When you vomit blood,sir," Tao Chi'en said sadly.
That happened three weeks later,in the middle of Pacific,in the privacy of the captain's cabin. As soon as he could stand , the old seaman cleaned up the traces of his vomit, rinsed out his mouth , changed his bloody shirt, lighted his pipe, and went to the bow of his ship , where he stood and looked for the last time at the stars winking in a sky of black velvet. Several sailors saw him and waited at a distance, caps in hands. When he had smoked the last of his tobacco, Captain John Sommers put his legs over the rail and noiselessly dropped into the sea.
-Portrait in Sepia by Isabel Allende. — Isabel Allende

You, Mr. Bernard,". "Last time I checked they don't pay you to ogle teenage girls. They pay
you to teach. So start teaching."
Mr. Bernard jumps in his chair, clears his throat, and hurriedly goes to the whiteboard and starts writing equations. I salute Jack as I bow out the door.
"Have a great day, Jackoff."
"Try not to get molested, cow," He snaps. — Sara Wolf

I was so happy with my bow ties from the last kickstarted project that I'm back for more. — Mike Mills

Last night I swallowed froth
and its vulnerabilities within a populous coast.
I swallowed it like I was brought
forth from a deep agony.
And you were the host.
They say the sleep returns us to the senses,
I slept all the while fiddling with the pretenses
that I don't see you; that I won't see you.
I must have been a fool over the utterance of "who"
Last night I took a bow,
I must have been in love. — Ashfaq Saraf

It was pitch dark. I could hear only the violin, and it was as though Juliek's soul were the bow. He was playing his life. The whole of his life was gliding on the strings
his last hopes, his charred past, his extinguished future. He played as he would never play again ... When I awoke, in the daylight, I could see Juliek, opposite me, slumped over, dead. Near him lay his violin, smashed, trampled, a strange overwhelming little corpse. — Elie Wiesel

But what made it bearable were the friendships, of course, the camaraderie and the music and the Shakespeare, the moments of transcendent beauty and joy when it didn't matter who'd used the last of the rosin on their bow or who anyone had slept with, although someone - probably Sayid - had written "Sartre: Hell is other people" in pen inside one of the caravans, and someone else had scratched out "other people" and substituted "flutes." People — Emily St. John Mandel

I returned from Boston and rallied my fellow librarians to defend the town," Quinn replied, as if the answer should have been obvious. He offered me a small bow from his seat. "The librarians are at your disposal, Widdershins. We will fight to the last man. — Jordan L. Hawk

I couldn't help wondering where porpoises had learned this game of running on the bows of ships. Porpoises have been swimming in the oceans for seven to ten million years, but they've had human ships to play with for only the last few thousand. Yet nearly all porpoises, in every ocean, catch rides for fun from passing ships; and they were doing it on the bows of Greek triremes and prehistoric Tahitian canoes, as soon as those seacraft appeared. What did they do for fun before ships were invented?
Ken Norris made a field observation one day that suggests the answer. He saw a humpback whale hurrying along the coast of the island of Hawaii, unavoidably making a wave in front of itself; playing in that bow wave was a flock of bottlenose porpoises. The whale didn't seem to be enjoying it much: Ken said it looked like a horse being bothered by flies around its head; however, there was nothing much the whale could do about it, and the porpoises were having a fun time. — Karen Pryor

Instead he was summoning his last tension, like a bowman drawing the cord of a hunting bow an extra inch to give the arrow deadly force, then Steapa howled like an animal and charged. Weland charged too and they met like stags in the rutting season. The Danes and Norsemen had crowded around, making a circle that was limited by the spears of Sigefrid's bodyguard, and the watching warriors gave — Bernard Cornwell

Your shadow is bought and paid for, and your death will not remit that payment. You can go shadowless into the shadowless world, and your death will only be one last dark thing on my long dark road. It will hurt me but I do not care. It is all but over. — Erin Bow

Had you accepted that third counsel of the mighty spirit, you would have furnished all that man seeks on earth, that is: someone to bow down to, someone to take over his conscience, and a means for uniting everyone at last into a common, concordant, and incontestable anthill - for the need for universal union is the third and last torment of men. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Let it not be death but completeness. Let love melt into memory and pain into songs. Let the flight through the sky end in the folding of the wings over the nest. Let the last touch of your hands be gentle like the flower of the night. Stand still, O Beautiful End, for a moment, and say your last words in silence. I bow to you and hold up my lamp to light you on your way. — Rabindranath Tagore

Dieter walked a little ahead of the other actors, murmuring to his favourite horse. The horse, Bernstein, was missing half his tail, because the first cello had just restrung his bow last week. — Emily St. John Mandel

How do you greet a god? If there's an etiquette guide for that, I haven't read it. I'm never sure if I'm supposed to shake hands, kneel, or bow and shout, "We're not worthy!" I knew Hermes better than most of the Olympians. Over the years, he'd helped me out several times. Unfortunately last summer I'd also fought his demigod son Luke, who'd been corrupted by the Titan Kronos, in a mortal combat smack-down for the fate of the world. Luke's death hadn't been entirely my fault, but it still put a damper on my relationship with Hermes. I decided to start simple. "Hi. — Rick Riordan

Perhaps it was Lord Darion," Rolfe said at last, and Emma sagged with relief.
"Lord Darion?" Blake stared at him in confusion. "I have not heard of him. Does he have a keep around here?"
Emma glanced over her shoulder to see her cousin shake his head. There was a sparkle of mischief in his eyes as he met hers. "Nay.Darion is a spirit of the woods.And a defender of the weak. He has been known to protect unwary travelers who are set upon ... always with a bow and arrow."
"Have you seen this Darion?"
"Oh,aye.Lord Darion saved my life a time or two.The first time I was a mere boy. — Lynsay Sands

The self must be a tense bow. It must struggle with opposites rather than harmonize them, rather than turn the tension over to the great instruments of last manhood the skilled bow unbenders and Jesuits of our days, the psychiatrists, who, in the same spirit and as part of the same conspiracy of modernity as the peace virtuosos, reduce conflict. — Allan Bloom

Yes!
still I love thee: Time, who sets
His signet on my brow,
And dims my sunken eye, forgets,
The heart he could not bow;
Where love, that cannot perish, grows
For one, Alas! that little knows
How love may sometimes last;
Like sunshine wasting in the skies
When clouds are overcast. — Rufus Dawes

The people would stop and look up to read the inscription across the underside of her bow:
"Hell hath no fury like a woman seeking vengeance! She will not forget..."
The same was written in Shiraz across the upper side, a message that hopefully will be the last that any Shiraz would ever see that crossed my path. — Deandra Stephanos

Other women bow their heads and suffer in silence. They go on living, mortally wounded but resigned, weeping often but with no desire to strike back against the person who has injured them, praying for him and cherishing their memories until their last breath. That is love, true love, the love the angels know ... — Honore De Balzac

All our moments are last moments. We abide in the forever leaving of our own coming? We can put our hands together, palm to palm, settling here on the last leaf of our brief flight, and bow to the wonder of it. — Jens Jensen

I was the guy literally in the chess club who decided to wear a bow tie for the last two years of high school, so I obviously wasn't trying to get the ladies. — Dallas Roberts

Bowing is a very serious practice. You should be prepared to bow, even in your last moment. even though it is impossible to get rid of our self-centered desires, we have to do it. Our true nature wants us to. — Shunryu Suzuki

You have no idea about presents or what they mean. The last
present you gave me was a stick."
"You wanted a weapon."
"It was a stick."
"It had a bow on it."
"It was a stick."
"I thought you liked the stick. You laughed. — Derek Landy

Nimander wondered if he had discovered the face of the one true god. Naught else but time, this ever changing and yet changeless tyrant against whom no creature could win. Before whom even trees, stone and air must one day bow. There would be a last dawn, a last sunset, each kneeling in final surrender. Yes, time was indeed god, playing the same games with lowly insects as it did with mountains and the fools who would carve fastnesses into them. At peace with every scale, pleased by the rapid patter of a rat's heart and the slow sighing of devouring wind against stone. Content with a star's burgeoning light and the swift death of a raindrop on a desert floor. — Steven Erikson

M. At this moment, when each of us must fit an arrow to his bow and enter the lists anew, to
reconquer, within history and in spite of it, that which he owns already, the thin yield of his fields, the
brief love of this earth, at this moment when at last a man is born, it is time to forsake our age and its
adolescent furies. The bow bends; the wood complains. At the moment of supreme tension, there will leap
into flight an unswerving arrow, a shaft that is inflexible and free. — Albert Camus

He was not at the moment in very good odour at Bow Street. Such epithets as Blockhead and Blunderer had been used in connection with his last case. 'Jeremiah Stubbs, miss,' said the Runner. 'I am here in the execution of my dooty. — Georgette Heyer

When your bow is broken and your last arrow spent, then shoot, shoot
with your whole heart. — Roger Zelazny

It throbbed and pulsed, channeled by elemental forces of fear, love, hope, and sadness. The bow stabbed and flitted across the strings in a violent whorl of creation; its hairs tore and split until it seemed the last strands would sever in a scrape of dissonance. Those who saw the last fragile remnants held their breath against the breaking. The music rippled across the ship like a spirit, like a thing alive and eldritch and pregnant with mystery. The song held. More than held, it deepened. It groaned. It resounded in the hollows of those who heard. Then it softened into tones long, slow, and patient and reminded men of the faintest stars trembling dimly in defiance of a ravening dark. At the last, when the golden hairs of the bow had given all the sound they knew, the music fled in a whisper. Fin was both emptied and filled, and the song sighed away on the wind. — A.S. Peterson

Imagine the spirit as a mansion. You'll guess we don't use many rooms. Apart from a few moments in childhood we don't dance around it in sunlight. But there's a traffic of things in and out, and what happens is that unwanted bulks can gather inside. Gather and gather, menacing us. Unable to shift them, we hide in ever-smaller spaces. And in our last hole, life offers a choice: to play out our demise in parallel theatres - psychosis, zealotry, religion, cancer, addiction - or to bow quietly out. But beware: life doesn't ask these high questions when we're confident and fresh - it waits for hopelessness. — D.B.C. Pierre

Broken things are powerful.Things about to break are stronger still.The last shot from the brittle bow is truest. — Eugene McCarthy

And Yarvi realized that Death does not bow to each person who passes her, does not sweep out her arm respectfully to show the way, speaks no profound words, unlocks no bolts. The key upon her chest is never needed, for the Last Door stands always open. She herds the dead through impatiently, needles of rank or fame or quality. She has an ever-lengthening queue to get through. A blind procession, inexhaustible. — Joe Abercrombie

I spent uncounted hours sitting at the bow looking at the water and the sky, studying each wave, different from the last, seeing how it caught the light, the air, the wind; watching patterns, the sweep of it all, and letting it take me.
The sea. — Gary Paulsen