Last Sentence Quotes & Sayings

The first two sentences are hard to understand, but make some kind of sense. The last sentence is merely rearranged but makes no natural sense at all. (This is all assuming it makes some sort of sense for an old lady to be swallowing cats in the first place, which is patently absurd, but it turns out she swallowed a goat too, not to mention a horse, so we'll let the cat pass without additional comment.) — Tom Stafford

The last sentence in a piece is another adventure. It should open the piece up. — Joan Didion

The comedy gods are smiling on me tonight, because for the longest time, I have said that president Bush must set a timetable for removing his head from his ass ... and, by god, last week they went in and looked for it. They didn't find it, so now we don't know where it is, but at least for once in my life, I get to see the words Bush, operation, and successful in the same sentence. — Bill Maher

As I walked up toward the band kids, Ben shouted, 'Jacobsen, was I dreaming or did you-' I gave him the slightest shake of my head and he changed gears mid sentence- 'and me go on a wild adventure to French Polynesia last night, traveling in a sailboat made of bananas?'
'That was one delicious sailboat,' I answered. — John Green

The longer I live, the more necessary it seems to me to endure, to copy the whole dictation of existence to the end, for it might be that only the last sentence contains that small, perhaps inconspicuous word through which all laboriously learned and not understood orients itself toward glorious sense. — Rainer Maria Rilke

Maybe civilization will collapse, we'll all succumb to disease and famine, and the last of us will be eaten by cats. Maybe we'll all be killed by nanobots hours after you read this sentence. There's no way to know. — Randall Munroe

So you and Bridget spent the better part of last night and early morning texting each other questionable messages?" Mom asked.
"I think it's called 'sexting,'" said Dad. It was the worst sentence uttered in the history of my life. — Sarah Skilton

It's not the length but the quality of life that matters to me. It has always been important to me to write one sentence at a time, to live every day as if it were my last and judge it in those terms, often badly, not because it lacked grand gesture or grand passion but because it failed in the daily virtues of self-discipline, kindness, and laughter. It is love, very ordinary, human love, and not fear, which is the good teacher and the wisest judge. — Jane Rule

No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. — H.G.Wells

I wrote the last sentence of The Patron Saint of Liars in early April and stumbled out of my apartment and into the beautiful spring feeling panicked and amazed. There is no single experience in my life as a writer to match that moment, the blue of the sky and the breeze drifting in from the bay. I had done the thing I had always wanted to do: I had written a book, all the way to the end. Even if it proved to be terrible, it was mine. — Ann Patchett

I don't begin a novel until I have written, not just the last sentence, but usually, as a result thereof, many of the surrounding final paragraphs, so that in addition to knowing what happens, I know what the voice is. — John Irving

Phoebe was thinking, Insubordinate. What a lovely word. And when was the last time she'd heard a nice-looking young man use it? Why-never, that's when. What a treat. And to have a ruler who could say conscientious and citizenry in the same sentence. Lovely. — Jean Ferris

And, in the warm silence, in the peaceful solitude of the study, Clotilde smiled down at the baby who was still sucking - his little arm in the air, pointing upwards, a symbol of hope and life. — Emile Zola

It pleases him how Spell is how the word is made but also, in the hands of the magician, how the world is changed. One letter separates Word from World, and that letter is like the number one, or an 'I', or a shaft of light between almost closed curtains. There is an old letter called a thorn, which jags and tears at the throat as it's uttered. Later he learns that Grammar and Glamour share the same deeper root, which is further magic, and there can be neither magic without that root, nor plant. He's lost in it like Chid in Child, or God reversed into Dog. Somewhere inside him is a colon. A sentence can last for life. — Charles Lambert

Look up," the darkness whispered,
"Do you wish to travel time?
For there are centuries of stories
Hidden inside each star's shine.
Yet what you see is just a sentence
In a tale with many more,
For the light reaching us now
Left the home countless years before.
And someday in the future
Long after your last goodbye,
Perhaps somebody else
Will turn their eyes upto the sky.
And where now you just see darkness
They will see a brand new light,
The beginning of a story
That has just left home tonight. — Emily Hanson

She could give herself up to the written word as naturally as a good dancer to music or a fine swimmer to water. The only difficulty was that after finishing the last sentence she was left with a feeling at once hollow and uncomfortably full. Exactly like indigestion. — Jean Rhys

Censorship is saying: 'I'm the one who says the last sentence. Whatever you say, the conclusion is mine.' But the internet is like a tree that is growing. The people will always have the last word - even if someone has a very weak, quiet voice. Such power will collapse because of a whisper. — Ai Weiwei

You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children's children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done. — Ronald Reagan

This may be impossible for you to believe," Colt said in a hushed voice, "but as recently as last year, I was a hyper, naive-albeit extremely good-looking-minor myself."
"And now you're a persistent, outdoorsy, unshaven man-boy who cavorts with clones of your former self?"
Colt plucked a round stone out of the water. "I prefer boy-man, but the rest of the sentence sounded fairly accurate. — Karsten Knight

Someone, he thought rather crossly, ought to see him and tell him just what the sentence was, until he should have suffered enough to be purified, and at last to enter the Kingdom of God. Whether he was expecting a demon or an angel was uncertain. He had no idea of the staffing requirements of Purgatory; it wasn't a matter the dominie had addressed in his schooldays. — Diana Gabaldon

And where did he finish the last sentence he would ever begin on earth? — Stephen King

And once, a sophomore English teacher, Mr. Watts, found out that one of his students had spent the past eight class periods carving an elaborate design into his desk. The "artwork" read: "Mr. Watts and Dickens sucks dick." Mr. Watts confronted the carver, telling him, "That's wrong!" Then Mr. Watts took the knife and crossed out the last s in sucks. "This sentence has two objects," he explained. "You need to conjugate the verb differently." And he handed the knife back. — Flynn Meaney

Then starting home, he walked toward the trees, and under them, leaving behind him the big sky, the whisper of wind voices in the wind-bent wheat. — Truman Capote

To kill for murder is a punishment incomparably worse than the crime itself. Murder by legal sentence is immeasurably more terrible than murder by brigands. Anyone murdered by brigands, whose throat is cut at night in a wood, or something of that sort, must surely hope to escape till the very last minute. There have been instances when a man has still hoped for escape, running or begging for mercy after his throat was cut. But in the other case all that last hope, which makes dying ten times as easy, is taken away for certain. There is the sentence, and the whole awful torture lies in the fact that there is certainly no escape, and there is no torture in the world more terrible. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

When you've got creative momentum, the last thing you want to do is stop. I'd write and write and wake up with my head slumped over and my fingers still on the keyboard and the last sentence trailing off like eeeeeejjjjjjjjjjjjj . . . Then I'd finally crawl to bed. Mornings were rough, but I got used to it. It was invigorating to write a couple thousand words while the rest of the world was asleep. More invigorating than rest. — Kate Inglis

When Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant met in what is still considered the biggest wrestling match of all time, exaggeration was in the air. According to various contemporary reports, there were 95,000 people on hand at WrestleMania III to see the 7-foot-5, 525-pound Andre square off against Hulk Hogan, who stood 6-foot-8 and weighed 320 pounds and whose biceps measured twenty-four inches around. Probably the only number in that last sentence that's unimpeachable is the III. — David Shoemaker

You should've come with me. Had fun, lots of fun." The last sentence was deep with sensuality. "You don't know what you're missin', Faithie."

"Then I don't miss it, do I?" Faith whispered, and Jodie giggled. — Linda Howard

Rosethorn had gone to her room the moment Niko started to cough. Now she returned with her syrup and a firm look in her eye. "I thought you were having trouble last night. Drink this." She poured some into a cup and held it out to him.
Niko looked at it as if she offered him rotten fish. "I am fine. I am per-" He couldn't even finish the sentence for coughing.
"It's not bad," said Tris, crossing her fingers behind her back. "Really, tastes like-like mangoes."
Niko looked at her, then took the cup and downed its contents. The four watched with interest as his cheeks turned pale, then scarlet. "That's terrible (exclamation point)" he cried, his voice a thin squeak.
"Maybe I was thinking of some other syrup," Tris remarked with a straight face. — Tamora Pierce

I just wanted to speak to you about something from the Internal Revenue Code. It is the last sentence of section 509A of the code and it reads: 'For purposes of paragraph 3, an organization described in paragraph 2 shall be deemed to include an organization described in section 501C-4, 5, or 6, which would be described in paragraph 2 if it were an organization described in section 501C-3.' And that's just one sentence out of those fifty-seven feet of books. — Ronald Reagan

But she wasn't a wife and mother. And, Joey aside, she didn't want to be one. Her mother had spend every last minute cooking for Papa, cleaning for Papa, looking nice for Papa, entertaining for Papa, producing babies for Papa. The measuring stick she used to judge herself based on how pleased or displeased Papa was with her, their home, and her ability to raise their children properly.
The very thought of being measured by that same stick horrified Billy. She couldn't think of anything worse. As far as she was concerned, domesticity was nothing more than a glorified jail sentence. — Deeanne Gist

Then it's settled. Once I have taken my last breath - and by the sound and feel of that last cough, it could be just about the time I finish this sentence - possession of the company will be given to Cindy, at which time she has one year to turn a profit. If she should fail to make money, then the company will be handed over to Mark." He looked around at his people, "Is everyone clear about my instructions? — Phil Wohl

Nancy's last sentence is on the last page in your file. There is nothing more we know. As the sheriff might say, we don't have anything farther. — Karin Slaughter

Honestly, Edward." I felt a thrill go through me as I said his name, and I hated it. "I can't keep up with you. I thought you didn't want to be my friend."
"I said it would be better if we weren't friends, not that I didn't want to be."
"Oh, thanks, now that's all cleared up." Heavy sarcasm. I realized I had stopped walking again. We were under the shelter of the cafeteria roof now, so I could more easily look at his face. Which certainly didn't help my clarity of thought.
"It would be more ... prudent for you not to be my friend," he explained. "But I'm tired of trying to stay away from you, Bella."
His eyes were gloriously intense as he uttered that last sentence, his voice smoldering. I couldn't remember how to breathe. — Stephenie Meyer

When I start, I have a feeling for the characters, and maybe the shape of the story. Sometimes I might even have the last sentence in mind. But, no book I've ever written has ever ended the way I thought it would. Characters disappear, others come forward. Once you start writing, everything changes. — Paul Auster

The last sort I shall mention are verbal critics - mere word-catchers, fellows that pick out a word in a sentence and a sentence in a volume, and tell you it is wrong. The title of Ultra-Crepidarian critics has been given to a variety of this species. — William Hazlitt

The managing editor shared Bernstein's fondness for doping things out on the basis of sketchy information. At the same time, he was cautious about what eventually went into print. On more than one occasion, he told Bernstein and Woodward to consider delaying a story or, if necessary, to pull it at the last minute if they had any doubts. 'I don't care if it's a word, a phrase, a sentence, a paragraph, a whole story or an entire series of stories,' he said. 'When in doubt, leave it out.'
Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward — Carl Bernstein

As I see it, a successful story of any kind should be almost like hypnosis: You fascinate the reader with your first sentence, draw them in further with your second sentence and have them in a mild trance by the third. Then, being careful not to wake them, you carry them away up the back alley of your narrative and when they are hopelessly lost within the story, having surrendered themselves to it, you do them terrible violence with a softball bag and then lead them whimpering to the exit on the last page. Believe me, they'll thank you for it. — Alan Moore

How would it be after the last sentence? The last sentence he had always feared and from the middle of a book, he had always been tormented by the thought that there would inevitably be a last sentence. — Pascal Mercier

She's on the last few chapters of some book she's been reading. She can't stay away from it. We're used to it by now. We always find her reading at the oddest times. Don't we, babe? He says the last sentence a little louder to get her attention. — Jay McLean

I tend to like the last sentence I just wrote, which is: 'It was late in the fall and the trees lining our driveway had turned red like a row of burning matches.' — Jess Walter

Speak as though it were the last sentence allowed you. — Elias Canetti

Being a philosophical naturalist does not mean that one thinks that science can provide all of the answers. That is scientism and that is wrong. I don't think a billion buckets of science could speak to the problems raised by the Tea Party. Being a philosophical naturalist does not mean that one thinks that the only truths are those of science. I think the claim just made in the last sentence is true but I don't think it is a claim of science. It means that you use science where you can and you respect and try to emulate its standards. — Michael Ruse

Though I remember, sharply, last things. The last book she read. The last play (and film, and concert, and opera, and art exhibition) that we went to together. The last wine she drank, the last clothes she bought. The last weekend away. The last bed we slept in that wasn't ours. The last this, the last that. The last piece of my writing that made her laugh. The last words she wrote herself; the last time she signed her name. The last piece of music I played her when she came home. Her last complete sentence. Her last spoken word. — Julian Barnes

And that's the last oath I shall ever be able to swear," she thought; "once I set foot on English soil. And I shall never be able to crack a man over the head, or tell him he lies in his teeth, or draw my sword and run him through the body, or sit among my peers, or wear a coronet, or walk in procession, or sentence a man to death, or lead an army, or prance down Whitehall on a charger, or wear seventy-two different medals on my breast. All I can do, once I set foot on English soil, is to pour out tea and ask my lords how they like it. D'you take sugar? D'you take cream?" And mincing out the words, she was horrified to perceive how low an opinion she was forming of the other sex, the manly, to which it had once been her pride to belong. — Virginia Woolf

The boy with fair hair lowered himself down the last few feet of rock and began to pick his way toward the lagoon. — William Golding

John Irving once told me he doesn't start a novel until he knows the last sentence. I said, 'My God, Irving, isn't that like working in a factory?' — Tom Robbins

But at least it made one realize that life still held infinite possibilities for change. — Barbara Pym

She looked at the last thing she had written and she felt calm. Then she crossed the words out vehemently, scribbling until even the shape of the sentence was destroyed. — Helen Oyeyemi

How ... ?" she began, and she stopped. She was too tired. She hoped that she wouldn't have to say the rest of the sentence, that Billy would finish it for her. But Billy had no idea what was on her mind. "How what, Mother?" he prompted. She swallowed hard, shed some tears. Then she gathered energy from all over her ruined body, even from her toes and fingertips. At last she had accumulated enough to whisper this complete sentence: "How did I get so old? — Kurt Vonnegut

I find it helpful when I stop for the day to leave the last sentence unfinished or the last paragraph only lightly sketched out, so that when I start again I can pick up where I left off the day before. — Julia Bell

It's funny,' I noted in the diary, 'how often I seem to build a story around one sentence, nearly always the last one, too. The themes are a bit depressing but I just can't get rid of that. — Daphne Du Maurier

Early this morning, 1 January 2021, three minutes after midnight, the last human being to be born on earth was killed in a pub brawl in a suburb of Buenos Aires, aged twenty-five years, two months and twelve days. — P.D. James

This was it. Together. Forever. As we left it all behind, the sun warmed my back, lighting the way before us. I knew of no better omen. — Becca Fitzpatrick

The introductory statement for Paul's famous paragraph on marriage in Ephesians is verse 21: "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ."1 In English, this is usually rendered as a separate sentence, but that hides from readers an important point that Paul is making. In the Greek text, verse 21 is the last clause in the long previous sentence in which Paul describes several marks of a person who is "filled with the Spirit." The last mark of Spirit fullness is in this last clause: It is a loss of pride and self-will that leads a person to humbly serve others. From this Spirit-empowered submission of verse 21, Paul moves to the duties of wives and husbands. — Timothy J. Keller

The sentence completes its signification only with its last term. — Jacques Lacan

A plane flies overhead and inside it is a writer who has spent most of his life as a law clerk, even though he's always known deep down that he's a writer. For the first time, he's worked out what he wants to write, what the truth really is. He begs a napkin and a pen off the air hostess and he writes down the most beautiful sentence ever written, as the engine catches fire outside and the plane starts its plummet to the ground. It doesn't matter to him. It's the only sentence he's ever written and it is the last and no part of him cares. The sentence falls through the air with singed, black edges and comes to rest in a tree, in a park, miles away. One day, around ten years from now, an old widow of an astronaut will find it when a strong breeze finally blows it from its hiding place. She will read it and she will weep. — Pleasefindthis

Tabitha nods all throughout my sentences when I'm speaking to her, says "Right" after practically every single word, and even more annoyingly tries to finish my sentences for me, or join in with my last few words. The really annoying thing is that she always gets it wrong. She never fully catches the gist of what I'm saying, so I have to keep repeating the sentence while she keeps trying to guess what my last words will be. One of these days I'll just say "I'm a tramp" as my last words and she'll have to say that.
Ahern, Cecelia (2005-02-01). Love, Rosie (pp. 200-201). Hachette Books. Kindle Edition. — Cecelia Ahern

[John] Harrison [could not] express himself clearly in writing ... No matter how brilliantly ideas formed in his mind, or crystallized in his clockworks, his verbal descriptions failed to shine with the same light ... The first sentence [of his last published work] runs on, virtually unpunctuated, for twenty-five pages. Dava Sobel, Longitude, p66 — Dava Sobel

Writer's Rhyme

Word by word
line by line,
I'm gonna make
this writing fine.

I'll reread
'til I know
that each sentence
says it so.

Check the grammar
and the meaning;
be the critic;
do the screening.

Dictionary's
not for show;
Helps me get
those words to flow.

Watch the diet;
hem it in.
Do not fear
to make it thin.

Simple is
a goal to praise;
Let's untie
that wordy phrase.

Every word
let's be sure
follows the last
with meaning pure.

"Won't be easy,"
so 'tis said,
but effort will
put me ahead.

Word by word
line by line,
I'm gonnna make
this writing fine,

even though
it takes some time,
I'm gonna make this writing fine;

I'm gonna make
this writing fine. — Peter Siviglia

A man's life is his whole life, not the last glimmering snuff of the candle; and this, I say, is considerable, and not a little matter, whether we regard its pleasures or its pains. To draw a peevish conclusion to the contrary from our own superannuated desires or forgetful indifference is about as reasonable as to say, a man never was young because he has grown old, or never lived because he is now dead. The length or agreeableness of a journey does not depend on the few last steps of it, nor is the size of a building to be judged of from the last stone that is added to it. It is neither the first nor last hour of our existence, but the space that parts these two - not our exit nor our entrance upon the stage, but what we do, feel, and think while there - that we are to attend to in pronouncing sentence upon it. — William Hazlitt

The longer i live, the more urgent it seems to me to endure and transcribe the whole dictation of existence up to its end, for it might just be the case that only the very last sentence contains that small and possibly inconspicuous word through which everything we had struggled to learn and everything we had failed to understand will be transformed into magnificent sense. — Rainer Maria Rilke

During abusive conversations each remark after the first is only about the previous remark.
Verbal abuse is less complex than other forms of conversation! "Aware of their stateless, knee-jerk character, I recognize that the terse remark I want to blurt has far more to do with some kind of "reflex" to the very last sentence of the conversation than it does with either the actual issue at hand or the person I'm talking to ... I steer myself toward a more "stateful" response. — Brian Christian

Have some nice hot chocolate, something to eat, cuddle up under a blanket ... "
Under any other circumstances, I would have assumed that that last sentence meant, "Cuddle up under two separate blankets, spaced several feet apart, possibly with a lightly chained wolf between you," because that's what parents always mean. — Maureen Johnson

Hatred the only moving force, a petulant unhappy striving - childhood the only happiness, and that unknowing; then the continual battle that cannot ever possibly be won; a losing fight against ill-health - poverty for nearly all. Life is a long disease with only one termination and its last years are appalling: weak, racked by the stone, rheumatismal pains, senses going, friends, family, occupation gone, a man must pray for imbecility or a heart of stone. All under sentence of death, often ignominious,frequently agonizing: and then the unspeakable levity with which the faint chance of happiness is thrown away for some jealousy, tiff, sullenness, private vanity, mistaken sense of honour, that deadly, weak and silly notion. — Patrick O'Brian

I want to go home. Then he mentally underlined the last sentence three times, rewrote it in huge letters in red ink, and circled it before putting a number of exclamation marks next to it in his mental margin. — Neil Gaiman

I was just turned last week. I'm a librarian."
He stilled, as if I'd just told him I was the inventor of the tube top. "I watched a movie about a librarian once. Well, she was a librarian by day, a call girl by
"
I stopped him with a quick lift of an eyebrow. "If you finish that sentence, we cannot be friends. — Molly Harper

Getting cut off from the knights' magic rock also required a period of exile from their giant glass mushroom.
(Those of you in the Hushlands, I dare you to work that last sentence into a conversation. "By the way, Sally, did you know that getting cut from the knight's magic rock also requires a period of exile from their giant glass mushroom?")
— Brandon Sanderson

How do you get the happy ending? John Irving ought to know. One of my favorite authors, Irving writes these multigenerational epics of fiction that somehow work out in the end. How does he do it? He says, 'I always begin with the last sentence ; then I work my way backwards, through the plot, to where the story should begin.' Thst sounds like a lot of work, especially compared to the fantasy that great writers sit down and just go where the story takes them. Irving lets us know that good stories and happy endings are more intentional than that.
Most 20 something's can't write the last sentence of their lives. But when pressed, they usually can identify things they want in their 30s or 40s or 60s -or things they don't want- and work backward from there. This is how you have your own multigenerational epic with a happy ending. This is how you live your life in real time. — Meg Jay

Do not put statements in the negative form.
And don't start sentences with a conjunction.
If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a
great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.
Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
Unqualified superlatives are the worst of all.
De-accession euphemisms.
If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague. — William Safire

I've written books that have taken me fifteen years, from first sentence to last, and some that only take three or four months. — Paul Auster

The next-to-last sentence that the Buddha is reported to have spoken as he was dying, before his final sentence of encouragement to his community, was Transient are all conditioned things. — Sylvia Boorstein

Writing is rewriting; rewriting is writing - from the first crossed-out word in the first sentence to the last word inserted above a caret, that most helpful handwritten stroke. — John Casey

Susan's gotta poker, you know," it said, as if anxious to be helpful.
WELL, WELL. INDEED. MY GOODNESS ME.
"I fort-thought all of you knew that now. Larst-last week she picked up a bogey by its nose."
Death tried to imagine this. He felt sure he'd heard the sentence wrong, but it didn't sound a whole lot better however he rearranged the words. — Terry Pratchett

There's a part of me which has always wanted to hear a man say, "Let me take care of you forever," and I have never heard it spoken before. Over the last few years, I'd given up looking for that person, learned how to say this heartening sentence to myself, especially in times of fear. But to hear it from someone else now, from someone who is speaking sincerely ... — Elizabeth Gilbert

And this is where I'll end, before I know what happens next. — Shannon Hale

MURRY: It's not that, it's just ... I don't really get it. I usually find myself staring at the midnight deadline filled with regrets both for opportunities and loved ones missed. It's another day closer to the end. The last thing I feel like doing is counting down to some wild celebration. It just seems so sad to say goodbye to a year and know that it's gone forever and you can't go back to it. Not to relive, not to correct.
NOEL: I've never thought about it that way.
MURRY: There's something so final about it. It's the period at the end of the sentence.
NOEL: The New Year's resolution. — Hillary DePiano

Do the Tao Now At your next meal, practice portion control by asking yourself after several bites if you're still famished. If not, just stop and wait. If no hunger appears, call it complete. At this one meal, you'll have practiced the last sentence of the 9th verse of the Tao Te Ching: "Retire when the [eating] is done; this is the way of heaven. — Wayne W. Dyer

As he dropped the last grisly fragment of the dismembered and mutilated body into the small vat of nitric acid that was to devour every trace of the horrid evidence which might easily send him to the gallows, the man sank weakly into a chair and throwing his body forward upon his great, teak desk buried his face in his arms, breaking into dry, moaning sobs. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

If I have any advantage, maybe, as a writer, it is that I don't think I'm very interesting. I mean, beginning a novel with the last sentence is a pretty plodding way to spend your life. — John Irving

Her words, her jumbled, mad thoughts tamed or simply broken, made language, and she took another drag off the Lucky, exhaled, and read the last sentence aloud. — Caitlin R. Kiernan

As Mary delivered what was to be her last lecture about the Galapagos Islands, she would be stopped mid-sentence for five seconds by a doubt which, if expressed in words, might have come out something like this: "Maybe I'm just a crazy lady who had wandered off the street and into this classroom and started explaining the mysteries of life to these people. And they believe me, although I am utterly mistaken about simply everything."
She had to wonder, too, about all the supposedly great teachers of the past, who, although their brains were healthy, had turned out to be as wrong as Roy about what was really going on. — Kurt Vonnegut

And noticed his eyes, they stayed on me whenever I spoke - almost intimidating in their focus. He was actually listening to me, not just waiting for a chance to speak, his focus one hundred percent on me. It felt odd, a man paying such rapt attention to me, and I tried to remember the last time I had such complete attention, without eyes darting to a phone, or a sentence interrupted, details lost. — Alessandra Torre

He had only just made the Elysian deadline; hanging onto the typescript until the last moment in case there was something still to be done; two sentences turned into one, one sentence broken into two, the substitution of a slightly resistant adjective to engender a moment's reflection, in short, the joys of editing, all carried out without forgetting the art that disguises art. — Edward St. Aubyn

She didn't even finish her last sentence; it just trailed off. I think the subject had changed in her head while her mouth had continued on the old topic, not realizing it was out of supplies. — Steve Martin

Is that you, Sergeant Angua?" said a voice in the gloom. A lantern was open, and lit the approaching face of Constable Visit. As he drew near, she could just make out the thick wad of pamphlets under his other arm.
"Hello, Washpot," she said. "What's up?"
" ... looks like a twist of lemon ... " said a damp voice from the shadows.
"Mister Vimes sent me to search the bars of iniquity and low places of sin for you," said Visit.
"And the literature?" said Angua. "By the way, the words "nothing personal" could have so easily been added to that last sentence. — Terry Pratchett

Even the formal measure of the Seasons seemed suspended in the wintry silence. — Anthony Powell

Hi, I'm Jude Ryder Jamieson," he began, extending his hand. I took it, shaking it. He held onto it when I tried to pull it back. "My mom left when I was thirteen. My dad's serving a life sentence for killing a young kid. I spent the last five years in a boys' home being bullied, beat, and abused by the kids, the staff, and even the goddamn dog. I sold drugs. I did drugs. I got arrested. A lot. I screwed a lot of faceless women." He paused, sucking in a breath. "And then I met one whose face I couldn't forget. I fell in love with her. I hurt her because I fell in love with her and was afraid she was going to leave me the way everyone else had." He lifted his other hand, cradling mine between his. "I still love her. — Nicole Williams

Everything is illusion. Even that last sentence. — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

So stop talking about what a loser you are, because I wouldn't follow a loser into a slime-covered bedroom or a slime-covered bathroom, and I've followed you into both." George paused and said aggressively: "And I would really like to change the phrasing of that last sentence, because it sounded so bad, but I'm not sure how. — Cassandra Clare

It was shaping up as a beautiful morning. The last thing I wanted to hear about was murder. — Jonathan Kellerman

The last thing I have to say is that ice is the past tense of water. I've always wanted to write that sentence and now I have. — Rita Mae Brown

Sam Vimes could parallel process. Most husbands can. They learn to follow their own line of thought while at the same time listening to what their wives say. And the listening is important, because at any time they could be challenged and must be ready to quote the last sentence in full. A vital additional skill is being able to scan the dialogue for telltale phrases such as "and they can deliver it tomorrow" or "so I've invited them for dinner?" or "they can do it in blue, really quite cheaply. — Terry Pratchett

On the morning the last Lisbon daughter took her turn at suicide - it was Mary this time, and sleeping pills, like Therese - the two paramedics arrived at the house knowing exactly where the knife drawer was, and the gas oven, and the beam in the basement from which it was possible to tie a rope. — Jeffrey Eugenides

By the time the last of these relationships ended I was such a quaking mass of colliding, exploding neurotransmitter malfunctions that the only coherent sentence I could form in my native tongue went: Never again. — Merrill Markoe

I don't think I've ever met any Mexicans before."
"They're tyrants, and imperialists, every last one of them." If he'd been holding any more tobacco in his lip, he no doubt would've used it to chase the sentence out of his mouth."
"And I guess you've talked to every last one of them, to be so sure of that. — Cherie Priest

When I hear the hypercritical quarreling about grammar and style, the position of the particles, etc., etc., stretching or contracting every speaker to certain rules of theirs. I see that they forget that the first requisite and rule is that expression shall be vital and natural, as much as the voice of a brute or an interjection: first of all, mother tongue; and last of all, artificial or father tongue. Essentially your truest poetic sentence is as free and lawless as a lamb's bleat. — Henry David Thoreau

It's a world full of terror and beauty (here her writing became so small Meggie could hardly make it out) and I could always understand why Dustfinger felt homesick for it.
The last sentence worried Meggie, but when she looked anxiously at her mother, Teresa smiled and reached for her hand. I was far, far more homesick for you two, she wrote on the palm of it, and Meggie closed her fingers over the words as if to hold them fast. She read them again and again on the long drive back to Elinor's house, and it was many days before they faded. — Cornelia Funke

And in the last sentence I would like also to mention that Poland is one of the countries with which the United States has run strategic dialogues since last year. — Marek Belka

Whenever the literary german dives into a sentence, this is the last you are going to see of him till he emerges on the other side of his atlantic with his verb in his mouth. — Mark Twain

Prison is designed to separate, isolate, and alienate you from everyone and everything. You're not allowed to do so much as touch your spouse, your parents, your children. The system does everything within its power to sever any physical or emotional links you have to anyone in the outside world. They want your children to grow up without ever knowing you.They want your spouse to forget your face and start a new life. They want you to sit alone, grieving, in a concrete box, unable even to say your last farewell at a parent's funeral. — Damien Echols