Last words in literature

Last words in literature

Last words in literature

If you knew you were about to meet your maker you’d try and make your last words before you shifted off this mortal coil pretty darn special, eh?

Literary characters are no different – some succeed in reaching some higher state of gravitas; others, well, their last recorded utterances reflect the banality of much of the human condition.

You get to decide which last words are special, and which are not. Herewith, 35 of the most memorable last words in literature.

last-words-in-literature-2-1556673780-HDBw-column-width-inline

Sydney Carton (A Tale of Two Cities)

Author: Charles Dickens

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”

last-words-in-literature-3-1556673781-ru3B-column-width-inline

Snowden (Catch 22)

Author: Joseph Heller

“I’m cold.”

last-words-in-literature-4-1556673781-AN2T-column-width-inline

Svidrigailov (Crime and Punishment)

Author: Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“When you are asked, you just say he was going, he said, to America.”

last-words-in-literature-5-1556673782-U0X3-column-width-inline

Captain Beatty (Fahrenheit 451)

Author: Ray Bradbury

“Give it here, Montag.”

last-words-in-literature-6-1556673783-h2rh-column-width-inline

Jay Gatsby (The Great Gatsby)

Author: F Scott Fitzgerald

“Well, goodbye.”

last-words-in-literature-7-1556673783-KhJa-column-width-inline

Don Corleone (The Godfather)

Author: Mario Puzo

“Life is beautiful.”

last-words-in-literature-8-1556673784-exZZ-column-width-inline

Colonel Kurtz (Heart of Darkness)

Author: Joseph Conrad

“The horror! The horror!”

last-words-in-literature-9-1556673784-odE5-column-width-inline

God (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy)

Author: Douglas Adams

“Oh dear, I hadn’t thought of that.”

last-words-in-literature-10-1556673785-Q3ZY-column-width-inline

Helen Burns (Jane Eyre)

Author: Charlotte Brontë

“Goodnight, Jane.”

last-words-in-literature-11-1556673786-MZ98-column-width-inline

Tommy (Carrie)

Author: Stephen King

"Tonight, you go first class."

last-words-in-literature-12-1556673786-gwXP-column-width-inline

Jean Valjean (Les Miserables)

Author: Victor Hugo

“Let me put my hands upon your beloved heads.”

last-words-in-literature-13-1556673787-RXoW-column-width-inline

Emma Bovary (Madame Bovary)

Auhtor: Gustave Flaubert

“The blind man!”

last-words-in-literature-14-1556673787-QCI6-column-width-inline

Captain Ahab (Moby-Dick)

Author: Herman Melville

“Thus, I give up the spear!”

last-words-in-literature-15-1556673788-3hFJ-column-width-inline

Dorian Gray (The Picture of Dorian Gray)

Author: Oscar Wilde

“Very well. I shall be here at eleven. Good night, Harry.”

last-words-in-literature-16-1556673789-OdyS-column-width-inline

Popeye (Sanctuary)

Author: William Faulkner

“Fix my hair, Jack.”

last-words-in-literature-17-1556673789-jkEi-column-width-inline

McMurphy (One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest)

Author: Ken Kesey

“I’ve took their best punch.”

last-words-in-literature-18-1556673790-PkPb-column-width-inline

Paul Baumer (All Quiet on the Western Front)

Author: Erich Maria Remarque

“The life that has borne me through these years is still my hands and my eyes. Whether I have subdued it, I know not. But so long as it is there, it will seek its own way out, heedless of the will that is within me.”

last-words-in-literature-19-1556673790-yoqE-column-width-inline

Lennie (Of Mice and Men)

Author: John Steinbeck

“Le’s do it now. Le’s get that place now.”

last-words-in-literature-20-1556673791-50IF-column-width-inline

Tess Durbeyfield (Tess of the d’Urbervilles)

Author: Thomas Hardy

“I am ready.”

last-words-in-literature-21-1556673792-w7U8-column-width-inline

Hamlet (Hamlet)

Author: William Shakespeare

“The rest is silence.”

last-words-in-literature-22-1556673792-im8I-column-width-inline

Ike Marcus (Lush Life)

Author: Richard Price

“Not tonight, my man.”

last-words-in-literature-23-1556673793-e8VA-column-width-inline

Bunny Corcoran (The Secret History)

Author: Donna Tartt

“Just what the Sam Hill are you guys doing out here anyway?”

last-words-in-literature-24-1556673793-zeFh-column-width-inline

Lily Potter (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban)

Author: JK Rowling

“Not Harry! Please, no, not Harry — I'll do anything!”

last-words-in-literature-25-1556673794-hnqH-column-width-inline

Johnny Smith (The Dead Zone)

Author: Stephen King

“We knew each other.”

last-words-in-literature-26-1556673795-KAx2-column-width-inline

Iago (Othello)

Author: William Shakespeare

“Demand me nothing: what you know, you know. From this time forth I never will speak word.”

last-words-in-literature-27-1556673795-1NH6-column-width-inline

Captain Flint (Treasure Island)

Author: Robert Louis Stevenson

“Fetch aft the rum, Darby.”

last-words-in-literature-28-1556673796-y1t4-column-width-inline

Willy Loman (Willy Loman (Death of a Salesman))

Author: Arthur Miller

"Now when you kick off, boy, I want a seventy-yard bout, and get right down the field under the ball, and when you hit, hit low and hit hard, because it’s important, boy. There’s all kinds of important people in the stands, and the first thing you know… Ben! Ben, where do I…? Ben, how do I…?"

last-words-in-literature-29-1556673796-I2Bb-column-width-inline

Dr Frankenstein (Frankenstein)

Author: Mary Shelley

“Farewell, Walton! Seek happiness in tranquillity and avoid ambition, even if it be only the apparent innocent one of distinguishing yourself in science and discoveries. Yet why do I say this? I have myself been blasted in these hopes, yet another may succeed?”

last-words-in-literature-30-1556673797-okaB-column-width-inline

Mersault (The Stranger)

Author: Albert Camus

“For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate.”

last-words-in-literature-31-1556673798-wIRJ-column-width-inline

Catherine Earnshaw (Wuthering Heights)

Author: Emily Brontë

“No! Oh, don’t, don’t go. It is the last time! Edgar will not hurt us. Heathcliff, I shall die! I shall die!”

last-words-in-literature-32-1556673798-KiEe-column-width-inline

Anna Karenina (Anna Karenina)

Author: Leo Tolstoy

“Lord, forgive me everything.”

last-words-in-literature-33-1556673799-RtC5-column-width-inline

Josef K (The Trial)

Author: Frank Kafka

“The dogs!”

last-words-in-literature-34-1556673799-QcWc-column-width-inline

Catherine Barkley (A Farewell To Arms)

Author: Ernest Hemingway

“Don’t worry, darling. I’m not a bit afraid. It’s just a dirty trick.”

last-words-in-literature-35-1556673800-S5aW-column-width-inline

The grandfather (Invisible Man)

Author: Ralph Ellison

“Learn it to the young’uns.”

last-words-in-literature-36-1556673801-Z8pa-column-width-inline

Piggy (Lord of the Flies)

Author: William Golding

“Which is better – to have rules and agree, or to hunt and kill?”

last-words-in-literature-37-1556673801-Cwou-column-width-inline

Don Quixote (The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha)

Author: Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

“I was mad, now I am in my senses. I was Don Quixote de La Mancha, I am now, as I said, Alanso Quixano, the good; and may my repentance and sincerity restore me to the esteem you used to have for me; and now let the Master Notary proceed.”

last-words-in-literature-38-1556673802-4PBI-column-width-inline

Roderick Usher (The Fall of the House of Usher)

Author: Edgar Allan Poe

“Madman! Madman! I tell you that she now stands without the door.”

last-words-in-literature-39-1556673802-a92L-column-width-inline

Boxer (Animal Farm)

Author: George Orwell

“Forward in the name of Rebellion. Long live Animal Farm! Long live comrade Napoleon. Napoleon is always right.”

last-words-in-literature-40-1556673803-NvDl-column-width-inline

Gollum (The Return of the King – The Lord of the Rings)

Author: JRR Tolkein

“My precious! O my Precious!”

last-words-in-literature-41-1556673804-tYYW-column-width-inline

Sherlock Holmes (The Final Problem)

Author: Arthur Conan Doyle

“Pray give my greetings to Mrs. Watson, and believe me to be, my dear fellow. Very sincerely yours, Sherlock Holmes.”

Danielle de Wolfe

As Shortlist’s Staff Writer, Danielle spends most of her time compiling lists of the best ways to avoid using the Central Line at rush hour.