Thursday 3 October 2019

Last words contest!

Contest Closed

A contest! To celebrate the release of Dispel Illusion on November 14th (ebook) / December for the hardback and paperback.



The prize will be a signed trade paperback of every last book I've written. (UK edition - may be able to swap US hardcovers for some), EXCEPT Dispel Illusion.



So, it'll be these guys.



And all you need to do to enter is to comment here with your favourite last words - be they the last line of a book, a poem, a joke, a film, an instruction booklet, famous person or whatever. Add your email so I can let you know if you won!

& the winner is jeff.grime@yahoo.com

With "We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown."




Join my 3-emails-a-year newsletter #Prizes #FreeContent 





145 comments:

  1. "'Well, I'm back,' he said." LOTR

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  2. "He didn't think about it, he went straight to a seat facing forwards, so that he could see where he was going." The Outcast

    toxicedsahel@gmail.com

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  3. “But I won't ever tell you what it is.“ Spinning Silver, Naomi Novik
    Emsil: alisonkane165@gmail.com

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  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  5. Undoreth we battleborn Raise hammer raise axe at our war shout let demons tremble

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  6. "I am content." Fool's Fate, Robin Hobb.
    emma.shelly@yahoo.com

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  7. I told you I was sick - Spike Milligan's grave stone.

    S.a.warren@hotmail.co.uk

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  8. "Come on, say it again. I'm a perfect devil. Tell me how bad I am. It makes me feel so good!" - The Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice

    rincong.adriana@gmail.com

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  9. James Donald French

    “Hey fellas! How about this for a headline for tomorrow’s paper? French Fries!”

    Sethmich6@aol.com

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  10. "No! No! Look, I'm sorry I called you-- No! NO." -Scar's last words in The Lion King.

    astridomer292@gmail.com

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  12. "To this account, I, Severian the Lame, Autarch, do set my hand in what shall be called the last year of the old sun." - The Citadel of the Autarch by Gene Wolfe

    lawrenceleaves@gmail.com

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  13. And in the end
    The love you take
    Is equal to the love you make

    The End, Abbey Road, The Beatles
    cedrixeclarke@gmail.com

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  14. And an end was come for the Eldar od story and of song. ( Silmarillion)

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  15. 'Yet while there is time there is the certainty of return.' - Ring of Bright Water, Gavin Maxwell

    alan.odonoghue@gmail.com

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  16. "The lights drew down into the darkness, and then they were gone, and the rainswept in like a wall above the surface of the sea" - The Lies of Locke Lamora, Scott Lynch

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  17. Before reaching the final line, however, he had already understood that he would never leave that room, for it was foreseen that the city of mirrors (or mirages) would be wiped out by the wind and exiled from the memory of men at the precise moment when Aureliano Babilonia would finish deciphering the parchments, and that everything written on them was unrepeatable since time immemorial and forever more, because races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth. –Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude
    psychothirteen@yahoo.com

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  18. I guess I'll go to Florida and get myself some sun
    There ain't no opportunity here, everything's been done.
    Sometimes I think of Tweeter. Some times I think of Jan. Sometimes I don't think of nothing but the Monkey Man.

    Tweeter and the Monkey Man by the Travelling Wilburys

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  19. "But there are much worse games to play." Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay. Such a chillingly brilliant final line, especially poignant after realising how the series ends and what Katniss is struggling with at the end.

    apurton10@gmail.com

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  20. "You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave"
    Hotel California - Eagles.

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  21. "I gotta devil's haircut on my mind"

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  22. "Happiness, free, for everyone and let no one be forgotten!"
    - Roadside Picnic.

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  23. "That same question came into his head, over and over, and he still had no answer.
    'Why do I do this?'
    'Why?'

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  24. "That same question came into his head, over and over, and he still had no answer."
    'Why do I do this?'
    'Why?'

    Glokta's POV

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  25. "Darling," it said. - Pet Semetary by Stephen King

    ohsononchalant@gmail.com

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  26. "If we never make it back to California, I want you to know I love you.
    But my love is like a dark cloud full of rain, always right there up above you."
    See America Right by The Mountain Goats

    truk2112@gmail.com

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  27. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  28. She says nothing at all, but simply stares upward into the dark sky and watches, with sad eyes, the slow dance of the infinite stars.
    Neil Gaiman, Stardust

    Markh433@gmail.com

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  29. All your base are belong to us


    You know if you like old video-games

    Khan_imperialis@hotmail.fr

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  30. "Well... nobody's perfect!"
    -- Some Like It Hot
    aweller@endlessvisions.org

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  31. Richard B Mellon: "Last tag"

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  32. Not sure what my all time favourite is, but I recently liked from The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang: "And she would call the gods to do such terrible things."

    Gavriel.marks@gmail.com

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  33. "Until he was gone." - Red Country



    Titus.rex@web.de

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  34. "So long and thanks for all the fish" - Douglas Adams

    hamo@gcsnc.com

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  35. "But I being poor, have only my dreams, I have spread my dreams under your feet, tread softly because you tread on my dreams."

    friendjosh1984@gmail.com

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  36. "What the devil so you mean to sing to me, priest? You are out of tune."

    --Jean-Philippe Rameau, composer

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  37. “Is funny. Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everyone.”
    -The Catcher in the Rye

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  38. Which story do you prefer? - life of pi

    Shortcrm@gmail.com

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  39. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

    macros_1@hotmail.com

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  40. "Trust me everything's gonna be fine. You met me at a very strange time in my life" (Fight Club).

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  41. "In the end, the future refused to change" - Chrono Trigger, bad ending.

    Email : titirourou@gmail.com

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  42. "Ow, fuck!" - Roald Dahl.
    I like the image of the author of all those books for kids suddenly exclaiming that bit because a nurse hurt him.

    I think my email is attached to this account?

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  43. "That didn't happen." - What the Hell did I just Read, David Wong
    bmwreader@gmail.com

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  44. “If a military life was long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of stark terror—as one of her instructors had said—then civilian life seemed to be long periods of boredom interrupted by moments of dismal reflection.”
    ― Elizabeth Moon, Trading in Danger

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  45. "They said she was a murderer but I thought she was simply breathtaking"

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  46. It was always, ‘Socrates, what is truth?’ ‘Socrates, what is the nature of the good?’ ‘Socrates, what should I order?’ ‘Socrates, what are you having?’ And not ONCE did anyone ever say, ‘Socrates, hemlock is poisonous.'”
    Steve Martin's "Death of Socrates"

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  47. “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”

    Animal Farm-George Orwell

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  48. I drank what? - Socrates
    (from the movie Real Genius in 1985)

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  49. I hit publish without adding my email. Those will be my own last words someday. If I win it's blondon@gmail.com. Actually it's the same email whether I win or not.

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  50. "Yes... I... destroy... the world... and... create it... anew."

    -Lelouch vi Britannia to Nunnally, at the end of his Heroic Sacrifice.

    rileylawrence1973@hotmail.com

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  51. 'When they ask how I died tell them: Still Angry' Quellqrist Falconer
    Email: monique.jensen2@gmail.com

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  52. Oldie but goodie

    It was the devious-cruising ‘Rachel,’ that in her retracing search after her missing children only found another orphan.

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  53. One bird said to Billy Pilgrim, "Poo-tee-weet?" Slaughterhouse-5

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  54. We have assumed control, Rush 2112

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  55. We have assumed control, Rush 2112

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  56. “ Friends applaud, the comedy is finished.”
    Beethoven

    brittanyphillips60@yahoo.com

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  57. When this you see, remember me and bear me in your mind.
    Let all the world say what they may, speak of me as you find.
    Brian Jones gravestone.

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  58. Darling,' replied Valentine, 'has not the count just told us that all human wisdom is summed up in two words? — 'Wait and hope.' )The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
    Beatricelawson@gmail.com

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  59. Your children will be born in a world of two suns. They will never know a sky without them. You can tell them that you remember when there was a pitch black sky with no bright star, and people feared the night. You can tell them when we were alone, when we couldn't point to the light and say to ourselves, "There is life out there." Someday, the children of the new sun will meet the children of the old. I think they will be our friends. You can tell your children of the day when everyone looked up and realized that we were only tenants of this world. We have been given a new lease and a warning from the landlord.

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  60. “I felt like a monster reincarnation of Horatio Alger . . . a Man on the Move, and just sick enough to be totally confident.”

    Hunter S Thompson
    Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

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  61. All those moments will be lost in time, like... tears in the rain. Time to die.

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  62. 'Para Bellum' Alexander the Great

    dodgeram876@gmail.com

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  63. 'To the strongest' Alexander the Great. When asked upon his deathbed which of his generals should inherit his empire.

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  64. I haven't seen her again, but I know I will. Soon. Soon enough.

    Old Man's War

    Bwillisfinn@gmail.com

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  65. "And at the end of all stories Azrael, who knew the secret, thought: I REMEMBER WHEN ALL THIS WILL BE AGAIN."
    Terry Pratchett Reaper Man

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  66. "what are you gonna do? Stab me?" - man seconds before being stabbed

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  67. "I'm going outside now, I may be sometime" - Lawrence Oates Arctic explorer

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  68. "I have the answer," Gertrude Stein. (That's according to one of my college professors).

    aquavenatus@hotmail.com

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  69. "You might as well live." Dorothy Parker, “Resumé”

    k.a.t.ward@hotmail.com

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  70. Been over 25 years but this ending still resonates with me.

    "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." - James Joyce, The Dead

    wjhiles@gmail.com

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  71. "So long, and thanks for all the fish."
    Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy

    Email: suziehenriksson@gmail.com

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  72. "If I could speak words of water,
    You would drown when I said
    'I love you.'"

    Love Song by Spike Milligan

    Email: barraoc@gmail.com

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  73. "And so farewell from your little droog. And to all others in this story profound shooms of lip-music brrrrr. And they can kiss my sharries. But you, O my brothers, remember sometimes thy little Alex that was. Amen. And all that cal."

    A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess

    Email: cjhorrocks117@hotmail.co.uk

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  74. You got beaten by a girl ,you sissies ,Gloria, 1980 something

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  75. Yeah, you got beaten by a women! You sissy.

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  76. “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
    “The Great Gatsby,”
    by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)
    tostitosryummy@gmail.com

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  77. Well, we aren't going to call the ship the "Dread Pirate Jessica", that my dear is a shit name for a ship

    "Arrrrr" she Arrrrrred.

    The Serpent of Venice - Christopher Moore

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  78. “IT’S NOT WHERE YOU’RE FROM, IT’S WHERE YOU’RE AT”
    Ian Brown (the stone roses)
    Cleary48@gmail.com

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  79. "Then the three men saw the ruselka."

    diogocapelo@hotmail.com

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  80. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  81. "I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have." - Leonardo da Vinci
    ryugitonychoper@gmail.com

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  82. “Forever and ever.” — Darkdawn by Jay Kristoff.

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  83. "I had no children. I haven’t transmitted the legacy of our misery to any creature."

    from The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas, by Machado de Assis

    vane-e@hotmail.com

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  84. "No half measures. Some things can’t be cut in half. You can’t half-love someone. You can’t half-betray, or half-lie."

    alkartazuna@gmail.com

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  85. "The wind blew southward, through knotted forests, over shimmering plains and toward lands unexplored. This wind, it was not the ending. There are no endings, and never will be endings, to the turning of the Wheel of Time.

    But it was an ending." Robert Jordan, The Wheel of Time

    gdollins71@gmail.com

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  86. "Oh come on, I just killed the fecking pope. You are going to attack me, aren't you?"

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  87. ‘Well, I’m back,’ he said.

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  88. "We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
    By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
    Till human voices wake us, and we drown."

    jeff.grime@yahoo.com

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  89. Kiss me Hardy.

    Lord Nelson

    andersen.jakob.80@gmail.com

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  90. Kiss me Hardy

    Lord Nelson

    Andersen.jakob.80@gmail.com

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  91. “This is our last hunt, old wolf. And as we have always done, we go to it together.” -Assassin's Fate

    jaredbesse@yahoo.com

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  92. He came like the wind, like the wind touched everything, and like the wind was gone.

    -Robert Jordan/Brandon Sanderson, A Memory of Light

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  93. ‘You are a very fine person, Mr. Baggins, and I am very fond of you; but you are only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all! ‘Thank goodness!’

    rossklein555@gmail.com

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  94. zymurgy - n. the study or practice of fermentation in brewing, winemaking, or distilling.

    Oxford English Dictionary - the book I've picked up the most often throughout my life!

    andrew r.krey@gmail.com

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  95. Faith thought about the best way to rephrase her resolution.
    'I want to be a bad example,' she said.
    'Isee.' Myrtle stirred herself, ready to walk to the prow. 'Well, my dear, I think you have made an excellent start.'
    The Lie Tree, Frances Hardinge

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  96. "Farewell friend. I was a thousand times more evil than thou!"
    - Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock

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  97. And judgement.
    R. Scott Bakker
    The Darkness That Comes Before

    ggf411@gmail.com

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  98. "Let's go and burn it all down."
    The Bitter Twins by Jen Williams.

    idledragon27@gmail.com

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  99. My favourite last words are probably from my favourite book, The Slow Regard of Silent Things, by Patrick Rothfuss:

    "Deep in the underthing, stones warm beneath her feet, Auri heard a faint, sweet strain of music."

    Or, as I read it in Portuguese:

    "Nas profundezas dos subterrâneos, com as pedras mornas sob os pés, Auri ouviu uma vaga e doce melodia."

    When I finished this book I was teary eyed, not because it is sad, but because it's simply beautiful. Since then, this book means a lot to me.


    debrittodebora@gmail.com

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  100. "And judgement."
    R. Scott Bakker
    The Darkness That Comes Before

    ggf411@gmail.com

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  101. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  102. "Now let´s return to the story" Theatre of the Gods by M. Suddain

    britishnewyork@gmail.com

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  103. "-arise,my soul;and sing" - e.e.cummings, "now does our world descend", which is a pretty bleak poem but ends with this uplifting last line
    emitter1997@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  104. "So many of my old friends, gathered in one place," [...] "It's good to be home." -King of Scars-
    (This was split by a narrative part...)
    aaand..e-mail: aurel.gesztelyi@gmail.com

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  105. "The breakfasted well after noon, more often than not in bed, and passed the days on lazy strolls and long conversations."

    My favorite ending of "The Witcher 3".

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  106. “The wind blew southward, through knotted forests, over shimmering plains and toward lands unexplored. This wind, it was not the ending. There are no endings, and never will be endings, to the turning of the Wheel of Time.

    But it was an ending.” - A Memory of Light (Wheel of Time)


    email: a.b-m@live.com

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  107. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  108. "Now is not the time for making new enemies."

    Voltaire, when asked in his deathbed if he'd like to renounce Satan.

    e-scriptamanet[at]hotmail[dot]com

    ReplyDelete
  109. In the morning glad I see;
    My foe outstretched beneath the tree.
    The poison tree, William Blake

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  110. A recent favourite:

    "She laughed, and Clay could have wept for the sound of it.
    Ginny reached out to him, and Clay stepped into the circle of her arms like a pilgrim come, at the end of his days, to the last house of the holy. Her scent surrounded him. A loose strand of her hair tickled his nose and gods-be-damned if he was going to scratch it now. Her breath was warm and soft as summer wind on his neck as she whispered, “You’re home.”
    And finally, he was."

    Nicholas Eames - Kings of the Wyld

    My email is stelios.koutrakis@gmail.com

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  111. I felt her cheek rub against mine as she started giggling uncontrollably, and that's how we stayed for a few minutes more, while mad hopefulness surrounded us and spread like rainwater over the hard surface of the world. - Traitor's Blade by Sebastian De Castell

    email: a.b-m@live.com

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  112. Minä elän!
    (I live!) Aleksis Kivi, first Finnish language novelist - either delusional or prophetic?

    ReplyDelete
  113. "Sabriel," he said again. "Your alive!"
    "Yes," said Sabriel, with some. "I am."
    Sabriel - Garth Nix
    Dragonlizrd84@gmail.com

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  114. "So this is how liberty dies . . . with thunderous applause."
    ~Padme Amidala (Revenge of the Sith)

    n.schiff@rhnv.net

    ReplyDelete
  115. "He has gone beyond me now though, and I have no more to say. Perhaps somewhere Jorg and his brother have found the real heaven and are busy giving them hell. It pleases me to think so. But the story is done."
    - Emperor Of Thorns by Mark Lawrence.
    Email : zeljko.ant2510@gmail.com

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  116. Charles Darwin's last words "Go on, get out! Last words are for fools who haven't said enough!"
    Mousescotland@googlemail.com
    Mike

    ReplyDelete
  117. "The lights drew down into the darkness, and then they were gone for good, and the rain swept in like a wall above the surface of the sea." - The Lies of Locke Lamora

    email: jonbrigly@yahoo.co.uk

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  118. "It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both."
    Charlotte's Web
    Steven.duggan@ymail.com

    ReplyDelete
  119. “Here lies One Whose Name was writ in Water.” - John Keats' epitaph

    email: camkil06@msn.com

    ReplyDelete
  120. "Hang on a minute, lads. I've got a great idea" - The Italian Job

    ReplyDelete
  121. Deep in the Underthing, stones warm beneath her feet, Auri heard a faint, sweet strain of music.
    ~Slow Regard of Silent Things. Patrick Rothfuss.

    (as a bonus, the end of the authors note: "I am one of you. You are not alone. You are all beautiful to me".)

    ReplyDelete
  122. The bird with the thorn in its breast, it follows an immutable law; it is driven by it knows not what to impale itself, and die singing. At the very instant the thorn enters there is no awareness in it of the dying to come; it simply sings and sings until there is not the life left to utter another note. But we, when we put the thorns in our breasts, we know. We understand. And still we do it. Still we do it.

    Collen McCullough’s “The Thorn Birds”.

    js3610558@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  123. "You met me at a very strange time in my life" the Narrator, Fight Club

    Alundbthomas@googlemail.com

    ReplyDelete
  124. ”This dying business is boring” - Richard Feynman

    Loki.m@outlook.com

    ReplyDelete
  125. "Love one another." George Harrison

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  126. "Love one another." George Harrison

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  127. “After all, tomorrow is another day.”

    - Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

    paliwal.vidur@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  128. And in the end ,there was a beginning

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  129. “There are no endings, and never will be endings, to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was an ending.” - A Memory of Light

    l13501351@yahoo.com

    ReplyDelete
  130. “As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself—so like a brother, really—I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again. 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.”

    The Stranger by Albert Camus

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  131. Soldiers, when I give the command to fire, fire straight at my heart. Wait for the order. It will be my last to you. I protest against my condemnation. I have fought a hundred battles for France, and not one against her… Soldiers Fire!
    Michel Ney "The Lion"
    blankenshipemanuel@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  132. ‘Excellently observed,’ answered Candide; ‘but we must cultivate our garden.’
    Candide, Voltaire

    ReplyDelete
  133. She shook her head,
    She said "Can't you see?
    The world is you
    The world is me."

    Marillion - "This is the 21st Century" (song, 2001)
    robday@iname.com

    ReplyDelete
  134. "Where the sun is comin' up
    And the world has come ashore
    If you're hoping for a harbour then you'll find an open door
    In the winter from the water
    To whatever's in the way
    To the ones who have come from away: Welcome to the rock!"

    Come From Away Musical, "Welcome to the Rock"

    ReplyDelete
  135. The wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth
    and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws
    but Max stepped into his private boat and waved good-bye
    and sailed back over a year
    and in and out of weeks
    and through a day
    and into the night of his very own room
    where he found his supper waiting for him
    and it was still hot.

    shannconn@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  136. «LSD, 100 micrograms I.M.»
    - Aldous Huxley

    phoenix_guardian@hotmail.fr

    ReplyDelete