Best 170 quotes in «endings quotes» category

The greatest challenges humans face throw-out their lives are two: 1- the challenge of where to start 2- the challenge of when to stop

The hour of spring was dark at last, sensuous memories of sunlight past, I stood alone in garden bowers and asked the value of my hours. Time was spent or time was tossed, Life was loved and life was lost. I kissed the flesh of tender girls, I heard the songs of vernal birds. I gazed upon the blushing light, aware of day before the night. So let me ask and hear a thought: Did I live the spring I’d sought? It's true in joy, I walked along, took part in dance, and sang the song. and never tried to bind an hour to my borrowed garden bower; nor did I once entreat a day to slumber at my feet. Yet days aren't lulled by lyric song, like morning birds they pass along, o'er crests of trees, to none belong; o'er crests of trees of drying dew, their larking flight, my hands, eschew Thus I’ll say it once and true... From all that I saw, and everywhere I wandered, I learned that time cannot be spent, It only can be squandered.

The imitation lives we see on TV and in the movies whisper the idea that human existence consists of revelations and abrupt changes of heart; by the time we’ve reached full adulthood, I think, this is an idea we have on some level come to accept. Such things may happen from time to time, but I think that for the most part it’s a lie. Life’s changes come slowly…the whole idea of curious cats attaining satisfaction seemed slightly absurd. The world rarely finishes its conversations.

The inimitable stories of Tong-King never have any real ending, and this one, being in his most elevated style, has even less end than most of them. But the whole narrative is permeated with the odour of joss-sticks and honourable high-mindedness, and the two characters are both of noble birth.

The irony of life Is our greatest fear is to forget, Yet it's the only certain fate That anything has ever met. We know one day our earth Will find itself victim to time, That nothing will be left To tell of your story or mine, And still through life we rush Scrambling for something to remember, Perish the thought that ash be ash And not the memory of an ember.

There’s a trick to the 'graceful exit.' It begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage, or a relationship is over — and let it go. It means leaving what’s over without denying its validity or its past importance to our lives. It involves a sense of future, a belief that every exit line is an entry, that we are moving up, rather than out.

Then he lets go and walks down the path, without another word. He doesn't look back. But I watch him go. I watch him all the way home.

The only end some things have is the end you give em.

The owl of Minerva begins its flight only with the coming of the dusk.

The problem with books is that they end.

There's nothing on Earth like really nailing the last line of a big book. You have 200 pages to tickle their fancy, and seven words to break their heart.

The most important thing is this: to sacrifice what you are now for what you can become tomorrow.

The process which had begun in her - and in he a little earlier only than it must come to all of us - was the great renunciation of old age as it prepared for death, wraps itself up in its chrysalis, which may be observed at the end of lives that are at all prolonged, even in old lovers who have lived for one another, in old friends bound by the closest ties of mutual sympathy, who, after a certain year, cease to make the necessary journey or even to cross the street to see one another, cease to correspond, and know that they will communicate no more in this world.

There are lots of love stories here," she says. "They either end happily, or everyone dies." She laughs, but it sound more like a sob. "What else is there, right?

There is always more after the ending. Always the next morning, and the next. Always changes, losses and gains. Always one step after the other. Until the one true ending that none of us can escape. But even that ending is only a small one, larges as it looms for us. There is still the next morning for everyone else. For the vast majority of the rest of the universe that ending might as well not ever have happened. Every ending is an arbitrary one. Everything ending is from another angle, not really an ending.

There's things that have no finish, Scully, no ending to speak of. There's no justice to it, but that's the God's truth. The only end some things have is the end you give em.

There were never going to be any happy ending for me. I know that now. But that is all right. That is all right.

The work of existence devours its own unfolding. What dissolves will dissolve-- you, reader, and I, and all our quick angers and longings.

The silence. End of all poetry, all romances. Earlier, frightened, you began to have some intimation of it: so many pages had been turned, the book was so heavy in one hand, so light in the other, thinning toward the end. Still, you consoled yourself. You were not quite at the end of the story, at that terrible flyleaf, blank like a shuttered window: there were still a few pages under your thumb, still to be sought and treasured. Oh, was it possible to read more slowly? - No. The end approached, inexorable, at the same measured pace. The last page, the last of the shining words! And there - the end of the books. The hard cover which, when you turn it, gives you only this leather stamped with old roses and shields. Then the silence comes, like the absence of sound at the end of the world. You look up. It's a room in an old house. Or perhaps it's a seat in a garden, or even a square; perhaps you've been reading outside and you suddenly see the carriages going by. Life comes back, the shadows of leaves. Someone comes to ask what you will have for dinner, or two small boys run past you, wildly shouting; or else it's merely a breeze blowing a curtain, the white unfurling into a room, brushing the papers on a desk. It is the sound of the world. But to you, the reader, it is only a silence, untenanted and desolate.

The terrible truth about endings is that they are always closer than you think.

The windblast sent people to the ground. A thunderhead of smoke and ash came moving toward them. The light drained dead away, bright day gone. They ran and fell and tried to get up, men with toweled heads, a woman blinded by debris, a woman calling someone’s name. The only light was vestigial now, the light of what comes after, carried in the residue of smashed matter, in the ash ruins of what was various and human, hovering in the air above. He took one step and then the next, smoke blowing over him. He felt rubble underfoot and there was motion everywhere, people running, things flying past. He walked by the Easy Park sign, the Breakfast Special and Three Suits Cheap, and they went running past, losing shoes and money. He saw a woman with her hand in the air, like running to catch a bus. He went past a line of fire trucks and they stood empty now, headlights flashing. He could not find himself in the things he saw and heard. Two men ran by with a stretcher, someone facedown, smoke seeping out of his hair and clothes. He watched them move into the stunned distance. That’s where everything was, all around him, falling away, street signs, people, things he could not name. Then he saw a shirt come down out of the sky. He walked and saw it fall, arms waving like nothing in this life.

To have one book published is an achievement somewhat similar to have climbed a mountain, but after a while it seems as though you are walking the street with only one shoe on your feet. To have two books published balances your step and the thought of stopping with that one satisfies your ambition, unless the unsatiable desire to tell stories is too strong to stop, until--but is there ever an until?

This was it. The beginning of the blasted end.

This got me thinking about endings and how the final moments of a story can color our entire perception of a narrative. But endings aren't the epitome of a story; they are just how it stops. The real story is the middle: the ups and downs, the lefts and rights. There are so many directions a story can go, and it's that meaty middle that gives us insight in what is truly going on.

This is true: if there was one thing my father taught me, it's that endings never work out the way you want them to--that they're terrible, and this one is no different. They're like the last drops of wine, the final puffs of a cigarette. They're Sunday nights, or the last afternoon of summer. They're flat tires and wet pairs of socks and cold dinners. They're the sort of thing that--no matter the effort, no matter the discipline--no one can get right.

Those are such beautiful words aren't they? Happy ending?" Lilly says. They are. They so are. But after all she's seen, Nash doesn't know if she believes in those particular words. She believes in something intricate and thorny, she thinks then. What she believes is that the story goes on.

We are not against the ending of things; we are only against the ending of good things!

We ended the way all good things in my life had a way of being put to rest – abrupt and without my permission.

Well, everything comes to an end, sooner or later," she said. "Everything begins and ends. Everything changes.

We had been younger. Yup, you can grow a lot in the blink of an eye.

Well, I’m an abridger, so I’m entitled to a few ideas of my own. Did they make it? Was the pirate ship there? You can answer it for yourself, but, for me, I say yes it was. And yes, they got away. And got their strength back and had lots of adventures and more than their share of laughs. But that doesn’t mean I think they had a happy ending, either. Because, in my opinion, anyway, they squabbled a lot, and Buttercup lost her looks eventually, and one day Fezzik lost a fight and some hot-shot kid whipped Inigo with a sword and Westley was never able to really sleep sound because of Humperdinck maybe being on the trail. I’m not trying to make this a downer, understand. I mean, I really do think that love is the best thing in the world, next to cough drops. But I also have to say, for the umpty-umpth time, that life isn’t fair. It’s just fairer than death, that’s all.

We must be conscious of this; one day, the life we have, will be gone.

We may be different, but in this moment we're feeling the exact same thing: the sad kind of bliss where you realize, suddenly, how perfect your life really has been all along. So perfect it hurts, and you could let yourself weep if you wanted. So perfect that even though everything you know is ending, you truly believe life will continue to be beautiful, even—or maybe especially—in those pure moments of loss.

A beginning is that which does not itself follow anything by causal necessity, but after which something naturally is or comes to be. An end, on the contrary, is that which itself naturally follows some other thing, either by necessity, or as a rule, but has nothing following it. A middle is that which follows something as some other thing follows it. A well constructed plot, therefore, must neither begin nor end at haphazard, but conform to these principles.

What you cannot lay to rest Must therefore be laid aside From the poem "Moors Child" published in the poetry collection "Cats and Other Myths

When a country is defeated, there remain only mountains and rivers, and on a ruined castle in spring only grasses thrive. I sat down on my hat and wept bitterly till I almost forgot time. A thicket of summer grass Is all that remains Of the dreams and ambitions Of ancient warriors.

When a world dies, it doesn't go out with a whimper.

You can’t truly heal from a loss until you allow yourself to really FEEL the loss.

A basso sings, and a soprano answers him. Then there is thunder in a clear blue sky, And, from the earth, a sigh: “This song is finished.

When you care about things, it ends up wearing you out.

With each passing moment, I’d get that feeling you sometimes have the moment you’re about to flip the final page of a really good book, when your anticipation for what happens next overwhelms you, but you also know that turning the page means you're closer to an end.

With us, there were always too many false starts. I believe that what's meant to be usually has a way of working out... and with us, it never did. Call it timing, call it fate, call it what you want. It is what it is. Sometimes in the end, the girl doesn't always get the boy--and that's ok. Life goes on. You know better than anyone that some love stories never get their happy ending... but it doesn't make them any less of a love story though, does it? It doesn't make the love the two shared any less relevant.

Ah, Sam, sighs Tom Spring to himself. These are your beginnings. And in your beginnings, my end! Oh how the recollections connect, each to each, as links in a chain!

All good things must come to an end. That's why they're called good things -- otherwise they're just... ordinary.

All Bette's stories have happy endings. That's because she knows where to stop. She's realized the real problem with stories - if you keep them going long enough, they always end in death.

All's well that ends well.' 'Assuming there's an end somewhere,' Aomame said. Tamaru formed some short creases near his mouth that were faintly reminiscent of a smile. 'There has to be an end somewhere. It's just that nothing's labeled "This is the end." Is the top rung of a ladder labeled "This is the last rung. Please don't step higher than this'?" Aomame shook her head. 'It's the same thing,' Tamaru said. Aomame said, 'If you use common sense and keep your eyes open, it becomes clear enough where the end is.' Tamaru nodded. 'And even if it doesn't' -- he made a falling gesture with his finger -- 'the end is right there.

All quantification begets cessation or elimination.

A man is like a novel: until the very last page you don't know how it will end. Otherwise it wouldn't even be worth reading.

And above all else, remember that the end of a movie (or a TV show, or a play, or a book) is never really the end.

A moment’s beginning ends in a moment