Famous Last Words Quotes

There's nothing to be scared of, right Akhol?"
He said nothing as he stepped toward the rushing water that rolled around a big rock and was swallowed whole by impenetrable darkness.
"Right?" Andrew repeated, his voice swallowed by the sound of rushing water.
Akhol didn't respond again. He tapped a foot above the water before he stepped in and disappeared beneath the surface in one fluid motion. ~ Laura Kreitzer

If you get into trouble, give a shout."
"We'll be fine," Gladys said.

Famous last words, Zane thought. ~ Susan Mallery

Yes, it's tough, but not as tough as doing comedy. ~ Edmund Gwenn

I did not know that we had ever quarreled. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Oh, I am not going to die, am I? He will not separate us, we have been so happy. ~ Charlotte Bronte

Everybody has got to die, but I have always believed an exception would be made in my case. ~ William, Saroyan

He raised his brows. "You're drunk." "Am not!" He gave me a bland look. "A drunk's famous last words before they fall flat on their face. ~ J. Lynn

I am about to - or I am going to - die; either expression is correct. ~ Dominique Bouhours

Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something. ~ Pancho Villa

Now I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark ~ Thomas Hobbes

I know not what tomorrow will bring. ~ Fernando Pessoa

It can't happen here is number one on the list of famous last words. ~ David Crosby

All right, then, I'll say it: Dante makes me sick. ~ Lope De Vega

Can you still have any famous last words if you're somebody nobody knows? ~ Ryan Adams

What are the funniest famous last words you've ever heard?" Lost, Ryan just stared at her. Why did her brain constantly spit out nonsensical questions? "Fine be boring." She turned to Jaime, who was sprawled on the neighboring blanked, and repeated the question.

"Lightning never hits the same spot twice," said Jaime. Everyone laughted. "You know any"" she asked her mate.

"Pull the pin out and count to what?" said Dante.

Dominic plopped himself on the ground next to Zac. "I got one: Hold my beer while I do this."

Taryn raised her hand. "Hey, what does this button do?"
"This doesn't taste right," said Marcus.
Bracken, a Mercury Pack enforcer spoke. "It's just a flesh wound."
Ally offered, "No dummy, that's a dolphin fin."
"What's that red dot on your forehead?" said McKenna.
Amused in spite of himself - it was after all, a completely pointless conversation - Ryan kissed her temple. ~ Suzanne Wright

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. ~ Charles Dickens

Let all brave Prussians follow me! ~ Kurt Christoph Graf Von Schwerin

Those were my last words. To be listed in some book of quotations, alphabetically after Wilde:
Wilde, Oscar (of the wallpaper in his bedroom): "Either it goes, or I do."
Wilding, Adelyn (of the gum splooches on the sidewalk): "Ditto." ~ Roberta Pearce

Dammit ... Don't you dare ask God to help me. ~ Joan Crawford

Better is the sinner who hath thoughts about God, than the saint who hath only the show of sanctity. ~ Saadi

Why not? After all, it belongs to him. ~ Charlie Chaplin

Someone's got to be the hero," he replied, and walked off across the hull.
"Famous last words," I muttered. ~ Ransom Riggs

Don't be scared," said a voice behind me.
Those must certainly fall into the category of Famous Last Words, the sort that are the last thing you hear before your death. (Along with "it isn't loaded" and "he only wants to play.") Of course I was terrible scared. ~ Kerstin Gier

You can not drop astronomy. To get through this semester, I must live vicariously through you and hear about Cam at least three days a week."
"I'm not going to drop the class-" Even though I sort of wanted to. "-But I doubt I'm going to have anything to tell you. It's not like we're even going to talk again."
Jacob let go of my arm and sat back, eyeing me. "Famous last words, Avery. ~ J. Lynn

Well "I do" are the two most famous last words. The beginning of the end. But to lose your life for another I've heard is a good place to begin. ~ Andrew Peterson

This is no time to make new enemies. ~ Voltaire

I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary Cooper. ~ Gary Cooper

I'd rather be eaten by a dragon. ~ Patricia C. Wrede

The taste of death is upon my lips. I feel something that is not of this earth. ~ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

I want my famous last words to be more famous rather than last. ~ Carroll Absolom Bryant

Jesus, I love you. Jesus, I love you. ~ Mother Teresa

And now we get to the hard part. the endings, the farewells, and the famous last words. if you don't hear from me often, remember that you're in my thoughts. ~ Paul Auster

I don't know how it got to this, but I'm in a war. There's no chance for diplomacy. They want me dead and I don't think I can run from this. Not after what they've done to me. So if this is a war, then I'm going to take the fight to them. I'll raid their lair and I'll kill as many as I can. There seem to be endless numbers of them, but they've got to have a limit. Tonight we'll find out if there are more of them than there is fight in me. ~ Dennis Liggio

I shall look forward to a pleasant time. ~ John Hancock

No further issues with Corinne Bishop or her kin in Detroit?" "Hunter didn't seem to be concerned," Gideon replied. "Said he had the situation under control." Lucan grunted, wry despite the weight of the discussion previously under way. "Where've I heard that line before? Famous last words from more than one of us over the course of the past year and a half. ~ Tina St. John

What say you, Empress of Praes?
Here you lie upon the blood-soaked ruins of your dominion, surrounded by the corpses of the legions that once swarmed over the world. Hundreds of thousands dead for the sake of your wretched ambition, your mad design to bring to heel the kingdoms of man. In all the history of Creation no one woman has been so wicked as you, and I will have my answer.
Why, o Empress of Ruins?"
She shrugged.
"Why not?"
– Last lines of the "The Fall of Empress Triumphant, First and Only of Her Name ~ ErraticErrata

I am a champion, and my damsel is in distress. Failure is not an option." "But death is," she mumbled under her breath. "Fear not, mate. I will prevail." Famous last words. ~ Eve Langlais

To Harald, may God forgive you and forgive me, too, but I prefer to take my life away and our baby's before I bring him with shame or killing him, Lupe. [Suicide note.] ~ Lupe Velez

I am curious to see what happens in the next world to one who dies unshriven. ~ Pietro Perugino

All is lost. Monks, monks, monks! ~ Henry VIII Of England

Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau. ~ Irving Fisher

Don't Shoot! I'm Che. I'm worth more to you alive than dead! ~ Ernesto Che Guevara

How many rooms does it have?"

"Five hundred eighty-seven, not including the staff bedrooms." He leans up and licks the shell of my ear, making the wet and quivering plan come to fruition. His next words almost make me come on the spot. "And I want to fuck you in every one of them by the end of the summer."

"That's ambitious," I tease, nuzzling him. "Do you plan on stopping to feed me?"

His hand skims down my back, cradling my ass. "You'll be well taken care of, I promise."

I promise. You know what that is? Yep - Famous. Last. Words. ~ Emma Chase

Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool. Good luck. ~ George Sanders

I desire to leave to the men that come after me a remembrance of me in good works. ~ Alfred The Great

What could possibly go wrong? ~ Darlene Gardner

Tisn't any need for you't'know. Even without you knowin', you function as yourself. That's your black box. In other words, we all carry around this great unexplored 'elephant graveyard' inside us. Outer space aside, this is truly humanity's last terra incognita ~ Haruki Murakami

Why can't we know those we love are about to die, so as to give them the words of love they need, the last praise or reassurance? We could not bear to know, but that is not true, for it is in the not knowing that is prepared all the sources of our suffering later. We are still like animals; we do not tell our thoughts or our feelings. ~ Anais Nin

I imagine the gods saying, We will
make it up to you. We will give you
three wishes, they say. Let me see
the squirrels again, I tell them.
Let me eat some of the great hog
stuffed and roasted on its giant spit
and put out, steaming, into the winter
of my neighborhood when I was usually
too broke to afford even the hundred grams
I ate so happily walking up the cobbles,
past the Street of the Moon
and the Street of the Birdcage-Makers,
the Street of Silence and the Street
of the Little Pissing. We can give you
wisdom, they say in their rich voices.
Let me go at last to Hugette, I say,
the Algerian student with her huge eyes
who timidly invited me to her room
when I was too young and bewildered
that first year in Paris.
Let me at least fail at my life.
Think, they say patiently, we could
make you famous again. Let me fall
in love one last time, I beg them.
Teach me mortality, frighten me
into the present. Help me to find
the heft of these days. That the nights
will be full enough and my heart feral. ~ Jack Gilbert

I have no intention of uttering my last words on the stage. Room service and a couple of depraved young women will do me quite nicely for an exit. ~ Peter O'Toole

Because you deserve a duke, damn it!" A troubled expression furrowed his brow. "You deserve a man who can give you the moon. I can't. I can give you a decent home in a decent part of town with decent people, but you…" His voice grew choked. "You're the most amazing woman I've ever known. It destroys me to think of what you'll have to give up to be with me."
"I told you before-I don't care!" she said hotly. "Why can't you believe me?"
He hesitated a long moment. "The truth?"
"Always."
"Because I can't imagine why you'd want me when you have men of rank and riches at your fingertips."
She gave a rueful laugh. "You grossly exaggerate my charms, but I can't complain. It's one of many things I adore about you-that you see a better version of me than I ever could." Remembering the wonderful words he'd said last night when she'd been so self-conscious, she left the bed to walk up to him. "Do you know what I see when I look at you?"
His wary gaze locked with hers. "Proper Pinter. Proud Pinter."
"Yes, but that's just who you show to the world to protect yourself." She reached up to stroke his cheek, reveling in the ragged breath that escaped him. "When you let down your guard, however, I see Jackson-who ferrets out the truth, no matter how hard. Who risks his own life to protect the weak. Who'd sacrifice anything to prevent me from having to sacrifice everything."
Catching her hand, he halted its path. "You see a saint," he said hoarsely. "I'm n ~ Sabrina Jeffries

The last time I talked to Axl was in 1996. That was the last time we exchanged any sort of words. There was a rumor that I talked to him a while back [and asked to rejoin the band]. I did go to his house one night, and I talked to his assistant about something that had to do with this lawsuit that we were involved in. But it got turned into something else. He went out and made a press release that said I actually spoke to him, which was all bullshit. I was really shocked. ~ Slash

When we want a book exactly like the one we just finished reading, what we really want is to recreate that pleasurable experience
the headlong rush to the last page, the falling into a character's life, the deeper understanding we've gotten of a place or a time, or the feeling of reading words that are put together in a way that causes us to look at the world differently. We need to start thinking about what it is about a book that draws us in, rather than what the book is about. ~ Nancy Pearl

I take in a huge breath and look at the sky as hard as I can. I feel like I'm trying to eat it with my eyes. I wish there would be certain things you come across and you could say, Okay, that's one. Put that away for me to pull out later just exactly as it is now. My dream is for me to be a poet who could make things like this sky come to life for someone else. If you see a sunset and try and describe it to someone in normal words, all you can say is, "Boy, I saw a great sunset last night." but if you are a poet, you give it to someone to feel for themselves. Like you make a little seed of what you say, they swallow it, and it blooms again inside their own heart. ~ Elizabeth Berg

Names are just words. I know that. But learning that the last name I'd used all my life was fake ...
"So what should I call myself, then?" I asked. "Sophie Atherton? Sophie Brannick?" Both sounded weird and made me feel like I was wearing clothes that didn't fit.
Mom smiled and brushed my hair away from my face. "You can call yourself whatever you want."
"Okay. Sophie Awesome Sparkle-Princess it is. ~ Rachel Hawkins

If you ever get injured or have an asthma attack, the last words you get out are, 'Sammy Davis suite, please.' That's, like, three rooms on the eighth floor of Cedars-Sinai. ~ Charles Nelson Reilly

Helen Keller was to have been present last night but she is ill in bed, and has been ill in bed during several weeks, through overwork in the interest of the blind, the deaf, and the dumb. I need not go into any particulars about Helen Keller. She is fellow to Caesar, Alexander, Napoleon, Homer, Shakspeare, and the rest of the immortals. She will be as famous a thousand years from now as she is to-day. ~ Mark Twain

I know that a stranger's hand will write to me next, to say that the good and faithful servant has been called at length into the joy of his Lord. And why weep for this? No fear of death will darken St. John's last hour: his mind will be unclouded; his heart will be undaunted; his hope will be sure; his faith steadfast. His own words are a pledge of this: "My Master," he says, "has forewarned me. Daily he announces more distinctly, 'Surely I come quickly!' and hourly I more eagerly respond, 'Amen; even so come, Lord Jesus! ~ Charlotte Bronte

Whatever language we speak, before we begin a sentence we have an almost infinite choice of words to use. A, The, They, Whereas, Having, Then, To, Bison, Ignorant, Since, Winnemucca, In, It, As . . . Any word of the immense vocabulary of English may begin an English sentence. As we speak or write the sentence, each word influences the choice of the next ― its syntactical function as noun, verb, adjective, etc., its person and number if a pronoun, its tense and number as a verb, etc. ,etc. And as the sentence goes on, the choices narrow, until the last word may very likely be the only one we can use. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

And there were other rocks that were like animals, creeping, horrible animals, putting out their tongues, and others were like words I could not say, and others like dead people lying on the grass. I went on among them, though they frightened me, and my heart was full of wicked song they put into it; and I wanted to make faces and twist myself about the way they did, and I went on and on a long way till at last I liked the rocks and they didn't frighten me any more ~ Arthur Machen

Shakespeare, I come ! ~ Theodore Dreiser

He didn't even use the Select All command the last time he did it. He wanted to see each of the words disappear, letter by useless letter. ~ Nick Thacker

The last few days of treatment, Babe kept barking at everyone that no one was ever cured of an addiction. One day at a time, ladies. Take it one day at time...Remember: progress, not perfection! ~ Ana B. Good

During my second draft pass on my last book I made 20,000 words happen in a week, which is practically supernatural for me, and it would never have been possible without three nights in a hotel in my own city. ~ Laini Taylor

Then when I'd thought nothing else could possibly startle or surprise me, the Lord Master had taken one look at Barrons - and walked away.
That worried me. A lot. If the Lord Master walked away from Barrons, how much danger was I in on a daily basis? I'd been feeling invincible up until those last few moments in the cave. Until one man in the room with me had stripped away my will with mere words, and the other man in the room with me had apparently intimidated that one into leaving. Bad and badder.
I glanced across the front seat at badder. I opened my mouth. He looked at me. I closed it.
I don't know how he continued driving, because we stared at each other for a long time. The night whizzed by, the air inside the speeding car pregnant with all the things we weren't saying. We didn't even have one of our wordless conversations this time; neither of us was willing to betray a single thought or feeling.
We looked at each other like two too-intimate strangers who've woken after the lovemaking and don't know quite what to say to each other, so they say nothing at all and go their separate ways, promising, of course, that they'll call, but each time they look at the phone over the next few days, the discomfort and mild embarrassment of having taken off their clothing in front of someone they didn't really even know rises up, and the phone call never gets made.
Barrons and I had taken our skins off around each other tonight. Shared too many secrets, and n ~ Karen Marie Moning

Omegas & Alphas

raw & cooked
soft & hard

whole & scrambled
pure & deviled

shirred & coddled
poached & painted

in rebirth baskets
& natal nogs

on our faces
& in our noodles -

eggs are words
& words are eggs

first & last
last & first ~ Ralph La Rosa

A THOUSAND WORDS

My stepfather Ralph Newman was a merry and remarkable man, a former minor league second baseman who broke his nose on a double play ball and wound up opening the Abraham Lincoln Bookshop in Chicago. He was also president of the Chicago Public Library.

Ralph used to huff about that phrase, A picture is worth a thousand words and ask, "Does anyone really stop to figure out what you could do with a thousand words?"

And, rather in the way that my daughters and I trade, try out, and create stories with each other, my stepfather and I spread out a napkin and came up with this:

One picture is worth a thousand words? You give me a thousand words and I can give you:
the Lord's Prayer, the Twenty-third Psalm,
the Hippocratic Oath, a sonnet by Shakespeare, the Preamble to the Constitution, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, the last graphs of Martin Luther King's speech to the March on Washington, and the final entry of Anne Frank's diary.

You give me a thousand words, and I don't think I'd trade you for any picture on earth. ~ Scott Simon

It isn't true about the lambs.
They are not meek.
They are curious and wild,
full of the passion of spring.
They are lovable,
and they are not silent when hungry.

Tonight the last of the triplet lambs
is piercing the quiet with its need.
Its siblings are stronger
and will not let it eat.

I am its keeper, the farmer, its mother.
I will go down to it in the dark,
in the cold barn,
and hold it in my arms.

But it will not lie still--it is not meek.

I will stand in the open doorway
under the weight of watching trees and moon,
and care for it as one of my own.

But it will not love me--it is not meek.

Drink, little one. Take what I can give you.
Tonight the whole world prowls
the perimeters of your life.

Your anger keeps you alive--
it's your only chance.
So I know what I must do
after I have fed you.

I will shape my mouth to the shape
of the sharpest words--
even those bred in silence.

I will impale with words every ear
pressed upon open air.
I will not be meek.

You remind me of the necessity
of having more hope than fear
and of sounding out terrible names.

I am to cry out loud
like a hungry lamb, cry loud
enough to waken wolves in the night.

No one can be allowed to sleep. ~ Alice B. Fogel

The most famous Diophantine equation in history is the one known as Fermat's last Theorem, the celebrated statement by Pierre de Fermat (1601-55) that there are no whole number solutions to the equation x^n + y^n = z^n, where n is any number greater than 2. When n = 2, there are many solutions (in fact an infinite number). For instance, 3^2 + 4^2 = 5^2 (9 + 16 = 25); or 12^2 +5^2 = 13^2 (144 + 25 = 169). Miraculously, when we go from n = 2 to n = 3, there are no whole numbers x,y,z that satisfy x^3 + y^3 = z^3, and the same is true for any other value of n that is greater than 2. Appropriately, it was in the margin of the second book of Diophantus's Arithmetica, which Fermat was eagerly reading, that he wrote his extraordinary claim-one that took no fewer than 356 years to prove. ~ Mario Livio

What the hell was that?" Joss turned on him the moment Gabriel cleared the last of the china.
"What the hell was what?" Gray pulled a flask from his breast pocket and offered it to his brother.
Joss waved it away. "You know damn well what I mean. Something's going on between you and Miss Turner, I know it."
Gray uncapped the flask and took a sip. "What makes you say that?" He circled the table, discreetly examining the angle of the tablecloth and the perspective from the captain's chair. Surely Joss couldn't have seen what had taken place under the table. Even if his brother had noticed, he could demand all the answers he wished. Gray had no desire-or words-to explain it.
For the first time since he'd left England, Gray gave thanks for the thin, impractical leather of those dandified Hessians. The feel of her lithe, shapely leg against his…She'd accepted the contact so readily, blushed so attractively. Beneath that table, they'd formed some sort of alliance.
And then she had extended a clear verbal invitation.
If he went to her berth right now, she would be expecting him. At last, he could solve the mystery of what held together that damned striped frock. Or…he could simply rip it from her body.
Gray shoved the image aside before his groin could react further. ~ Tessa Dare

Can words sprout wings? Can they glide like butterflies through the air? Can they captivate us, carry us off into another world? Can they open the last secret chambers of our souls? ~ Jan-Philipp Sendker

Why Brownlee left, and where he went,
Is a mystery even now.
For if a man should have been content
It was him; two acres of barley,
One of potatoes, four bullocks,
A milker, a slated farmhouse.
He was last seen going out to plough
On a March morning, bright and early.

By noon Brownlee was famous;
They had found all abandoned, with
The last rig unbroken, his pair of black
Horses, like man and wife,
Shifting their weight from foot to
Foot, and gazing into the future. ~ Paul Muldoon

What if we spoke every word as if it was our last?
Would we hurry to impress the masses with our wisdom?
Would we capture humanity in a poets hurried flow?
Would you even care?
I could speak as if my words were my last.
But you wouldn't remember them until I'm gone. ~ Elizabeth Novak

May your first word be adventure and last word love. ~ Bruce Feiler

Dear Beloved woman,
Time ... so much time has passed since my love wrote his last words for me.
And yet I remember it as if it were yesterday. I remember writing back and for the first time since I had left home I told my love what kind of darkness surrounded me here. I forgot all the sweet things my father had said to my mother when he was away. I forgot how they got her through all those long and lonely nights. ~ Talon P.S.

I only wish I had drunk more champagne. ~ John Maynard Keynes

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

I pushed his hair away from his eyes and took a closer look at his cheek. Maybe there really had been a boy in the street, but I also wouldn't put it past Cole to make one appear,if he had that power.
Jack's eyes opened fully,and he looked at me with half a grin. "You remember the first time I told you I loved you?" His words slurred together.
"Shhhhh.Don't talk.The paramedics are on their way."
"Do you?"
I touched his cheek and he winced. I could almost taste his pain,as if it were a tangible element in the air.I could feel my body hungering for the hurt.It was the first time since I'd Returned that I craved someone else's energy.Even at my lowest point,those last moments in the Everneath,I'd never felt a need for it.Until now.Until I was faced with emotions this strong.
He tilted his head toward me,and I jerked back. The taste in the air became bitter and sweet,a mixture of pain and longing.
"Tell me you remember," he said. "Please. ~ Brodi Ashton