The Last Man Quotes

Probably the last man who knew how it worked had been tortured to death years before. Or as soon as it was installed. Killing the creator was a traditional method of patent protection. ~ Terry Pratchett

I'm the first man you saw today," he pointed out, "so I'm officially your valentine."
She let out a harsh laugh. "Because of a silly superstition? I think not."
"Because I want to be," he said in a low voice. "And because you want me to be, too."
Her gaze would have skewered a stone. "Want a drunken debaucher fresh from some whore's bed as my valentine? Not if you were the last man on earth."
She slammed the door in his face.
His brothers laughed, but he ignored them. He couldn't blame her for being angry; he'd given her good reason to be so.
But it didn't change a thing. He'd be damned if he let her go now. One way or the other, Maria Butterfield was going to be his. One way or the other, she would share his bed. ~ Sabrina Jeffries

I could use you, training the Castle guards," offered the Reeve, "but I have to warn you that the last man to hold the post of captain quit."
The guard's eyebrows rose. "I wouldn't have thought that Castle guards would be that difficult."
"They're not," returned Kerim. "My lady mother, however is. ~ Patricia Briggs

We have peace with Israel. We're actually the last man standing. So there is going to be immense pressure and people asking, 'Why are we having this relationship when it's not benefiting anybody?' Obviously, my answer is you always benefit from peace. ~ Abdallah II Of Jordan

The last man on the moon, Gene Cernan, had paused for a final look at the black beauty of the world about him. He had a message to send home before departing. "As I take these last steps from the surface for some time in the future to come, I'd just like to record that America's challenge of today has forged man's destiny of tomorrow. And as we leave the moon and Taurus-Littrow, we leave as we came, and, God willing, we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind." It's been nearly four decades since he spoke those words. No American, no earth being has yet returned to the moon. Sadly, no one will again for decades to come. ~ Alan Shepard

Enough rationalization. They simply had what you wanted, so you took it.

[My chair-- I shit on my good chair!]

You shit more than just your chair.

You shit the world. All you ever cared about was winning -- And you did.

The last man standing on a mountain of filth [. . .]

Kazumi taught forgiveness. She accepted all refugees looking for a better life. And you turned that against her.

Kazumi would show mercy.

I'm not Kazumi. ~ Rick Remender

You're all Helen talks about. She's been reading Welsh history books and plaguing the family with accounts of Owain Glynd and something called the Eistedfodd." His eyes sparkled with friendly mockery. "Helen was hacking and spitting so much the other day that we thought she was coming down with a cold, until we realized she was practicing the Welsh alphabet."
Ordinarily Rhys would have made some sarcastic retort, but he'd barely noticed the gibe. His chest had gone tight with pleasure.
"She doesn't have to do that," he muttered.
"Helen wants to please you," Devon said. "It's her nature. Which leads to something I want to make clear: Helen is like a younger sister to me. And although I'm obviously the last man alive who should lecture anyone about propriety, I expect you to behave like an altar boy with her for the next few days."
Rhys gave him a surly glance. "I *was* an altar boy, and I can tell you that reports of their virtue are highly exaggerated. ~ Lisa Kleypas

She wanted him to be right. She needed him to be wrong. And while that sounded as if she were confused, confusion implied uncertainty. And Margaret was dead certain that he was both the last man on earth that she should kiss, and the only one she dreamed of holding. ~ Courtney Milan

Nobody ever asks who was the seventh person on the Moon. The only thing they know is who's number one and who's number two. Does anybody know who the last man was? ~ Buzz Aldrin

At 10 minutes to seven on a dark, cool evening in Mexico City in 1968, John Stephen Akwari of Tanzania painfully hobbled into the Olympic Stadium-the last man to finish the marathon. The winner had already been crowned, and the victory ceremony was long finished. So the stadium was almost empty and Akwari - alone, his leg bloody and bandaged - struggled to circle the track to the finish line. When asked why he had continued the grueling struggle, the young man from Tanzania answered softly: My country did not send me 9,000 miles to start the race. They sent me 9,000 miles to finish the race. ~ Walter Inglis Anderson

I wish it to be remembered that I was the last man of my tribe to surrender my rifle. ~ Sitting Bull

Ethnic Germans also surrendered. Even veterans of the Eastern Front. Corp. Friedrich Bertenrath of the 2nd Panzer Division explained, "In Russia, I could imagine nothing but fighting to the last man. We knew that going into a prison camp in Russia meant you were dead. In Normandy, one always had in the back of his mind, 'Well, if everything goes to hell, the Americans are human enough that the prospect of becoming their prisoner was attractive to some extent. ~ Stephen E. Ambrose

The loss of quality that is so evident at every level of spectacular language, from the objects it glorifies to the behavior it regulates, stems from the basic nature of a production system that shuns reality. The commodity form reduces everything to quantitative equivalence. The quantitative is what it develops, and it can develop only within the quantitative. ~ Guy Debord

Standing at the window overlooking the lawn, Jordan and Alexandra Townsende watched the couple heading toward them. "If you'd asked me to name the last man on earth I would have expected to fall head over heels for a slip of a girl, it would have been Ian Thornton," he told her.
His wife heard that with a sidewise look of extreme amusement. "If I'd been asked, I rather think I would have named you."
"I'm sure you would have," he said, grinning. He saw her smile fade, and he put his arm around her waist, instantly concerned that her pregnancy was causing her discomfort. "Is it the babe, darling?"
She burst out laughing and shook her head, but she sobered again almost instantly. "Do you think," she asked pensively, "he can be trusted not to hurt her? He's done so much damage that I-I just cannot like him, Jordan. He's handsome, I'll grant you that, extraordinarily handsome-"
"Not that handsome," Jordan said, stung. And this time Alexandra dissolved in mirth. Turning, she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him soundly. "Actually, he rather reminds me of you," she said, "in his coloring and height and build."
"I hope that hasn't anything to do with why you can't like him," her husband teased.
"Jordan, do stop. I'm worried, really I am. He's-well, he almost frightens me. Even though he seems very civilized on the surface, there's a forcefulness, maybe even a ruthlessness beneath his polished manners. And he stops at nothing when he wants something ~ Judith McNaught

I start where the last man left off. ~ Thomas A. Edison

Is there a feeling as love at first sight ? and if there be, in what does its nature differ from love founded in long observation and slow growth? perhaps its effect are not permanent; but they are, while they last, as violent and intense. We walk the pathless mazes of society vacant of joy till we hold this clue, leading us though that labyrinth of paradise and our nature dim like to an enlightened touch sleeps in formless blank till the fire attain it ~ Marry Shelley

The earth has become small, and on it hops the last man, who makes everything small. His race can no more be exterminated than the flea can be. The last man lives the longest. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

It would be fitting, I think, if among the last man made tracks on earth would be found the huge footprints of the great brown bear. ~ Earl Fleming

Rest you fair, good signior;
Your worship was the last man in our mouths. ~ William Shakespeare

Until the last man has drawn his last breath, there is always hope. ~ Sophia McMaster

What matters is that life is good. It has a lovely texture, like some rich cloth or fur, or the petals of flowers, and everything else worthwhile. And that's as true for the last man as the first. ~ Fritz Leiber

Surrender is forbidden. Sixth Army will hold their positions to the last man and the last round and by their heroic endurance will make an unforgettable contribution toward the establishment of a defensive front and the salvation of the Western world. ~ Friedrich Paulus

The last man she'd dated said something to her, shortly before they broke up: 'I don't know, maybe I'm boring, but I never really feel like you're there when we're out to dinner. You live in your head. I can't. No room for me in there. I don't know, maybe you'd be more interested in me if I were a book.'

She had hated him at the time, and hated herself a little, but later, looking back, Hutter had decided that even if that particular boyfriend had been a book, he would've been one from the Business & Finance aisle and she would've passed him by and looked for something in SF & Fantasy. ~ Joe Hill

When it became obvious that the stranger was no longer a threat, Laeth said congenially, "She doesn't like it when men touch her without an invitation. You're lucky that she's in a good mood or she'd have just cut your hand off - that's what she did to the last man who tried it."
A friend of Laeth's leaned over from a nearby table and said sadly, "Poor Jard was never the same."
"Remember what she did to Lothar?" added another man, shaking his head.
"Took us three days to find all the pieces so that we could bury him," commented one of Laeth's fellow lieutenants, a stocky, bald man with a friendly face. He leaned closer and said softly, "But then, Lothar tried to kiss her. ~ Patricia Briggs

I am the last man in the world to say that the succor which is given us from America is not in itself something to rejoice at greatly. But I also say that I can see more in the knowledge that America is going to win a right to be at the conference table when the terms of peace are discussed ... It would have been a tragedy for mankind if America had not been there, and there with all her influence and power. ~ David Lloyd George

He stepped back with exaggerated courtesy. But when I walked past him, he swatted my rump. Hard enough to sting.
"You need to be more careful," he growled. "Keep interfering in my business and you might get hurt."
I said sweetly as I continued to Jesse's room, "The last man who swatted me like that is rotting in his grave."
"I have no doubt about it." His voice was more satisfied then contrite. ~ Patricia Briggs

Andre, I won't ever try to change you, because I've never tried to change anybody. If I could change somebody, I'd change myself. But I know I can give you structure and a blueprint to achieve what you want. There's a difference between a plow horse and a racehorse. You don;t treat them the same. You hear all this talk about treating people equally, and I'm not sure equal means the same. As far as I'm concerned, you're a racehorse, and I'll always treat you accordingly. I'll be firm, but fair. I'll lead, never push. I'm not one of those people who expresses or articulates feelings very well, but from now on, just know this: It's on, man. It is on. You know what I'm saying? We're in a fight, and you can count on me until the last man is standing. Somewhere up there is a star with your name on it. I might not be able to help you find it, but I've got pretty strong shoulders, and you can stand on my shoulders while you're looking for that star. You hear? For as long as you want. Stand on my shoulders and reach, man. Reach. ~ Andre Agassi

The last man of the world-city no longer wants to live
he may cling to life as an individual, but as a type, as an aggregate, no, for it is a characteristic of this collective existence that it eliminates the terror of death. ~ Oswald Spengler

Nick,' he corrected quietly. 'As to your emotions, they show in your face, in
those amazing eyes. One day soon those eyes will change colour and glow
for me.'
'They already have done,' Joanna snapped, rage surfacing. 'I never liked you,
Mr Martella, and now I can only think I hate you. If I should ever know that
you're coming here again I'll make quite sure I'm a long way off!'
He took one menacing step towards her and Joanna backed away, her
expression of loathing making his face harden frighteningly.
'I will not touch you,' he grated angrily. 'I will merely tell you this: J leave
for America tomorrow. I shall be there for two months. When I return I
intend to come for you.'
The thought of people in the house left Joanna's head entirely. Her hands
clenched at her sides and her considerable temper surfaced over grief, fear
and utter bewilderment.
'If you were the last man in the universe I wouldn't consent to be near you!'
she shouted. 'You've taken away everything I've ever wanted. You've even
sneaked up and taken my father. Now I can never go to Santa Marta again!'
'I know you love the island,' he said with surprising quiet. 'Your father told
me. We will live there and you will see your father whenever you care to
walk down the beach to his house.'
'I'll see him when he comes over to England,' Joanna corrected bitterly. 'One
thing is for sure, though ~ Patricia Wilson

Mr. Sturgess ran the classes with iron, ex-military discipline. We each had spots on the floor, denoting where we should stand rigidly to attention, awaiting our next task. And he pushed us hard. It felt like Mr. Sturgess had forgotten that we were only age six--but as kids, we loved it.
It made us feel special.
We would line up in rows beneath a metal bar, some seven feet off the ground, then one by one we would say: "Up, please, Mr. Sturgess," and he would lift us up and leave us hanging, as he continued down the line.
The rules were simple: you were not allowed to ask permission to drop off until the whole row was up and hanging, like dead pheasants in a game larder. And even then you had to request: "Down, please, Mr. Sturgess." If you buckled and dropped off prematurely, you were sent back in shame to your spot.
I found I loved these sessions and took great pride in determining to be the last man hanging. Mum would say that she couldn't bear to watch as my little skinny body hung there, my face purple and contorted in blind determination to stick it out until the bitter end.
One by one the other boys would drop off the bar, and I would be left hanging there, battling to endure until the point where even Mr. Sturgess would decide it was time to call it.
I would then scuttle back to my mark, grinning from ear to ear.
"Down, please, Mr. Sturgess," became a family phrase for us, as an example of hard physical exercise, strict discipline, an ~ Bear Grylls

Baseball is the most perfect of games, solid, true, pure and precious as diamonds. If only life were so simple. Within the baselines anything can happen. Tides can reverse; oceans can open. That's why they say, "the game is never over until the last man is out." Colors can change, lives can alter, anything is possible in this gentle, flawless, loving game. ~ W.P. Kinsella

The last man to try to run for president advocating a tax increase was Walter Mondale. He lost 49 states in 1984, and the "I'll raise your taxes" reputation haunted him all the way to Minnesota last year, where he lost his 50th state in the Senate election. ~ Dick Morris

For a time I believed that mankind had been swept out of existence, and that I stood there alone, the last man left alive. ~ H.G.Wells

Love? Love? Love is not safe, my lady silk, love is dangerous. It is deceitfully sweet like wine from a fresh palm tree at dawn. Love is fine for singing about and love songs are good to listen to, sometimes even to dance to. But when we need to count on human strength, and when we have to count pennies for food for our stomachs and clothes for our backs, love is nothing. Ah my lady, the last man any woman should think of marrying is the man she loves. ~ Ama Ata Aidoo

The presence of God compelled human[s] to quest for an ideal. They had to strive for something to win God's blessing.... Nietzsche feared that with God's passing even that striving would stop. No one would think it worthwhile to try to overcome himself. People who would live happily with their own limitations.... Worse was life in which humanity had lost all interest in ideals. This was the world epitomized by "The Last Man." This creature hops and blinks on the Earth's crust, small and self-seeking, lives with the most pitiable credo: `One still works, for work is a form of entertainment. But one is careful lest the entertainment be too harrowing. One no longer becomes poor or rich: Both require too much exertion. Who still wants to rule? Who obey? Both require too much exertion.' The Last Man has his `little poison now and then: That makes for agreeable dreams'; he is cautious, self-absorbed, noncommittal.... What happens now and in the future if our most intelligent students never learn to strive to overcome what they are? ~ Mark Edmundson

Corruption of morals is rapid enough in any country without a bounty from government. And ... the Chief Magistrate of the United States should be the last man to accelerate its progress. ~ Daniel Webster

All things pass in time. We are far less significant than we imagine ourselves to be. All that we are, all that we have wrought, is but a shadow, no matter how durable it may seem. One day, when the last man has breathed his last breath, the sun will shine, the mountains will stand, the rain will fall, the streams will whisper - and they will not miss him. ~ Jim Butcher

My ancestors are all crazy. My great-great-granddad, he was the last man to live in a cave in Nottingham. ~ Neon Hitch

There is no fix for this. She has to endure it, and somewhere along the line she has to learn to live again. Surviving isn't the goal. Living is. This is a battle between me and her grief, and I'm going to be the last man standing. ~ Anne Calhoun

The shortest horror story:
The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door. ~ Frederic Brown

Do you like that?" he whispered.
"Yes, I ... " She fought to speak between helpless gasps. "I thought ... it was going to hurt."
"Not from this." A smile touched his mouth. "Later, however, you might have cause for complaint." A shimmer of sweat gathered on his face as he felt the pulsing of her body around his exploring finger. "I don't know if I can be gentle," he said raggedly. "I've wanted you for too long."
"I trust you," she whispered.
Matthew shook his head, easing his hand away from her. "You have terrible judgment. You're in bed with the last man in the world you should trust, and you're about to make the biggest mistake of your life."
"Is this your idea of seductive banter?"
"I thought I should give you one last warning. Now you're doomed."
"Oh, good." Daisy moved to help him as he stripped off her drawers and stockings. ~ Lisa Kleypas

If the world becomes pagan and perishes, the last man left alive would do well to quote the Iliad and die. ~ G.K. Chesterton

It was widely accepted within the ranks of those fighting in the east that death on the battlefield was preferable to an unknown destiny in a Soviet prisoner of war camp. This mentality often played a role in the many acts of bravery demonstrated by individuals or entire units. During the closing days of the war it was not at all uncommon for entire companies, battalions, and battle groups to fight to the last man, the survivors going into captivity only when ammunition was exhausted and wounds were too grave to allow further resistance. ~ Gottlob Herbert Bidermann

You can be our critic. Would you dig that? (Yes, he was the last Man in America who could say "dig" with a straight face without referring to the process of using a tool to remove dirt from the ground.) ~ Jordan Sonnenblick

Yes, I am the last man to have walked on the moon, and that's a very dubious and disappointing honor. It's been far too long. ~ Gene Cernan

All's well that ends well; which is the epitaph I should put on my tombstone if I were the last man left alive. ~ Bertrand Russell

I surrender this rifle to you through my young son, whom I now desire to teach in this manner that he has become a friend of the Americans. I wish him to learn the habits of the whites and to be educated as their sons are educated. I wish it to be remembered that I was the last man of my tribe to surrender my rifle. This boy has given it to you, and he now wants to know how he is going to make a living. ~ Sitting Bull

I start where the last man left off. What the mind of man can conceive and believe, the mind of a man can achieve. ~ Thomas A. Edison

The war ... must go on till the last man of this generation falls in his tracks ... unless you acknowledge our right to self-government. We are not fighting for slavery. We are fighting for Independence,and that, or extermination, we WILL have. ~ Jefferson Davis

Nobody's taller than the last man standing ~ LaMichael James

Through all the years of experimenting and research, I never once made a discovery. I start where the last man left off. All my work was deductive, and the results I achieved were those of invention pure and simple. ~ Thomas A. Edison

What a shame that Christianity had come here!If the white man had not intruded where he was not wanted, where he did not belong, even now protected by the mountains and the river,the village would have remained a last stronghold of a culture which was almost gone.Mark tried to say that no village,no culture can remain static. I have often thought that if this lively and magnificent land belongs to anyone,it's to the birds and the fish.They were here long before the first Indian and when the last man is gone from the Earth,it will be theirs again. ~ Margaret Craven

I've often wondered what people mean when they talk about an experience. I'm a technologist and accustomed to seeing things as they are. I see everything they are talking about very clearly; after all, I'm not blind. I see the moon over the Tamaulipas desert--it is more distinct than at other times, perhaps, but still a calculable mass circling around our planet, an example of gravitation, interesting, but in what way an experience? I see the jagged rocks, standing out black against the moonlight; perhaps they do look like the jagged backs of prehistoric monsters, but I know they are rocks, stone, probably volcanic, one should have to examine them to be sure of this. Why should I feel afraid? There aren't any prehistoric monsters any more. Why should I imagine them? I'm sorry, but I don't see any stone angels either; nor demons; I see what I see--the usual shapes due to erosion and also my long shadow on the sand, but no ghosts. Why get womanish? I don't see any Flood either, but sand lit up by the moon and made undulating, like water, by the wind, which doesn't surprise me; I don't find it fantastic, but perfectly explicable. I don't know what the souls of the damned look like; perhaps like black agaves in the desert at night. What I see are agaves, a plant that blossoms once only and dies. Furthermore, I know (however I may look at the moment) that I am not the last or the first man on earth; and I can't be moved by the mere idea that I am the last man, because it isn't tru ~ Max Frisch

Jacques Cousteau, the last man to see Jimmy Hoffa. Never got a dinner! ~ Red Buttons

From the very beginning - from the first moment, I may almost say - of my acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form the groundwork of disapprobation on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry. ~ Jane Austen

The witch mania is shameful. How could we do it? How could we be so ignorant about ourselves and our weaknesses? How could it have happened in the most "advanced," the most "civilized" nations then on Earth? Why was it resolutely supported by conservatives, monarchists, and religious fundamentalists? Why opposed by liberals, Quakers and followers of the Enlightenment? If we're absolutely sure that our beliefs are right, and those of others wrong; that we are motivated by good, and others by evil; that the King of the Universe speaks to us, and not to adherents of very different faiths; that it is wicked to challenge conventional doctrines or to ask searching questions; that our main job is to believe and obey - then the witch mania will recur in its infinite variations down to the time of the last man. Note Friedrich von Spee's very first point, and the implication that improved public understanding of superstition and skepticism might have helped to short-circuit the whole train of causality. If we fail to understand how it worked in the last round, we will not recognize it as it emerges in the next. ~ Carl Sagan

I felt like the Last Man, neglected of the judgment, and left pinnacled in mid-heaven, a forgotten relic of a vanished world. ~ Mark Twain

How would you know if you were the last man on Earth? He said.
I don't guess you would know it. You'd just be it.
Nobody would know it.
It wouldn't make any difference. When you die it's the same as if everybody else died too. ~ Cormac McCarthy

Nothing is so precious to a woman's heart as the glory and excellence of him she loves ~ Mary Shelley

Aaron Sisson was the last man on the little black railway-line ~ D.H. Lawrence

Remember this, if you have written a couple dozen short stories and sold them to national markets, the chances are you know as much about the business as many of the editors you are trying to sell to. You are going to have to write what they want, but always be sure the paths they want you to take are reasonable. The chances are they know what is salable and they must be listened to. But only you can determine what is distinctly yours and that is your road to the ultimate success. Editors come and go constantly and the next man may love what the last man despised.

It's all taste and opinion and one man is different from the next. Mr. Faulkner might not appreciate Mr. Spillane, but that is also true in reverse.

None of this need concern you. Out there, beyond the lighted limits of the place you sit and type, somebody is waiting for the kind of thing you write. Writing can never be more than communication and should never be less.

So what do you do? You keep typing. ~ William Campbell Gault

If you are a man, Winston, you are the last man. ~ George Orwell

We're going to survive–our songs, our stories. They'll never be able to forget us. Decades after the last man who fought at Troy is dead, their sons will remember the songs their Trojan mothers sang to them. We'll be in their dreams–and in their worst nightmares too. ~ Pat Barker

With introductions out of the way, Erick got down to the business of having abducted me.
"Why were you asking Fink about the priest?"
"I have some sins to confess," I said. "For ruining the life of the last man to kidnap me. ~ Jennifer A. Nielsen

We are so considerate of the minute constitutional rights and even of the political feelings and influence of people whom we have every reason to anticipate with preventive action! ... The Japanese in California should be under armed guard to the last man and woman and to hell with habeas corpus until the danger is over ... ~ Westbrook Pegler

Poincaré [was] the last man to take practically all mathematics, pure and applied, as his province. ... Few mathematicians have had the breadth of philosophic vision that Poincaré had, and none in his superior in the gift of clear exposition. ~ Eric Temple Bell

And now at last authentic word I bring,
Witnessed by every dead and living thing;
Good tidings of great joy for you, for all:
There is no God; no Fiend with names divine
Made us and tortures us; if we must pine,
It is to satiate no Being's gall.

It was the dark delusion of a dream,
That living Person conscious and supreme,
Whom we must curse for cursing us with life;
Whom we must curse because the life he gave
Could not be buried in the quiet grave,
Could not be killed by poison or the knife.

This little life is all we must endure,
The grave's most holy peace is ever sure,
We fall asleep and never wake again;
Nothing is of us but the mouldering flesh,
Whose elements dissolve and merge afresh
In earth, air, water, plants, and other men.

We finish thus; and all our wretched race
Shall finish with its cycle, and give place
To other beings with their own time-doom:
Infinite aeons ere our kind began;
Infinite aeons after the last man
Has joined the mammoth in earth's tomb and womb. ~ James Thomson

Every position must be held to the last man. There must be no retirement. With our backs to the wall, and believing in the justice of our cause, each one of us must fight to the end. ~ Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig

I returned from Boston and rallied my fellow librarians to defend the town," Quinn replied, as if the answer should have been obvious. He offered me a small bow from his seat. "The librarians are at your disposal, Widdershins. We will fight to the last man. ~ Jordan L. Hawk

If Paulus's army had capitulated before the end, the Russians would have had the advantage of withdrawing forces against Paulus and against the southern front, where I had only two Romanian armies. Therefore, the resistance of the Sixth German Army, even to the death of the last man, was necessary. ~ Erich Von Manstein

Rand, Huxley, Orwell, and Bradbury foresaw much of today's dystopian world: its spiritual and moral emptiness, its culture of consumerism, its flat-souled Last Manishness, its debasement of language, its doublethink, its illiteracy, and its bovine tolerance of authoritarian indignities. But they did not foresee the most serious and catastrophic of today's problems: the eminent destruction of whites, and western culture.

None of them thought to deal with race at all. Why is this? Probably for the simple reason that it never occurred to any of them that whites might take slave morality so far as to actually will their own destruction. As always, the truth is stranger than fiction. ~ Jef Costello

Sure, this will probably end up being another in a long line of emotionally crippling misadventures ... but let's try to have some fun along the way. ~ Brian K. Vaughan

I should never have surrendered. I should have fought until I was the last man alive. ~ Geronimo

She was in big trouble now.
"You stupid man," she said to the body on the floor. "Why did you have to lunge at me like that? Why couldn't you have left well enough alone? I told your father I wasn't going to marry you. I told him I wouldn't marry you if you were the last idiot in Britain."
She nearly stamped her foot in frustration. Why was it her words never came out quite the way she
intended them to?
"What I meant to say was that you are an idiot," she said to Percy, who, not
surprisingly, didn't respond, "and that I wouldn't marry you if you were the last man in Britain, and- Oh, blast. What am I doing talking to you, anyway? You're quite dead. ~ Julia Quinn

Making another effort to be paradoxical, Williams decides to identify Orwell as an instance of 'the paradox of the exile'. This, which he also identified with D. H. Lawrence, constituted an actual 'tradition', which, in England:

attracts to itself many of the liberal virtues: empiricism, a certain integrity, frankness. It has also, as the normally contingent virtue of exile, certain qualities of perception: in particular, the ability to distinguish inadequacies in the groups which have been rejected. It gives, also, an appearance of strength, although this is largely illusory. The qualities, though salutary, are largely negative; there is an appearance of hardness (the austere criticism of hypocrisy, complacency, self-deceit), but this is usually brittle, and at times hysterical: the substance of community is lacking, and the tension, in men of high quality, is very great.

This is quite a fine passage, even when Williams is engaged in giving with one hand and taking away with the other. Orwell's working title for Nineteen Eighty-Four was 'The Last Man in Europe,' and there are traces of a kind of solipsistic nobility elsewhere in his work, the attitude of the flinty and solitary loner. May he not be valued, however, as the outstanding English example of the dissident intellectual who preferred above all other allegiances the loyalty to truth? Self-evidently, Williams does not believe this and the clue is in the one word, so seemingly innocuous in itself, ~ Christopher Hitchens

You are rotting away. You are falling to pieces. What are you? A bag of filth. Now turn round and look into that mirror again. Do you see that thing facing you? That is the last man. If you are human, that is humanity. ~ George Orwell

You have terrible judgment. You're in bed with the last man in the world you should trust, and you're about to make the biggest mistake of your life." "Is this your idea of seductive banter?" "I thought I should give you one last warning. Now you're doomed." "Oh, good. ~ Lisa Kleypas

You can find things in the traditional religions which are very benign and decent and wonderful and so on, but I mean, the Bible is probably the most genocidal book in the literary canon. The God of the Bible - not only did He order His chosen people to carry out literal genocide - I mean, wipe out every Amalekite to the last man, woman, child, and, you know, donkey and so on, because hundreds of years ago they got in your way when you were trying to cross the desert - not only did He do things like that, but, after all, the God of the Bible was ready to destroy every living creature on earth because some humans irritated Him. That's the story of Noah. I mean, that's beyond genocide - you don't know how to describe this creature. Somebody offended Him, and He was going to destroy every living being on earth? And then He was talked into allowing two of each species to stay alive - that's supposed to be gentle and wonderful. ~ Noam Chomsky

The acts of the human race on the world's stage have doubtless a coherent unity, but the meaning of the vast tragedy enacted will be visible only to the eye of God, until the end, which will reveal it perhaps to the last man. ~ Alfred De Vigny

When Johnny Cash died, ... I picked up my guitar and got the idea that Bob Dylan was the last man standing, the last of the real gods. It was for Dylan, Cash, Lennon, Elvis that's what I was thinking. ~ Jon Bon Jovi

I once met a traveler who told me he would live to see the end of time. He laid out all his vitamins before me and told me he slept seven hours every night, no more or less. All the life you want, he said. It's all within the palm of your hand now. He said he would outlast all the wars and all the diseases, long enough to remember everything, and long enough to forget everything. He'd be the last man still standing when the sun decides to collapse upon itself and history ends. He said he had found the safest place on earth, where he could stay until the gateway to the beyond opened before him. A thousand generations from today. I pictured him there, atop a remote and snowy mountain. The heavens opening and God congratulating him for his perseverance. Asking him to join Him and watch as the sun burns down to a dull orange cinder and everything around it breaks is orbit and goes tumbling tumbling away, everything that once seemed permanent pulled apart so effortlessly, like a ball of yarn. A life into divinity.
But I knew it was a lie. I've always known it was a lie. You can not hide from the world. It will find you. It always does. And now it has found me. My split second of immortality is over. All that's left now is the end, which is all any of us ever has. ~ Drew Magary

When I told you I was the last man you'd ever tell your story to, I meant it. I'm not going anywhere. ~ Christy Pastore

Cap," Amos said with a grin. "Anything that kills me has already killed everyone else. I was born to be the last man standing. You can count on it." The ~ James S.A. Corey

You know, sometimes I do hear funny things on that side. Things you wouldn't ordinarily think have a sound. Like insect wings. Or snow hitting the ground." Perfect. Now all the attention will turn to the surgeons who fixed my deaf ear after the Games last year, and they'll have to explain why I can hear like a bat. ~ Suzanne Collins

Kelli Farrell talks about the difference between girls and boys who struggle to get through high school: "Girls, especially those whose moms are head of household, get the message that men come and go, that they're going to have to take care of themselves and their kids. They're ready for the opportunity to step up. By the last year or two in high school, many boys have already steeled themselves for failure. They've checked out intellectually, mentally, and emotionally. ~ Peg Tyre

Predictions that digital tools would allow workers to telecommute were never fully realized. One of Marissa Mayer's first acts as CEO of Yahoo! was to discourage the practice of working from home, rightly pointing out that "people are more collaborative and innovative when they're together." When Steve Jobs designed a new headquarters for Pixar, he obsessed over ways to structure the atrium, and even where to locate the bathrooms, so that serendipitous personal encounters would occur. Among his last creations was the plan for Apple's new signature headquarters, a circle with rings of open workspaces surrounding a central courtyard. Throughout history ~ Walter Isaacson

Now, some people will bemoan this fact, wag their fingers in your direction, and tell you sternly that you should live every minute of your life as though it were your last, which only goes to show that some people would spend their final ten minutes giving other people dumb advice. The ~ Daniel M. Gilbert

To think that just when one's happiness is full to overflowing, and one is thoroughly in love with life, there should come upon one a taint of sorrow!" she murmured.

Yes; such is the payment exacted for the Promethean fire. You must not only endure, you must even love and respect, the sorrow and the doubts and the self-questionings of which you have spoken: for they constitute the excess, the luxury, of life, and show themselves most when happiness is at its zenith, and has alloyed with it no gross desires.
Such troubles are powerless to spring to birth amid life which is ordinary and everyday; they cannot touch the individual who is forced to endure hardship and want. That is why the bulk of the crowd goes on its way without ever experiencing the cloud of doubt, the pain of self-questioning. To him or to her, however, who voluntarily goes to meet those difficulties they become welcome guests, not a scourge.

But one can never get even with them. To almost every one they bring sorrow and indifference.

Yes; but that does not last. Later they serve to shed light upon life, for they lead one to the edge of the abyss whence there is no return--then gently force one to turn once more and look upon life.
Thus they seem to challenge one's tried faculties in order that the latter may be prevented from sinking wholly into inertia. ~ Ivan Goncharov

Children are the first thing I see in the morning and the last thing I see at night. It hurts me to be away from them for a few hours. It really does. I love them and they're girls, so they know how to push my buttons. But I've learned a lot and I have to thank my wife for that. ~ Sylvester Stallone

I was born in Darien, Connecticut, but in 1959, when I was four, my parents moved to the suburbs of Toronto. Then, in the late 1960s, they bought a cottage in a resort/trailer park in the Kawarthas region of Ontario, and we moved up there. I wrote a book about it in 2000 called 'Last Resort: Coming of Age in Cottage Country.' ~ Linwood Barclay

Where the hell did this come from? Alex flipped through a Pondimin package insert he had found in another box and saw the last line: Revised June 20, 1996. A similar warning for Redux, a nearly identical drug, was dated April 29, 1996. ~ Alicia Mundy

Understanding God is not attained by calling into session all arguments for and against Him, in order to debate whether He is a reality or a figment of the mind. God cannot be sensed as a second thought, as an explanation of the origin of the universe. He is either the first and the last, or just another concept. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel

I've often wondered what makes a relationship last. I guess the best answer is it's the one right after the next to the last one. ~ Jarod Kintz

Aaron opened his mouth, closed it again, and fixed Nicky with an annoyed look. "You're explaining this to Andrew when he gets back." "Oh, hell no," Nicky said, and jerked a thumb at Neil. "I'mma leave that one to him. Thanks for taking one for the team, Neil. You're a real friend." Nicky grinned over at Neil, but his amusement didn't last. He seemed confused by whatever he saw on Neil's face and backpedaled with, "Don't worry, we'll send Renee along with you for backup. Last I checked Andrew only wins half their fights, so you might actually survive. Uh. Neil?" He should just let it go, or at least leave it to think about later, but Neil couldn't resist. "Are we?" he asked, because hadn't Betsy said it just a few days ago? He hadn't understood it then and hadn't even tried, too angry and upset over everything else that was happening. Tonight it almost meant something, though what, Neil didn't know. Realizing Nicky couldn't follow his twisting train of thought, Neil forced himself to say, "Friends?" It was like that one word punched all the joy out of Nicky, but the look that crossed Nicky's face next was too fast for Neil to decipher. Nicky's smile was back a second later, but it didn't reach his eyes. Neil might have apologized, except Nicky reached out and scrubbed a gloved hand through Neil's hair. "You are going to be the absolute death of me," Nicky said. "Yeah, kid. We're friends. You're stuck with us, like it or not. ~ Nora Sakavic

There is too much sour grapes for my taste in the present American attitude. The time to denounce the bankers was when we were all feeding off their gold plate; not now! At present they have not only my sympathy but my preference. They are the last representatives of our native industries. ~ Edith Wharton

To Alec, love always
meant this: his shining city of eternal light. The land of lost dreams
reclaimed, his first kiss and his last. ~ Cassandra Clare

She had become Jack's whore and she didn't want for it to end. With Jack being in total control she felt something that Selena had never dreamt possible: free. Now that she had no say, no control at all, the last of her inhibitions had been swept away. Her actions were a result of another's orders and so she couldn't be held accountable for the things he made her do and she loved that. ~ Nathan L. Flamank

Norah, understand that I won't be able to go back from this. Once we cross this line, there will never be anyone else for me. You are the last person I ever want to be with. ~ Angela Richardson

Goods must once again be made to last, and the use of energy-intensive long-haul transport will need to be rationed - reserved for those cases where goods cannot be produced locally or where local production is more carbon-intensive. (For example, growing food in greenhouses in cold parts of the United States is often more energy intensive than growing it in warmer regions and shipping it by light rail.)45 ~ Naomi Klein

As you deal with thumb-crossings, or fingerings for the F-sharp-minor scale, or chromatic scales in double thirds, it is hard to accept that these will eventually allow you to probe eternity in the final movement of Beethoven's last sonata. Imagine that you are scrubbing the grout in your bathroom and are told that removing every last particle of mildew will somehow enable you to deliver the Gettysburg Address. ~ Jeremy Denk