Last Licks

Yglesias links to The 100 Best Last Lines from Novels. Pretty cool. And he's right about Gatsby, that's a great line by itself, much less at the very end of the book. The Dead's last line is great too, though I don't really consider it a novel.

Personally, I've always loved the end of Cheaper by the Dozen:

Someone once asked Dad "But what do you want to save time for? What are you going to do with it?
"For work, if you love that best," said Dad. "For education, for beauty, for art, for pleasure." He looked over the top of his pince-nez. "For mumblety-peg, if that's where your heart lies."

XMAS BONUS: here's a site with great last lines of movies (the reprisal of "I love you guys" from Hoosiers criminally left off.) I dig “It's true, boys. Every word of it. He died like they said. All right, fellas. Let's go and say a prayer for a boy who couldn't run as fast as I could.” from Angels with Dirty Faces a lot.