The Republic of Heaven

This is my first thread. *pets it*

I can think of great endings quicker than I can think of great openings...though not at the moment. More to come.

Here is my absolute favorite:

It didn't matter in the end how old they had been, or that they were girls, but only that we had loved them, and that they hadn't heard us calling, still do not hear us, up here in the tree house, with our thinning hair and soft bellies, calling them out of those rooms where they went to be alone for all time, alone in suicide, which is deeper than death, and where we will never find the pieces to put them back together.

---The Virgin Suicides, Jeffrey Eugenides

As if that blind rage had washed me clean, ride 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 was a crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate.

-- The Stranger, Albert Camus

Northern Lights:

And so Lyra and her daemon turned away from the world they were born in, and looked towards the sun, and walked into the sky.

It just sounds so beautiful!

Sounds like westerns where they walk into the sunset

"He fell in October 1918, on a day that was so quiet and still on the whole front, that the army report confined itself to the single sentence: All quiet on the Western Front.
"He had fallen forward and lay on the earth as though sleeping. Turning him over one saw that he could not have suffered long; his face had an expression of calm, as though almost glad the end had come."

From All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. The book is one of the best I have ever read and anyone who hasn't read it should read it. Now. It gives you a whole new perspective on war.

I'll put the opening lines on the opening lines thread, because it is really good too.

From All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. The book is one of the best I have ever read and anyone who hasn't read it should read it. Now. It gives you a whole new perspective on war.

Among all the awesome books on war, I think it's one of the best, along with Catch-22 and The Things They Carried.

Among all the awesome books on war, I think it's one of the best, along with Catch-22

I couldn't finish that for some reason. I got about half way through and just tailed off. I think it was probably the way he introduces a new character every chapter, began to irritate me a bit. I might give it another go over the summer.

Mine is from Blood Canticle, the last book in Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles:

'Be gone from me, oh mortals who are pure of heart. Be gone from my thoughts, oh souls who dream great dreams. Be gone from me, oh hymns of glory. I am the magnet for the damned. At least for a little while. And then my heart cries out, my heart will not be still, my heart will not give up, my heart will not give in -
- the blood that teaches life will not teach lies, and love becomes again my reprimand, my goad, my song.'

It's melodramatic, but then again, so am I!

"This is indeed a great mystery. For those of you who, like me, love the little prince, nothing in the universe can be the same while somewhere, nobody knows where, a sheep which we have never seen may or may not have eaten a flower...
Look at the sky. Ask yourselves: Has a sheep eaten the flower, yes or no? And you will see how everything changes...
And no grown-ups will ever understand why is it so important!"


The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

Oh, that's a beautiful book! I haven't read it for years...

I was using a line from it as an epigraph for my English essay, and since it's so short I read the entire thing. It's one of the most beautiful books ever. I first read it when I was 8... I nearly cried when the Prince 'died'.

You use epigraphs in your English essays? I didn't start doing that until I was in uni.

*feels inadequate*

"This is indeed a great mystery. For those of you who, like me, love the little prince, nothing in the universe can be the same while somewhere, nobody knows where, a sheep which we have never seen may or may not have eaten a flower...
Look at the sky. Ask yourselves: Has a sheep eaten the flower, yes or no? And you will see how everything changes...
And no grown-ups will ever understand why is it so important!"


The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

The most beautiful ending of all time. I cry every time I read it.

In ninth grade I wrote a play adaptation of the Little Prince and directed it as a fundraiser. The ending was absolutely beautiful as the actor spoke the ending monolouge and everything was dark except a light on the actor and a star lantern that is the same shape as the illustration Saint Exupery gives at the end of the book. And just as the actor ended Yellow by Coldplay started playing. Just thinking of that image gives me chills.

I'm so glad that there is someone else who loves this book as much as I do!

Pants = Love

Forever in Blue

"This is indeed a great mystery. For those of you who, like me, love the little prince, nothing in the universe can be the same while somewhere, nobody knows where, a sheep which we have never seen may or may not have eaten a flower...
Look at the sky. Ask yourselves: Has a sheep eaten the flower, yes or no? And you will see how everything changes...
And no grown-ups will ever understand why is it so important!"


The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

The most beautiful ending of all time. I cry every time I read it.

In ninth grade I wrote a play adaptation of the Little Prince and directed it as a fundraiser. The ending was absolutely beautiful as the actor spoke the ending monolouge and everything was dark except a light on the actor and a star lantern that is the same shape as the illustration Saint Exupery gives at the end of the book. And just as the actor ended Yellow by Coldplay started playing. Just thinking of that image gives me chills.

That sounds beautiful. I'm unsure what's happened to my copy of The Little Prince, I haven't seen it in a couple of years. It's lovely. I attempted to read it in french when I was younger but gave up. Think it would be prettier in french. Most things are prettier in french.

I love the little prince too. I've read it in french and english, and yes the french is prettier. But i understand the english much better! i saw a copy in a bookshop the other day with the french text and chinese on the facing page. i almost bought it, but it didn't have the pictures. and the pictures are necessary. but i know tham all by heart anyhow, so i might go back for it.

I think my dad read it to me in French when I was learning French, and I understood most of it. It was prettier in French.
And the first time I read it, I drew some lovely pictures for it. I really adore The Little Prince. Jordan College Girl, that does sound so beautiful. What is your name by the way? I'm sure you said before.

I agree that the end of NL/TGC is brilliant - I remember the warm glow i got when I first read it.

How about this, a paragraph rather than a sentance i know, but...:

O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was alright, everything was alright. He had won the battle within himself. He loved Big Brother.

I love this one:

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber'd here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
if you pardon, we will mend:
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call;
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.

This is indeed a great mystery. For those of you who, like me, love the little prince, nothing in the universe can be the same while somewhere, nobody knows where, a sheep which we have never seen may or may not have eaten a flower...
Look at the sky. Ask yourselves: Has a sheep eaten the flower, yes or no? And you will see how everything changes...
And no grown-ups will ever understand why is it so important!"


The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

That sounds beautiful. I attempted to read it in french when I was younger but gave up. Think it would be prettier in french.

It really does. I've never read it but I will pick it up tout de suite...though I really haven't a prayer of reading it in French anymore. Seven years of French clearly weren't wasted on me.