I know what you mean aklebury, those closing lines gave me on those quick, stunned chills. Matt, I would recommend
The Road definitely, but I would also recommend one his earlier works,
Outer Dark, so you can see who he was before the literati got wind of him.
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.
Lovely.
And the creationists find this idea bleak?
Another chill-inducer for me:
Maybe it would make an interesting survey (what kind would be your decision) to examine the present and divide the onlookers into two groups: those whose eyes fell upon a bleeding man, slumped across a table, and those who watched the getaway of a small brown rebel mouse. Archie, for one, watched the mouse. He watched it stand very still for a second with a smug look as if it expected nothing less. He watched it scurry away, over his hand. He watched it dash along the table, and through the hands of those who wished to pin it down. He watched it leap off the end and disappear through an air vent. Go on my son! thought Archie.
It's nothing special out of context, but within context, it's an audaciously optimistic anticipation of a post-borders world.