Quotes about end
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“Fate isn’t one straight road…there are forks in it, many different routes to different ends. We have the free will to choose the path.”

Dean Koontz Odd Thomas

Source: Odd Thomas

Fate

“But answer me this: how can a story end happily if there is no love?”

Kate DiCamillo book The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

Source: The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

Love

“I always thought it was the saddest and most devastating ending. How you could have these enormous dreams that never get met. How without knowing it you could just make yourself smaller over time. I don't want that to happen to me.”

Meg Wolitzer book The Interestings

Source: The Interestings

Dreams, Time

“Things have their root and their branches. Affairs have their end and their beginning. To know what is first and what is last will lead near to what is taught in the Great Learning.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Source: The Great Learning

Learning

“Careful, Mr. Spiro, guns are dangerous. Especially the end with the hole.”

Eoin Colfer (1965) Irish author of children's books

Source: The Eternity Code

“I don't want this life to end," said Alexander. "The good, the bad, the everything, the very old, to ever end.”

Paullina Simons book The Summer Garden

Source: The Summer Garden

Life

“Just because a relationship ends, it doesn't mean it's not worth having.”

Sarah Mlynowski (1977) Novelist

Source: Gimme a Call

“Not that it was beautiful,
but that, in the end, there was
a certain sense of order there;
something worth learning
in that narrow diary of my mind”

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States

Source: To Bedlam and Part Way Back

Beauty, Sense, Learning

“You think you can say a few words and end us? There is no end, Eva." he flattened me into the side of the car. I was pinned by six feet, two inches of violently aroused male.”

Sylvia Day (1973) American writer

Source: Reflected in You

Cars, Thinking

“Every limit is a beginning as well as an ending.”

George Eliot book Middlemarch

Source: Middlemarch (1871)
Context: Every limit is a beginning as well as an ending. Who can quit young lives after being long in company with them, and not desire to know what befell them in their after-years? For the fragment of a life, however typical, is not the sample of an even web: promises may not be kept, and an ardent outset may be followed by declension; latent powers may find their long-waited opportunity; a past error may urge a grand retrieval.

“People get mad Annabel. Its not the end of the world.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

People, World, Madness

“You needn't be so scared. Love doesn't end. Just because we don't see each other…”

Graham Greene book The End of the Affair

Source: The End of the Affair

Love

“Prejudice, a dirty word, and faith, a clean one, have something in common: they both begin where reason ends.”

Harper Lee book Go Set a Watchman

Source: Go Set a Watchman

Faith

“As for the end of the universe…I say let it come as it will, in ice, fire, or darkness. What did the universe ever do for me that I should mind its welfare?”

Stephen King The Dark Tower

Source: The Dark Tower

Universe

“People want nothing but mirrors around them. To reflect them while they’re reflecting too… Reflections of reflections and echoes of echoes. No beginning and no end. No center and no purpose.”

Ayn Rand book The Fountainhead

Source: The Fountainhead

People

“The world was the Overlook Hotel, where the party never ended. Where the dead were alive forever.”

Stephen King book Doctor Sleep

Source: Doctor Sleep

World, Dead

“I would certainly end up forever crying the blues into a
coffee cup in a park for old men playing
chess or silly games of some sort.”

Charles Bukowski book The People Look Like Flowers at Last

Source: The People Look Like Flowers at Last

Men, Game, Coffee, Cry

“I wondered which was harder, in the end. The act of telling, or who you told it to. Or maybe if, when you finally got it out, the story was really all that mattered.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

“There is no such thing as a happy ending. Every culture has a maxim that makes this point, while nowhere in the Universe is there a single gravestone that reads 'He Loved Everything About His Life, Especially the Dying Bit at the End'.”

Eoin Colfer book And Another Thing...

Source: And Another Thing...

Love, Life, Happiness, Universe

“If your intentions are pure, I'm seeking a friend for the end of the world.”

Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer

Source: God-Shaped Hole

World

“A journey once begun, has no end”

Kiran Desai book The Inheritance of Loss

Source: The Inheritance of Loss

“It’s good to see your friends happy, isn’t it? (Nick)
How would I know? I have no friends. People basically suck and all friends will screw you over in the end. Take my word for it. (Savitar)
Then why am I here? (Nick)
Hell if I know. (Savitar)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Unleash the Night

Happiness, People, Hell

“The original, shimmering self gets buried so deep that most of us end up hardly living out of it at all. Instead we live out all the other selves, which we are constantly putting on and taking off like coats and hats against the world’s weather.”

Frederick Buechner (1926) Poet, novelist, short story writer, theologian

Source: Telling Secrets (1991)

World, Weather

“Life always has an unhappy ending, but you can have a lot of fun along the way, and everything doesn't have to be dripping in deep significance.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Life, Way

“Is there a cookie at the end of this lecture?… I got a cookie after all… Dear god, the cookie was poisoned.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Rises

God

“Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy.”

William Golding book Lord of the Flies

Source: Lord of the Flies (1954), Ch. 12: The Cry of the Hunters
Context: His voice rose under the black smoke before the burning wreckage of the island; and infected by that emotion, the other little boys began to shake and sob too. And in the middle of them, with filthy body, matted hair, and unwiped nose, Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy.

Heart

“I never saw such crazy musicians. Everybody in Frisco blew. It was the end of the continent; they didn't give a damn.”

Jack Kerouac book On the Road

Source: On the Road

“We’re on this planet for too short a time. And at the end of the day, what’s more important? Knowing that a few meaningless figures balanced—or knowing that you were the person you wanted to be?”

Sophie Kinsella (1969) British writer

Time, Personality

“I read recipes the same way I read science fiction. I get to the end and say to myself "well, that's not going to happen”

Rita Rudner (1953) American comedian

Way, Science, Reading

“I’ve fallen for the one person I shouldn’t have. For the boy who broke Mary’s heart. For Rennie’s one true love. For Alex’s best friend.
It has to end here. Now.”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

Source: Fire with Fire

Love, Boy, Heart, Personality

“I try to be a good cop. I try to be a good little soldier and follow orders up to a point. But in the end I’m not really a cop, or a soldier. I am a legally sanctioned murderer. I am the Executioner.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Skin Trade

Source: Skin Trade

“Prescription: 'Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes. Take ten pages, twice a day, til end of course.”

Diane Setterfield book The Thirteenth Tale

Source: The Thirteenth Tale

Books

“I am the lord of Redmont Fief. He is my tenant. I am his commander. End of story. Ipso facto. Case-o closed-o.”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Source: The Burning Bridge

“Everything, in the end, comes down to timing. One second, one minute, one hour could make all the difference.”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Source: This Lullaby

Time

“This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time.”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Variant: This is your life and its ending one moment at a time.
Source: Fight Club

Life, Time, Wise, Life

“When we cling to pain, we end up punishing ourselves.”

Leo Buscaglia (1924–1998) Motivational speaker, writer

Pain

“One should not attend even the end of the world without a good breakfast.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Friday

Source: Friday

World

“O what a blessed day that will be when I shall… stand on the shore and look back on the raging seas I have safely passed; when I shall review my pains and sorrows, my fears and tears, and possess the glory which was the end of all!”

Richard Baxter (1615–1691) English Puritan church leader, poet, and hymn-writer

Pain, Fear, Tear, Rage

“Clouds are poems, and the most moving poems linger on the blackboard so long, written in cursive so lovely, they also exist inside our fingertips. We never really erase them at the end of the lesson.”

Ann Beattie (1947) Short story writer, novelist, professor

Source: Walks with Men

Love

“You think you can say a few words and end us? There is no end, Eva.”

Sylvia Day (1973) American writer

Source: Reflected in You

Thinking

“At college, and perhaps for a year afterwards, they had believed in literature, had believed in Beauty and in personal expression as an absolute end. When they lost this belief, they lost everything.”

Nathanael West (1903–1940) American writer

Source: Miss Lonelyhearts and A Cool Million

Beauty, Literature, Personality

“What do you mean, Araluen? Death?"
Halt made a careless gesture. "The usual, I suppose: the sudden cessation of life. The end of it all. Departure for a happier place. Or oblivion, depending upon your personal beliefs.”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Source: The Battle for Skandia

Life, Death, Departure, Dependency

“In the end, I worry that my arrogance shall destroy us all.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Final Empire

“… You're omniscient, right?"
"For the most part, yes."
"Then you have to tell me this ‘cause I have to know. What's at the end of everything?"
He shrugged. "That's easy enough."
"Then tell me."
"The letter G.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Acheron

Parting

“Please don't make me a joke. End the interview with what I believe. I don't mind making jokes, but I don't want to look like one… I want to be an artist, an actress with integrity.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

Context: Please don't make me a joke. End the interview with what I believe. I don't mind making jokes, but I don't want to look like one... I want to be an artist, an actress with integrity... If fame goes by, so long, I've had you, fame. If it goes by, I've always known it was fickle. So at least it's something I experienced, but that's not where I live.

Her last taped interview, with Richard Meryman, published in LIFE magazine a few days before her death. (3 August 1962); quoted in Ms. magazine (August 1972)