Quotes about Endings

The last step of every journey is the first step of a new adventure.

Tell me a story...
What kind of story, child?
A story with a happy ending.
There's no such thing in all the world.
As a happy ending?
As an ending.

When you're at the end, look for a beginning.

All is well ended if this suit be won. That you express content; which we will pay, With strife to please you, day exceeding day.

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits, and Are melted into air, into thin air: And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on; and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.

The breadth of the [Communications Decency Act's] coverage is wholly unprecedented.... The scope of the CDA is not limited to commercial speech or commercial entities. Its open ended prohibitions embrace all nonprofit entities and individuals posting indecent messages or displaying them on their own computers in the presence of minors. The general, undefined terms "indecent" and "patently offensive" cover large amounts of nonpornographic material with serious educational or other value.

The year, 1972, was a memory, like it or not. The funny thing is, looking back now, what I remember most is how it ended. So maybe that New Years Eve 1972, didn't work out exactly like we had planned. There was heartbreak we didn't anticipate and events we couldn't have imagined. Still, it wasn't all bad. So maybe there was a message in it all. The future was calling us and no matter what, there was no turning back now.

I bit my tongue and stood in line With not much to believe in I bought into what I was sold And ended up with nothing.

Overheard in a brokerage: I worry about economists who are so young that they think the Great Depression was ended by Prozac.

Story of Four People There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry because it was Everybody's job. Everybody thought that Somebody would do it. But Nobody asked Anybody. It ended up that the job wasn't done and Somebody blamed Everybody, when actually Nobody asked Anybody.

The Civil War is not ended: I question whether any serious civil war ever does end.

How can you shorten the subject? That stern struggle with the multiplication table, for many people not yet ended in victory, how can you make it less? Square root, as obdurate as a hardwood stump in a pasturenothing but years of effort can extract it. You can't hurry the process. Or pass from arithmetic to algebra; you can't shoulder your way past quadratic equations or ripple through the binomial theorem. Instead, the other way; your feet are impeded in the tangled growth, your pace slackens, you sink and fall somewhere near the binomial theorem with the calculus in sight on the horizon. So died, for each of us, still bravely fighting, our mathematical training; except for a set of people called "mathematicians" -- born so, like crooks.

What is old age good for? No sadder sight on earth than to see one come to the last days, fruitless - when a harvest is expected. The summer ended, the autumn here and yet no reaper's songs of joy. No more glorious sight on earth or in heaven is there than to see the veteran, having finished his work, fought his fight, with the light of the future crowning, shining upon him!

The story of mankind began in a garden and ended in revelations.

Ended every speech in the Roman senate with the words: For the rest, I wrote that Carthage should be destroyed. Ceterum senseo Carthaginem esse delendam

As soon as it was light, I started to see Mr. Benjamin L. Shaw and met him on his way to inquire as to my mother's condition. This gentleman was a relative, himself and my mother being first cousins, in consequence of which and being a man of great wealth, he had extended to the family much financial assistance. He asked if my mother had made any request before her death. I told him of her desire to be buried at Nauvoo. He said that her wishes must be complied with. We went together to the undertaker and he ordered a coffin, and a suitable strong box in which the casket containing her remains were to be placed. Some ladies came and she was suitably made ready for burial. The habiliments with which she was to be clothed were made and her body was invested with the robes for her final rest. She was placed in the coffin and then, O, how peaceful and pleasant seemed her rest! Then, my mother, your troubles were ended. The storms of life were passed and your spirit could soar to a world of peace and joy. No more shall you endure the tempests of mortal suffering or the winds of malevolence roar around your pathway, nor the clouds of adversity shut out the genial sunlight of connubial joys. Your career of sorrow now is over. Well and patiently you have endured the reverses attendant upon the mortal existence. You have accepted of God's revealed and redeeming truth, and the celestial consolations of the future life will heal the wounds inflicted along the dreary shores of this life.

Obviously, where art has it over life is in the matter of editing. Life can be seen to suffer from a drastic lack of editing. It stops too quick, or else it goes on too long. Worse, its pacing is erratic. Some chapters are little more than a few sentences in length, while others stretch into volumes. Life, for all its raw talent, has little sense of structure. It creates amazing textures, but it can't be counted on for snappy beginnings or good endings either. Indeed, in many cases no ending is provided at all.

Where are the beginnings, the endings, and most important, the middles?

The Angel ended, and in Adam's ear So charming left his voice, that he awhile Thought him still speaking, still stood fix'd to hear.

The beginnings and endings of all human undertakings are untidy.

In the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding on the back of the tiger ended up inside.

When Rome's youth became debased and enervated, when regard was lost for men's honor and women's purity, when the sanctity of the home was violated, when her literature became cynical and debased, her dominion ended. The moral life of any people rises or falls with the vitality or decay of its religious life.

Her suffering ended with the day, Yet lived she at its close, And breathed the long, long night away In statue-like repose.

You must not think that I feel, in spite of it having ended in such defeat, that my "life has been wasted" here, or that I would exchange it with that of anyone I know.

All scholarship, like all science, is an ongoing, open-ended discussion in which all conclusions are tentative forever, the principal value and charm of the game being the discovery of the totally unexpected.

I am acutely aware of the fact that the marriage between mathematics and physics, which was so enormously fruitful in past centuries, has recently ended in divorce.

Sorrow Is A Box Of Flowers What it's all about is sorrow I've become convinced of that sorrow fences each field sorrow clings to stone walls sorrow hedges the road on both sides when her son died sorrow coated her spoon it curled in her bed it hung in her closet like a coat she put on and wore sometimes proudly sometimes bent over I watched her put up the fence the stone walls we've all done it the hedge on either side of the road cowering behind it wishing for a different ending: sorrow is a box of flowers being delivered over and over your name on the card each time the bell rings you go to the door take the box in your arms hoping this time praying this time there'll be a different name but it's always yours in unhappy endings there is finally peace I've become convinced of that sorrow is the schoolmaster the sober drink the great equalizer everyone has to swallow it there's no getting down from the table

A good man's life is never quite ended; something of it always remains to touch and illuminate other lives.

I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.

Barbara Bush's Family Reading Tips 1. Establish a routine for reading aloud. 2. Make reading together a special time. 3. Try these simple ways to enrich reading aloud with your children: --Move your finger under the words as you read. --Let your child help turn the pages. --Take turns reading words, sentences or pages. --Pause and ask open-ended questions such as, "How would you feel if you were that person?" or "What do you think might happen next?" --Look at the illustrations and talk about them. --Change your voice as you read different characters' words. Let your child make up voices. --Keep stories alive by acting them out. 4. Ask others who take care of your children to read aloud. 5. Visit the library regularly. 6. Let your children see you reading. 7. Read all kinds of things together. 8. Fill your home with opportunities for reading. 9. Keep reading aloud even after your children learn to read.