Famous Last Words

Most people remember best what they heard last, and authors and songwriters have long capitalized on this trick of brain wiring by signing off their stories, plays, poems, and songs with a truly memorable last line. This month, we pay homage to some of history's best and most noteworthy last words by offering a selection of them as prompts for creating a fanwork.

Prompts for this month's challenge are assigned by a moderator. Now that the challenge is closed, you can find the prompts below and choose your own. If you want us to choose for you, you can request a prompt by emailing us, sending us an ask on Tumblr, commenting on our Dreamwidth, or requesting a prompt on the #monthly-challenges channel on our Discord. If you have a preference for a last line from a book, song, play, poem, or person, let us know! If you get stuck and can't do anything with the prompt we lob at you, feel free to ask us to try again.

If you create a challenge fanwork featuring a woman in a leading role, let us know, as we have a special stamp for Women's History Month.

Thank you to ecthelioffd for this month's banner and stamps!

This challenge opened in March 2026 .

Prompts

Choose your prompt from the collection below.

View Prompts

Books

• You are a very fine person, Mr. Baggins, and I am very fond of you; but you are only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all!
  ~ The Hobbit, J.R.R Tolkien
• ‘Well, I’m back’, he said.
  ~ The Return of the King, J.R.R. Tolkien
• In the twilight of autumn it sailed out of Mithlond, until the seas of the Bent World fell away beneath it, and the winds of the round sky troubled it no more, and borne upon the high airs above the mists of the world it passed into the Ancient West, and an end was come for the Eldar of story and of song.
  ~ The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
• This is the happiest day of my life.
  ~ The Martian, Andy Weir
• The old man smiled, and believed.
  ~ Nation, Terry Pratchett
• It’s just fairer than death, that’s all.
  ~ The Princess Bride, William Goldman
• Then he turned upon his heel and disappeared into the Darkness.
  ~ Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Susanna Clarke
• Night birds had begun to sing in the stunted, dusty trees, and the breeze from the harbor carried with it the sound of cheers and shouts and horns.
  ~ Alif the Unseen, G. Willow Wilson
• Like a key that finds its keyhole, Nancy was finally home.
  ~ Every Heart A Doorway, Seanan McGuire
• For, as Mr. Ferguson was saying at that minute in Luxor, it is not the past that matters but the future.
  ~ Death On The Nile, Agatha Christie
• But, in spite of these deficiencies, the wishes, the hopes, the confidence, the predictions of the small band of true friends who witnessed the ceremony, were fully answered in the perfect happiness of the union.
  ~ Emma, Jane Austen
• And, right on time, there’s my crumble. I will let you know how everything goes.
  ~ The Thursday Murder Club, Richard Osman
• Of their terrible chief few details came out during the proceedings, and if I have now been compelled to make a clear statement of his career, it is due to those injudicious champions who have endeavoured to clear his memory by attacks upon him whom I shall ever regard as the best and the wisest man whom I have ever known.
  ~ The Adventures of Sherlock Homes, “The Adventure of the Final Problem,” Arthur Conan Doyle
• Guess I’m a quitter.
  ~ Squire, Sara Alfageeh and Nadia Shammas
• When Margaret grows up she will have a daughter, who is to be Peter’s mother in turn; and thus is will go on, so long as children are gay and innocent and heartless.
  ~ Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie
• It looked as if, in the perfect contentment of the summer evening, Arthur Bryant had simply fallen asleep, tiptoeing away without fuss or fanfare to search for his place among the stars. The city was too bright to reveal them, but everyone knew they would always be there.
  ~ Bryant and May: London Bridge Is Falling Down, Christopher Fowler
• I’m tired from talking, Richieu, and it’s enough stories for now …
  ~ Maus, Art Spiegelman
• It was not till they examined the rings that they recognized who it was.
  ~ The Picture of Dorian Grey, Oscar Wilde
• Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.
  ~ The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinder
• “No place in the world that can compare,” I say, and we all smile with the magic of this truth. The City We Became, NK Jemisin
• “You know. It’s all been done before.” Meddling Kids, Edgar Cantero
• You are no longer quite certain which side of the fence is the dream.
  ~ The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern
• The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me.
  ~ Night, Elie Wiesel
• He turned away to give them time to pull themselves together; and waited, allowing his eyes to rest on the trim cruiser in the distance.
  ~ Lord of the Flies, William Golding
• To-morrow would be a beautiful day.
  ~ Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
• When I take you on board the Witch, it’s going to be for keeps.
  ~ The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Elizabeth George Speare

Poems

• Out of the ash
  I rise with my red hair
  And I eat men like air.
  ~ "Lady Lazarus," Sylvia Plath
• And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
  slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
  ~ "The Second Coming," W.B. Yeats
• The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
  But I have promises to keep,
  And miles to go before I sleep,
  And miles to go before I sleep.
  ~ "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," Robert Frost
• Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
  Missing me one place search another,
  I stop somewhere waiting for you.
  ~ "Song of Myself," Walt Whitman

Plays

• If we should bump into one another, recognize me.
  ~ A Man For All Seasons, Robert Bolt
• Strike up, pipers.
  ~ Much Ado About Nothing, William Shakespeare
• Go, bid the soldiers shoot.
  ~ Hamlet, William Shakespeare
• We’re free … We’re free …
  ~ Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller
• For both of us a new life is beginning.
  ~ An Ideal Husband, Oscar Wilde
• Good God!—people don't do such things.
  ~ Hedda Gabler, Henrik Ibsen
• We shall rest.
  ~ Uncle Vanya, Anton Chekov

Songs

• Yes, I think to myself, what a wonderful world
  ~ "What A Wonderful World," Louis Armstrong
• Tell me, sweetie, what’s my name?
  ~ "Sympathy for the Devil," Rolling Stones
• We can drive it home with one headlight
  ~ "One Headlight," The Wallflowers
• Everything’s gonna be all right, rock-a-bye
  ~ "Lullaby," Shawn Mullins
• For the times they are a-changin'
  ~ "The Time They Are A-Changin’," Bob Dylan
• Ain’t that just like me?
  ~ "Lazarus," David Bowie
• I got have (just a little bit)
  ~ "Respect," Aretha Franklin
• La mer a bercé mon cœur pour la vie
  ~ "La Mer," Charles Trenet
• Lift this glass of blood, try to say the grace.
  ~ "It Seemed the Better Way," Leonard Cohen
• I bid you all a very fond farewell.
  ~ "The Last Goodbye," Billy Boyd; The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies Soundtrack
• May be bruised, but it's not that bad
  ~ "Possession," Melanie Martinez
• Here is a strange and bitter crop
  ~ "Strange Fruit," Billie Holiday
• Y la pasamo' bien
  ~ "TURiSTA," Bad Bunny
• All this late night talking
  ~ "Late Night Talking," Harry Styles
• I'll be the greatest fan of your life
  ~ "I’ll Be," Edwin McCain
• It's a game of give and take
  ~ "You Can’t Hurry Love," The Supremes
• Miss Otis regrets she’s unable to lunch today
  ~ "Miss Otis Regrets (She’s Unable to Lunch Today)," Ella Fitzgerald
• These are the memories that make me a wealthy soul
  ~ "Travelin’ Man," Bob Seger
• It's gonna be a long walk home
  ~ "Long Walk Home," Bruce Springsteen
• And the stains comin' from my blood tell me, "Go back home"
  ~ "Seven Nation Army," The White Stripes
• Denk an dich und lass ihn fliegen
  ~ "99 Luftballons," Nena Hagen
• Gonna find you and make you want me
  ~ "Ready or Not," The Fugees
• I'ma light it up like dynamite
  ~ "Dynamite," BTS
• No vuelvas no estaré aquí
  ~ "Si Te Vas," Shakira
• Good God, let me give you my life
  ~ "Take Me To Church, Hozier
• If we never make it at least we can say we died trying
  ~ "Refuge," Dermot Kennedy
• Que nadie como tú me sabe hacer café
  ~ "Morena Mia," Miguel Bose
• And I guess that's why they call it the blues
  ~ "I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues," Elton John
• I love you more (I say, I say) Than hate loves war
  ~ "American Obituary," U2
• And it's all downhill from here
  ~ "All Downhill From Here," New Found Glory
• I'm in love
  ~ "Accidentally In Love," Counting Crows
• Drum lud er sich zum Osterfest neun neue Meister ein
  ~ "Zehn Kleine Jägermeister," Die Toten Hosen
• Nothing compares to you
  ~ "Nothing Compares 2 U," Sinead O’Connor
• Leave tonight or live and die this way
  ~ "Fast Car," Tracy Chapman
• I’ve been here silent all these years
  ~ "Silent All These Years," Tori Amos
• Could I have this kiss forever?
  ~ "Could I Have This Kiss Forever," Enrique Iglesias
• Aujourd'hui ça commence avec toi
  ~ "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien," Edith Piaf
• No, I can’t sleep until I feel your touch
  ~ "Blinding Lights," The Weeknd
• It's time I had some time alone
  ~ "It’s The End of the World As We Know It," R.E.M.

People

Note: Many of these are traditional and possibly apocryphal.

• It is better to perish here than to kill all these poor beans.
  ~ Pythagoras
• Now, farewell, and remember all my words!
  ~ Epicurus
• Do not disturb my circles!
  ~ Archimedes
• Woe, I think I'm turning into a god …
  ~ Vespasian
• Here must I stop. What follows, let Baithen write.
  ~ St. Columba
• O man! place not thy confidence in this present world!
  ~ Abd al-Rahman III
• Shoot, Walter, in the devil's name!
  ~ William II of England (died in hunting accident)
• Don't cut my face.
  ~ Skule Bårdsson
• I am on the way to Speyer to visit the kings, my predecessors.
  ~ Rudolf of Habsburg (buried in Speyer cathedral)
• I summon you to the Tribunal of Heaven before the year is out!
  ~ Jacques de Molay, last Grand Master of the Knights Templar to the pope, king, and court official responsible for burning him at the stake. (The summons appears to have worked.)
• I was born as a lily in the garden, and like the lily I grew, as my age advanced / I became old and had to die, and so I withered and died.
  ~ Pachacuti
• All right, all right, I'm coming. Wait a moment.
  ~ Pope Alexander VI
• Now I'm oiled. Keep me from the rats.
  ~ Pietro Aretino
• I'm still learning.
  ~ Michelangelo
• Strike, man, strike!
  ~ Walter Raleigh
• Hold your tongue; your wretched style only makes me out of conceit with them.
  ~ François de Malherbe (annoyed with a priest telling him the glories of heaven)
• Ay! but I have been nearer to you, my friends, many a time, and you have missed me.
  ~ Goerg Lisle, to the officer of a firing squad who said they would hit him
• I did not mean to be killed today.
  ~ Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne, Viscount of Turenne (struck by cannonball)
• More weight.
  ~ Giles Corey
• Promise me you will never again marry an old man.
  ~ William Wycherley to his much younger wife
• Ain't they darlin'?
  ~ Sally Basset
• Oh Lord! Forgive the errata!
  ~ Andrew Bradford
• Don't cry for me, for I go where music is born.
  ~ Johann Sebastian Bach
• I do not suffer, my friends; I only feel a certain difficulty of living.
  ~ Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle
• It has all been most interesting.
  ~ Mary Wortley Montagu
• What the devil do you mean to sing to me, priest? You are out of tune.
  ~ Jean-Philippe Rameau
• This is no time to make new enemies.
  ~ Voltaire
• Throw up the window that I may see once more the magnificent scene of nature.
  ~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• Take me to the boats.
  ~ James Cook
• I die but will return tomorrow as thousand thousands.
  ~ Túpac Katari
• We are all going to Heaven, and van Dyke is of the company.
  ~ Thomas Gainsborough
• A dying man can do nothing easy.
  ~ Benjamin Franklin
• Pardon me, sir. I did not do it on purpose.
  ~ Marie Antoinette
• Must I leave it unfinished?
  ~ Adam Naruszewicz
• I know what you are thinking of, but I have nothing to communicate on the subject of religion.
  ~ Mary Wollstonecraft
• Thank God, I have done my duty.
  ~ Horatio Nelson
• Have pity on the poor Indians; if you can get any influence with the great, endeavor to do them all the good you can.
  ~ Joseph Brant
• Taking a leap into the dark. O mystery!
  ~ Thomas Paine
• Bury me where the birds will sing over my grave.
  ~ Alexander Wilson
• I want nothing but death.
  ~ Jane Austen
• I can feel the daisies growing over me.
  ~ John Keats
• This is the last of Earth. I am content.
  ~ John Quincy Adams
• I have written nothing which on my deathbed I should wish blotted.
  ~ Walter Scott
• My mind is quite unclouded. I could even be witty.
  ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• Gentlemen of the jury, you will now consider of your verdict.
  ~ Charles Abbott (Lord Chief Justice)
• If you will send for a doctor I will see him now.
  ~ Emily Brontë
• No, Your Majesty, to-morrow you will not see me here.
  ~ Camillo Benso
• I do not have to forgive my enemies. I have had them all shot.
  ~ Ramon Maria Narvaez
• Then you really think I am dying? At last you think so. But I was right from the first.
  ~ Dante Gabriel Rossetti
• Am I spitting blood?
  ~ Robert Emmet Odlum (first person to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge)
• My exit is the result of too many entrées.
  ~ Richard Monkton Milnes
• Sacrifices must be made.
  ~ Otto Lilienthal
• Jump, Sim, while you have the time.
  ~ Casey Jones
• I feel sick. The dog is sick, too. We are both ill. It must be something we have eaten.
  ~ Emile Zola
• It's a long time since I drank champagne.
  ~ Anton Chekov
• Well, if it must be so.
  ~ Edvard Grieg
• Give me my glasses.
  ~ Mark Twain
• Higher. Always higher.
  ~ Jorge Chavez
• One last drink, please.
  ~ Jack Daniel
• I am just going outside and may be some time.
  ~ Lawrence Oates
• When a man has a great name, he must expect to die for it. Kaputt.
  ~ Manfred von Richthofen (the Red Baron)
• I believe ... I'm going to die. I love the rain. I want the feeling of it on my face.
  ~ Katherine Mansfield
• Don't pull down the blinds. I want the sunlight to greet me.
  ~ Rudolf Valentino
• You are wonderful.
  ~ Arthur Conan Doyle
• If this is dying, then I don't think much of it.
  ~ Lytton Strachey
• Curtain! Fast music! Lights! Ready for the last finale! Great! The show looks good. The show looks good.
  ~ Florenz Ziegfield Jr.
• I am starting to believe you are not intending to count me among your friends!
  ~ Pedro Munoz Seca (to his firing squad)
• Tell the girls to keep on going ahead. Put over the boule with a bang. Don't let my passing throw the slightest shadow of gloom. The organization has a grand mission before it.
  ~ Violette Neatley Anderson
• Never felt better.
  ~ Douglas Fairbanks
• Does nobody understand?
  ~ James Joyce
• I have no need of your Goddamned sympathy – I want to be entertained by some of your grosser reminiscences.
  ~ Alexander Woollcott
• It is such a splendid sunny day, and I have to go. But how many have to die on the battlefield in these days, how many young, promising lives. What does my death matter if by our acts thousands are warned and alerted. Among the student body there will certainly be a revolt.
  ~ Sophie Scholl
• What is the answer? In that case, what is the question?
  ~ Gertrude Stein
• I'm going over the valley.
  ~ Babe Ruth
• Doctor, if I put this here guitar down now, I ain't never gonna wake up.
  ~ Lead Belly
• Sister, you're trying to keep me alive as an old curiosity, but I'm done, I'm finished, I'm going to die.
  ~ George Bernard Shaw (to a nurse)
• Harmony.
  ~ Arnold Schoenberg
• I knew it! I knew it! Born in a hotel room and, goddamn it, dying in a hotel room.
  ~ Eugene O’Neill
• Life is wonderful. I am wonderful.
  ~ Mary McLeod Bethune
• Goodbye, kid. Hurry back.
  ~ Humphrey Bogart (to Lauren Bacall)
• I've had a hell of a lot of fun and I've enjoyed every minute of it.
  ~ Errol Flynn
• Remember, Honey, don't forget what I told you. Put in my coffin a deck of cards, a mashie niblick, and a pretty blonde.
  ~ Chico Marx
• Am I dying or is this my birthday?
  ~ Nancy Astor
• I am sorry to trouble you chaps. I don't know how you get along so fast with the traffic on the road these days.
  ~ Ian Fleming
• Brothers! Brothers, please! This is a house of peace!
  ~ Malcolm X
• Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it.
  ~ W. Somerset Maugham
• Excuse my dust.
  ~ Dorothy Parker
• I know this beach like the back of my hand.
  ~ Harald Holt (disappeared while swimming)
• If this is what viral pneumonia does to one, I really don't think I shall bother to have it again.
  ~ Gladys Cooper
• It is stuffy, sticky, and rainy here at present—but forecasts are more favourable.
  ~ J.R.R. Tolkien, last letter to Priscilla Tolkien
• Oh, you young people act like old men. You are no fun.
  ~ Josephine Baker
• We are holding our own.
  ~ Ernest McSorley, captain S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald
• When I meet God, I am going to ask him two questions: Why relativity? And why turbulence? I really believe he will have an answer for the first.
  ~ Werner Heisenberg
• This is no way to live!
  ~ Groucho Marx
• I am going to the inevitable.
  ~ Phillip Larkin
• Sorry for saying fuck.
  ~ Graham Chapman
• See you later, I feel like I'm in good hands.
  ~ Jim Henson
• Surprise me.
  ~ Bob Hope
• I guess my flying days are over.
  ~ Johnny Miller
• Have fun.
  ~ Jimmy Buffett