The first and especially the last line of a poem carry extra weight. I suppose it’s true for novels too and there are lots of famous ones – famous enough that I don’t feel the need to identify the sources for these. Can you you identify all of them? A comment then…
- Call me Ishmael.
- I am an invisible man.
- The story so far: in the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
- Mother died today. Or maybe, yesterday; I can’t be sure.
- It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.
- It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.
- As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.
Stephen King on first lines:
“A book won’t stand or fall on the very first line of prose – the story has got to be there, and that’s the real work. And yet a really good first line can do so much to establish that crucial sense of voice — it’s the first thing that acquaints you, that makes you eager, that starts to enlist you for the long haul. So there’s incredible power in it, when you say, come in here. You want to know about this. And someone begins to listen.”
The last lines of novels are sometimes memorable too. One of my favorites is “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” (The Great Gatsby)
I have heard a few authors say that they need to know the last line when they begin to write. I believe that is true for John Irving and J.K. Rowling.
I suppose that the last lines of novels can sometimes act as a kind of summary.
‘Oh, Jake,’”’ Brett said, ‘we could have had such a damned good time together’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Isn’t it pretty to think so?’ (The Sun Also Rises)
I often begin a poem with a first line as my inspiration, but I have never started a poem knowing what the last line would be.
Milneville 
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