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From: dsg@mhuxi.UUCP (David S. Green)
Newsgroups: net.books
Subject: Re: Quote  (answer!)
Message-ID: <317@mhuxi.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 5-May-85 13:11:59 EDT
Article-I.D.: mhuxi.317
Posted: Sun May  5 13:11:59 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 6-May-85 02:04:27 EDT
References: <5296@tekecs.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
Lines: 28

> The quote:
>                "So, this is how the world ends...
>                 not with a bang, but with a whimper." 


I looked it up, finally.  Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965) wrote the poem
"The Hollow Men" in 1925.  The poem is about 98 lines and I am not about
to post it because of copyright and other ( it takes a while to type (-: )
reasons.  
As for the poem, the title has the phrase "A penny for the Old Guy"
right under it.  This refers to the traditional phrase used by begging
urchins on Guy Fawkes Day.  The work has five verses; the fifth begins
with:            
"Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear

For Thine is the Kingdom
Life is very long

This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper."

It serves as an italic counterpoint to the main body of the poem.
As for it being quoted in "Apocolpyse Now", well that movie was
supposed to be related somehow to Joseph Conrad's "Heart Of Darkness";
the movie is a rather banal piece of junk.   
Both Conrad and Eliot were probably rolling over in their graves because
of that movie!