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Path: utzoo!utcsri!utai!gkloker
From: gkloker@utai.UUCP (Geoff Loker)
Newsgroups: net.books
Subject: Re: Quote (Help!)
Message-ID: <509@utai.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 14-May-85 11:45:26 EDT
Article-I.D.: utai.509
Posted: Tue May 14 11:45:26 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 14-May-85 12:42:54 EDT
References: <5296@tekecs.UUCP> <4182@hlexa.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: CSRI, University of Toronto
Lines: 38

> > This has always been one of my favorite literary quotes, having seen it
> > first in some reading I did in 8th grade.  But, alas, I can't even remember
> > the book or author.  It's always bugged me through the years, not being able
> > to remember where it came from.  Maybe someone can help me out.
> > 
> > The quote:
> > 
> >                "So, this is how the world ends...
> >                 not with a bang, but with a whimper." 
> > 
> 
> It's the last lines of "The Hollow Men" by T. S. Eliot . . .

The place where I first came across the quote was in Nevil Shute's
"On the Beach", a sort-of s-f tale of the world with the Northen
Hemisphere destroyed by nuclear war, and Australia awaiting its doom
as clouds of radioactivity slowly work their way through the world's
weather system.  Not a very pleasant tale, but then who said war
was pleasant?

At any rate, the lines:

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

were used as a frontis-page (sp?) quote for the novel.
-- 
Geoff Loker
Department of Computer Science
University of Toronto
Toronto, ON
M5S 1A4

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