On page 626 of my copy of The Magus (which is the copy that the book store sold, for those of you who are wondering if it is the same pagination as your own book), Lily de Seitas tells Nicholas "Every answer is a kind of death," which, in my humble opinion, justifies the ending of the book entirely, making it perhaps the most important quote in the entire book, certainly top three if nothing else. See, if there had been a more definite ending (that is, if it had told us what happened with Nicholas and Alison, or with Conchis, and the next year's godgame) then the entire world that the novel created has an ending, and it is dead, like the Latin language. The way the book ends keeps the characters alive in the reader's mind. Instead of wondering about what happened to the characters after this last moment as if it were some past event that history recorded, which could be looked up, and recounted, I felt as though I was wondering what the characters were doing at this moment, in 2011, and how they were fairing after this whole "godgame" business. That is the power of this quote. Instead of providing a moment in which the godgame is clearly finished, and the relationship between Alison and Nicholas takes a definite route, in one direction or another, the moment, the situation is left in the open for us to ponder. It's not as though the author were preserving the last moment, as if it were the flower under the bell jar (Beauty and the Beast reference) never to die because it was frozen in time; rather, the immortality comes from the fact that the moment was fleeting, it was only one small part of a series of moments that comprised this interaction, and it was presented as such; as though what happened next truly happened next, but was none of our concern. Fowles planted a seed in those last moments, which may have bloomed any type of flora, and it was left up to each reader to decide what that seed would produce, and to come back to that seed later on, and examine it. It was never meant to be appreciated right away. Just as one cannot appreciate a garden until the flowers start to blossom.
             Does the last quote not make what happens next obvious? No. Who is to say whether or not any of these characters have loved? Who is it that truly needs the chance to love tomorrow for the first time? And furthermore, assuming (as I, and I'm sure most people did) that the target of the quote was Nicholas, who knows whether or not his next chance at love will be with Alison? Nobody (I would guess that even Mr. Fowles never knew, because it was never the important thing). 
             I would've rather not posted any of this in all honesty, because anyone who didn't consciously realize this for his or her self, probably did have the same feeling, but didn't realize it, and sooner or later they certainly would have realized it, and understood, and they would have grown to love the book for its lessons in time. But as it stands, I've quite possibly ruined this little piece of self realization for the people who fall into this category (if any in the class do), and I've cheated them out of ever being able to love this novel as much as I do. Much like Nicholas himself, the reader is driven to certain self-realizations, upon finishing the book, which offer a very gratifying sense of introspective knowledge. In other words: sorry if you didn't like the book, and you feel as though you already understood the gravity of this quote, because chances are that you understood the quote, but didn't fully appreciate it's weight, and now I've spoiled everything even further for you. I think that this miniature "life lesson-ette" is more what the quote is about than the actual literal significance of the words themselves, and so, by explaining the quote, I've actually taken away it's true meaning, so that it can never fully be explained, unless one already understood it entirely in the first place. Bummer.