Favorite first line

[FloridaJudy]

Of a play, novel, short story or poem.

Here's mine: "In five years, the penis will be obsolete", said the salesman.
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,John Varley Steel Beach

[FlyingSquirrel]

1. We, the People of the United States...

(it's a short story. Fictional, as it seems to have turned out.)

x(

[jobycom]

39. Hey, do you know about the USA?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNb9AoY5XXE

[rug]

2. One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in his bed he had

been changed into a monstrous verminous bug.

Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis. of course.

[Orsino]

3. If music be the food of love, play on...

Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again! it had a dying fall:
O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour! Enough; no more:
'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.
O spirit of love! how quick and fresh art thou,
That, notwithstanding thy capacity
Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,
Of what validity and pitch soe'er,
But falls into abatement and low price,
Even in a minute: so full of shapes is fancy
That it alone is high fantastical.

[Callalily]

4. Here is one of many!

"I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975." Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

[Droopy]

5. Hey, babe, I've lost my phone number. Can I borrow your's for a while?

[auntAgonist]

21. .......

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[applegrove]

6. This is the forest primeval. Evangeline by Longfellow. I love the woods.

[TZ]

7. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times....

"A tale of two cities"Just something about the paradox of it...

[no name no slogan]

8. "We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold."

-- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"

[Moondog]

9. Call me Ishmael.

Moby Dick.

[datasuspect]

10. I AM A SICK MAN.... I am a spiteful man.

I am an unattractive man. I believe my liver is diseased.

[FloridaJudy]

13. Dostoyevsky?

Sounds like "Notes from the Underground", though I could easily be wrong.

[datasuspect]

24. 10-4

[rug]

14. Don't hijack the thread. Stay on topic.

[montanto]

11. "By ten fourty-five it was all over."

name it.

[FlyingSquirrel]

19. John Ernst Steinbeck, The Moon Is Down [1942]

I can Google! :P

[Bertha Venation]

12. It was a pleasure to burn.

Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury

[Inchworm]

15. It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

:hi:

[FloridaJudy]

16. 1984 eom

[FloridaJudy]

17. "All happy families are alike".

And Tolstoy is full of crap at times.

[PassingFair]

32. People with fucked-up families love to quote that line.

It makes NO sense at all.

And coming from a "happy family", I
just want to tell Leo that it's not true!

[FlyingSquirrel]

18. It was a dark and stormy night.....

(Either Snoopy, or "A Wrinkle In Time" by Madeleine L'Engle)

:)

[FloridaJudy]

42. Or Edward Bulwer-Lytton's "Paul Clifford"

Recovering English major here, if it's not already obvious. I've entered the contest many times, but have yet to win it.

[FlyingSquirrel]

20. The gale tore at him and he felt its bite deep within him and he knew that if they did not make land

fall in three days they would all be dead.

:)

[Love Bug]

22. "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man

in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin

[Aristus]

23. "The sun struggled into the morning sky, as if it wasn't sure it was worth the effort."

From 'The Light Fantastic' by Neil Gaiman.

[Strong Atheist]

25. I suppose that if one is a lesbian, the

penis is already obsolete...:hide:

[Danmel]

26. It was a bright cold day in April

And the clocks were striking thirteen.



1984.

Can i do a song, too?


Well, the first days are the hardest days, don't you worry anymore

Uncle John's Band

[PassingFair]

27. "Chapter 1: I Am Born"

And:

"Marley was dead: to begin with."

[southpaw]

30. What the Dickens?

[PassingFair]

31. That's Charles Dikkens...with two "k's"...

:hi:

[southpaw]

33. Really?

No way. That cain't be right.

I Googled!

And teh Google is all-knowing!

[PassingFair]

36. Pythonese.... "Rarnaby Budge"

Customer: Good morning.
Owner
(John): Good morning, sir. Can I help you?
Customer: Er, yes. Do you have a copy of "Thirty Days in the Samarkind Desert with the Duchess of Kent" by A. E. J. Eliott, O.B.E.?
Owner: Ah, well, I don't know the book, sir....
Customer: Er, never mind, never mind. How about "A Hundred and One Ways to Start a Fight"?
Owner: ...By?
Customer: An Irish gentleman whose name eludes me for the moment.
Owner: Ah, no, well we haven't got it in stock, sir....
Customer: Oh, well, not to worry, not to worry. Can you help me with "David Coperfield"?
Owner: Ah, yes, Dickens.
Customer: No....
Owner: I beg your pardon?
Customer: No, Edmund Wells.
Owner: I... think you'll find Charles Dickens wrote "David Copperfield", sir....
Customer: No, no, Dickens wrote "David Copperfield" with two Ps. This is "David Coperfield" with one P by Edmund Wells.
Owner: "David Coperfield" with one P?
Customer: Yes, I should have said.
Owner: Yes, well in that case we don't have it.
Customer: Funny, you've got a lot of books here....
Owner: Yes, we do, but we don't have "David Coperfield" with one P by Edmund Wells.
Customer: Are you quite sure?
Owner: Quite.
Customer: Not worth just looking?
Owner: Definitely not.
Customer: Oh...how 'bout "Grate Expectations"?
Owner: Yes, well we have that....
Customer: That's "G-R-A-T-E Expectations," also by Edmund Wells.
Owner: Yes, well in that case we don't have it. We don't have anything by Edmund Wells, actually: he's not very popular.
Customer: Not "Knickerless Knickleby"? That's K-N-I-C-K-E-R-L-E-S-S.
Owner: No.
Customer: "Khristmas Karol" with a K?
Owner: No....
Customer: Er, how about "A Sale of Two Titties"?
Owner: DEFINITELY NOT.
Customer: Sorry to trouble you....
Owner: Not at all....
Customer: Good morning.
Owner: Good morning.
Customer: Oh!
Owner: Yesss?
Customer: I wonder if you might have a copy of "Rarnaby Budge"?
Owner: No, as I say, we're right out of Edmund Wells!
Customer: No, not Edmund Wells - Charles Dikkens.
Owner: Charles Dickens??
Customer: Yes.
Owner: You mean "Barnaby Rudge"!
Customer: No, "Rarnaby Budge" by Charles Dikkens. That's Dikkens with two Ks, the well-known Dutch author.
Owner: No, well we don't have "Rarnaby Budge" by Charles Dikkens with two Ks, the well-known Dutch author, and perhaps to save time I should add that we don't have "Karnaby Fudge" by Darles Chickens, or "Farmer of Sludge" by Marles Pickens, or even "Stickwick Stapers" by Farles Wickens with four M's and a silent Q!!!!! Why don't you try W. H. Smith's?
Customer: I did, They sent me here.
Owner: DID they.
Customer: Oh, I wonder...
Owner: Oh, do go on, please.
Customer: Yes...I wonder if you might have "The Amazing Adventures of Captain Gladys Stoutpamphlet and her Intrepid Spaniel Stig Amongst the Giant Pygmies of Beckles"...volume eight.
Owner: No, we don't have that...funny, we've got a lot of books here...well, I musn't keep you standing here...thank you,--
Customer: Oh, well do, do you have--
Owner: No, we haven't. No, we haven't.
Customer: B-b-b-but--
Owner: Sorry, no, it's one o'clock now, we're closing for lunch--
Customer: Ah, I--I saw it--
Owner: I'm sorry--
Customer: I saw it over there! I saw it...
Owner: What? What? WHAT?!?
Customer: I saw it over there: "Olsen's Standard Book of British Birds".
Owner: "Olsen's Standard Book of British Birds"?
Customer: Yes...
Owner: O-L-S-E-N?
Customer: Yes....

[mikeytherat]

28. "When you wet the bed, first it is warm, then it gets cold."

James Joyce, "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man"

mikey_the_rat

[southpaw]

29. "In my younger and more vulnerable years

my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since."

[FloridaJudy]

40. Gatsby, right? eom

[southpaw]

41. Yep.

[miss_american_pie]

34. "I went out to the hazel wood

because a fire was in my head."

Yeats

[Zorro]

35. The sea is high again today, with a thrilling flush of wind.

In the midst of winter you can feel the inventions of spring. A sky of hot nude pearl until midday, crickets in sheltered places, and now the wind unpacking the great planes, ransacking the great planes...

Opening lines to Justine, the first book in The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell.

[Glorfindel]

37. "The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed."

n/t

[BrotherBuzz]

38. "When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow...,"

[retread]

43. "Call me Jonah." n/t

[RagAss]

44. "It was my third shit of the morning." ....n/m