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Post by mummifiedstalin on Mar 23, 2010 11:46:56 GMT -5
"The sun rose, having no alternative, on the nothing new."
-- Beckett, Murphy
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Post by Mr. Atari on Mar 23, 2010 15:23:06 GMT -5
Two of my favorites:
"On the day they were going to kill him, Santiago Nasar got up at five-thirty in the morning to wait for the boat the bishop was coming on." -Chronicle of a Death Foretold G.G. Marquez
"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." 1984 Orwell
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Post by callipygias on Mar 23, 2010 18:03:28 GMT -5
Love 1984's opening, and the first line from Murphy is definitely one of the best ever.
"A screaming comes across the sky." Gravity's Rainbow.
Less famous and from short stories, but still cool, "My Father was a deodorizer of dead dogs, my mother kept the only shop for the sale of cat's-meat in my native city." From A Revolt of the Gods ~ Ambrose Bierce
And, "Early one June morning in 1872 I murdered my father -- an act which made a deep impression on me at the time." From An Imperfect Conflagration ~ Ambrose Bierce
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Post by Mighty Jack on Mar 24, 2010 1:10:09 GMT -5
I titled one of my demos "The Clocks Strikes 13", great opening line.
“Death is my beat” – Michael Connelly, The Poet
"When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon." - James Crumley, The Last Good Kiss
"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again" – Daphne Du Maurier, Rebecca
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Post by afriendlychicken on Mar 24, 2010 3:23:19 GMT -5
Amazon had a thread exactly like this and most of the lines were terrible. The ones I've read here, on the other hand, are terrific.
The only one that I can think of at the moment is:
"Pa had sent me out to get an extra pail of air." A Pail Of Air by Fritz Leiber
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Post by Mighty Jack on Mar 24, 2010 3:56:50 GMT -5
I keep thinking of the one they quoted on MST a few time, Ulysses - "Stately, plump Buck Mulligan..." I should look that up and get the rest of the line. Anyway, one that has always been firmly planted in my brain came from Dostoevsky's Notes From the Underground... "I am a sick man. I am a spiteful man. I'm an unattractive man. I think there is something wrong with my liver." I've always wanted to use that at Phantom's complaint bar to see what kind of reaction I'd get (and to see who had read the book)
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Post by Mr. Atari on Mar 24, 2010 9:17:19 GMT -5
Some good Discworld opening lines:
"The sun rose slowly, as if it wasn't sure it was worth all the effort." The Light Fantastic
"Sam Vimes sighed when he heard the scream, but he finished shaving before he did anything about it." Night Watch
"Polly cut off her hair in front of the mirror, feeling slightly guilty about not feeling guilty about doing so." Monstrous Regiment
And my personal favorite: "Everything starts somewhere, although many physicists disagree." Hogfather
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Post by afriendlychicken on Mar 24, 2010 18:11:07 GMT -5
We've forgotten three very famous opening lines: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." A Tale Of Two Cities "Call Me Ishmael." Moby Dick "No one would have believed, in the last years of the nineteenth century, that human affairs were being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their affairs they were scrutinized and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water." War Of The Worlds I don't think there's very many of us who could quote the entire War Of The Worlds opening. I had to check it out, to make sure I was right. I wasn't. I admit, I haven't read A Tale Of Two Cities. Looks like it's time.
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Post by callipygias on Mar 24, 2010 19:13:25 GMT -5
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." A Tale Of Two Cities . That would deserve its fame if it was written as you have it, unfortunately it rambles on and on and on. The part it's famous for is cool, though. "Mother Died Today." The Stranger
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Post by mummifiedstalin on Mar 26, 2010 15:48:52 GMT -5
Favorite MISquoted opening lines?
I always like how people like to say, "Now is the winter of our discontent..." And they say it thinking they're quoting something that says we're going through bad times.
But, of course, the actual COMPLETE sentence is:
Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer by this son of York; And all the clouds that low'r'd upon our house In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
And that means that our bad times have just been made good by York becoming king. "Now" means the "glorious summer," not the "winter of discontent."
Dumbass fools.
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Post by Mighty Jack on Mar 26, 2010 21:17:39 GMT -5
I think I'm one of those dumbass fools... but I come from a long line of thieving artist types who like to appropriate and reform other people’s work.
Okay, that's a lie, I'm just a dumbass.
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Post by Don Quixote on Mar 26, 2010 22:08:05 GMT -5
NOW IS THE WINTER OF OUR DISCOUNT TENT. Attachments:
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Post by angilasman on Mar 26, 2010 22:55:51 GMT -5
"Mother Died Today." The StrangerI just bought a used copy. Never read it before. It's apparently a newer, more accurate translation and it uses the French familar word for mom: maman. So it is "Maman died today." I feel somewhat cheated. I just finished Leiber's fifth Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser book (The Swords of Lankhmar), loved it - well, the first half was a bit dry, but when Sheelba showed up it became as exciting, weird, and funny as a Fahfrd and the Gray Mouser story should be. Whenever people talk about best first lines I think of Catch 22, but then I realize that it's the second line I love. The first is the set-up.
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Post by Mr. Atari on Mar 27, 2010 10:12:47 GMT -5
"All this happened, more or less." Slaughterhouse Five.
"There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it." Voyage of the Dawn Treader C.S. Lewis
And the first line of Dante's Inferno (your translation may vary):
"Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a forest dark, For the straightforward pathway had been lost."
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Post by Nuveena on Mar 27, 2010 10:31:52 GMT -5
"When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow." To Kill a Mockingbird
"All children, except one, grow up." Peter Pan
"124 was spiteful." Beloved
"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth." The Catcher in the Rye
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