Opening Lines of Books

It was a pleasure to burn.

Late in the winter of my seventeenth year, my mother decided I was depressed, presumably because I rarely left the house, spent quite a lot of time in bed, read the same book over and over, ate infrequently, and devoted quite a bit of my abundant free time to thinking about death.

When Gregor Samsa woke one morning from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed right there in his bed into some sort of monstrous insect.

It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.

When the Moon rose in the Third Northern Hall I went to the Ninth Vestibule to witness the joining of three Tides.

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 snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation.

All this happened, more or less.

There is no lake at Camp Green Lake.

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

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.

Call me Ishmael

Two households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.

Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood.

We slept in what had once been the gymnasium.

There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.

I'd never given much thought to how I would die-- though I'd had reason enough in the last few months-- but even if I had, I would not have imagined it like this.

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

I'm pretty much fucked.

When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home.