Opening Lines of Books #1

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

Call me Ishmael.

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show

I'm pretty much f*cked.

All children, except one, grow up.

All this happened, more or less.

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...

I am a sick man... I am a spiteful man...

Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday; I can't be sure.

Somewhere in La Mancha, in a place I do not care to remember, a gentleman lived not long ago...

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.

All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.

In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains

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