First Lines Quotes

On the morning after the daring theft of a priceless James Ensor painting from the Grand Palais in Paris, I was allowed to leave the Les Halles Police Station after only a few hours of questioning.

Mark Zero

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago--never mind how long precisely--having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off--then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this.If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs--commerce surrounds it with her surf. Right and left, the streets take you waterward. Its extreme downtown is the battery, where that noble mole is washed by waves, and cooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were out of sight of land. Look at the crowds of water-gazers there.Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall, northward. What do you see?--Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries. Some leaning against the spiles; some seated upon the pier-heads; some looking over the bulwarks of ships from China; some high aloft in the rigging, as if striving to get a still better seaward peep. But these are all landsmen; of week days pent up in lath and plaster--tied to counters, nailed to benches, clinched to desks. How then is this? Are the green fields gone? What do they here?But look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but the extremest limit of the land; loitering under the shady lee of yonder warehouses will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh the water as they possibly can without falling in. And there they stand--miles of them--leagues. Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys, streets and avenues--north, east, south, and west. Yet here they all unite. Tell me, does the magnetic virtue of the needles of the compasses of all those ships attract them thither?Once more. Say you are in the country; in some high land of lakes. Take almost any path you please, and ten to one it carries you down in a dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the stream. There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest reveries--stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region. Should you ever be athirst in the great American desert, try this experiment, if your caravan happen to be supplied with a metaphysical professor. Yes, as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded for ever.

Herman Melville

I never really wanted to die. But I followed through anyway. The pain in my heart was excruciating, and death was beautiful.

Rae Hachton

I have always been considered a bit of an outsider, and a general failure at everything I put my hand towards. In fact, you might even go so far as to say that I’m a lesser being of great insignificance! I state this because, when writing a story, you should always start the first line off with at least one basic truth.-First lines from the novel Sukiyaki

Andrew James Pritchard

This is the story of a man named Eddie and it starts at the end, with Eddie dying in the sun. It may seem strange to start a story with and ending, but all endings are also beginnings. We just don't know it at the time.

Mitch Albom

I don't like killing, but I'm good at it. Murder isn't so bad from a distance, just shapes popping up in my scope. Close-up work though - a garrotte around a target's neck or a knife in their heart - it's not for me. Too much empathy, that's my problem. Usually. But not today. Today is different . . .

Graeme Shimmin

I never sleep. Like the dolphin and the spiny anteater, I don't experience REM. Unlike the dreamless mammals, I'm a construct. I am a living program inside a vast network of electronic impulses known as the LINK. In that datastream I've uncovered the meaning of another kind of dreaming--that of a fond hope or aspiration, a yearning, a desire, or a passion. This much I have. When I dream, I dream of Mecca.

Lyda Morehouse

I'll make my report as if I told a story, for I was taught as a child on my homeworld that Truth is a matter of the imagination.

Ursula K Le Guin

If you want to know the age of the Earth—look upon the sea in a storm. But what storm can fully reveal the heart of a man? Between Suez and the China Sea are many nameless men who prefer to live and die unknown. This is the story of one such man. Among the great gallery of rogues and heroes thrown up on the beaches and ports—no man was more respected or more damned than—Lord Jim.

Joseph Conrad

His name was Rambo, and he was just some nothing kid for all anybody knew, standing by the pump of a gas station at the outskirts of Madison, Kentucky.

David Morrell

I am remembering something. At first it comes to me as a feeling. It is comforting. It is a place I want to be. It is home. Is it the memory of a dream? It is indistinct, but real. I am holding only a thread. And I do not want to let go.

Richard Payment

It's late at night when the memory comes for me, like it always seems to when the relief of sleep seems ready to draw me under.

Joaquin Lowe

What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died?

Erich Segal

Dr Weiss, at forty, knew that her life had been ruined by literature

Anita Brookner

After killing the red-haired man, I took myself off to Quinn’s for an oyster supper.

Michael Cox

In darkness there is death.

Bob Mayer

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

James Joyce

Where shall we three meet again in thunder, lightning, or in rain? When the hurlyburly 's done, when the battle 's lost and won

William Shakespeare

Hi. I'm here to enlist.You can't. You aren't human.You see, little fella, we don't do sociological stuff like "interspeciated workplaces." We're a crack company of space mercenaries. We do "hurting people" and "breaking things."Sounds like my kind of fun.-Schlock & Lieutenant Der Trihs

Howard Tayler

I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to.

Bill Bryson

Who is John Galt?

Ayn Rand

My name is Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered.

Alice Sebold

First Lines Quotes

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