Opening Lines Quotes

My life might have been so different, had I not been known as the girl whose grandmother exploded. And had I not been born in Bad Munstereifel. If we had lived in the city -- well, I"m not saying the event would have gone unnoticed, but the fuss would probably only have lasted a week before public interest moved elsewhere. Besides, in a city you are anonymous; the chances of being picked out as Kristel Kolvenbach's granddaughter would be virtually zero. But in a small town -- well, small towns everywhere are rife with gossip, but in Germany they raise it to an art form.

Helen Grant

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.

Charles Dickens

That you should not be here when something we've both wanted happens is no new thing for me. Today too, as always, you're not here.

Sachin Kundalkar

It was during Latin that the Austro-Hungarians arrived with their dogs and zombies to kill everyone at the Eden College for Young Ladies.

David Wake

The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color.

Natalie Babbitt

I am Tersa the Weaver, Tersa the Liar, Tersa the Fool.

Anne Bishop

He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.

Rafael Sabatini

A mile below the lowest cloud, rock breaches water and the sea begins.It has been given many names. Each inlet and bay and stream has been classified as if it were discrete. But it is one thing, where borders are absurd. It fills the space between stones and sand, curling around coastlines and filling trenches between the continents.

China Miéville

If the immediate and direct purpose of our life is not suffering then our existence is the most Ill-adapted to its purpose in the world: for it is absurd to suppose that the endless affliction of which the world is everywhere full, and which arises out of the need and distress pertaining essentially to life, should be purposeless and purely accidental. Each individual misfortune, to be sure, seems an exceptional occurrence; but misfortune in general is the rule.

Arthur Schopenhauer

Here we are, alone again. It's all so slow, so heavy, so sad. . . I'll be old soon. Then at last it will be over. So many people have come into my room. They've talked. They haven't said much. They've gone away. They've grown old, wretched, sluggish, each in some corner of the world.

Louis-Ferdinand Céline

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

If you had met my father you would never, not for an instant, have thought he was an assassin.

Magda Szubanski

You're surprised at all the blood.He looks over at you, eyes wide, mouth dropping open, his face almost as white as his shirt.He's surprised, too.

Charles Benoit

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

J.K. Rowling

I am sixteen when my mother steps out of her skin one frozen January afternoon- pure self, atoms twinkling like microscopic diamond chips around her, perhaps the chiming of a clock, or a few bright flute notes in the distance- and disappears. No one sees her leave, but she is gone.

Laura Kasischke

That year the Ribeiro's daffodils seeded early and they seeded cockroaches. Now, ecologically speaking, even a cockroach has its place -- but these suckers bit. That didn't sound Earth-authentic to me. Not that I care, mind you, all I ask is useful. I wasn't betting on that either.

Janet Kagan

I am a vampire, and that is the truth.

Christopher Pike

Did you wish upon a star and take the time to try to make your wish come true?Did you try to paint the sunrise and find the gift of life within?Did you write a song just for the joy of it?Or write a poem just to feel the pain?Did you find a reason to ignore the petty injustices, the spoken barbs, or the envies, jealousies and greed that crossed your path?Did you wake up this morning and whisper inside, “Today, I’ll find every reason to smile, and ignore the excuses to frown.”Today will be the day I’ll whisper nothing snide, I’ll say nothing cruel. I’ll be kind to my enemy, I’ll embrace my friends, and for thisone day, I’ll forget the slights of the past.Today will be the day I’ll live for the joy of it, laugh for the fun of it, and today, I’ll love whether it’s returned, forsaken, or simplyignored.And if you did, then your heart has joined the others who have as well, uniting, strengthening, and in a single heartbeat you’ve createda world of hope.

Lora Leigh

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

Erich Segal

I met Jack Kennedy in November, 1946. We were both war heroes, and both of us had just been elected to Congress.

Norman Mailer

The madness of an autumn prairie cold front coming through...ringing throughout the house was an alarm bell that no one but Alfred and Enid could hear directly.

Jonathan Franzen

If a lioness spends her hours pacing back and forth in a cage of gold with the finest meats at her disposal, does that make her any less of a prisoner? If that same feline’s fangs are filed down to blunt, un-tearing teeth and her roar is silenced, can she still be called a lioness?

Kristen Reed

Grandfather recently died. He died alone on a trip away from home in a town where no one expected him to be

Téa Obreht

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

James Joyce

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality.

Shirley Jackson

Maybe punching her enemy right in the nose wasn't the smartest way to get out of class, but it was definitely a much more entertaining way.

Ophelia T. Starks

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

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

Jane Austen

She was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar when she decided to summon the devil and sell her soul for fame. As you do. Hell, we’ve all been there… Of course, things didn’t go according to plan. Never have, never will…

G.H. Finn

The last thing one discovers in composing a work is what to put first.

Blaise Pascal

I died on a bitter cold night. Beneath a black sky and a bruised winter moon, I tried to fly, hoping my arms might act as wings.

Jennifer Archer

This date had started as bland and was speeding right along to abysmal.

Katherine McIntyre

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

Opening Lines Quotes

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