Once upon a time…
The top 100 opening novel lines of all time. I think some of them were based unfairly on the strength to the rest of the novel, but some are good.
47. There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it. —C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952)
3 comments Tuesday 31 Jan 2006 | SlantyOD | SlantyNet - General
Gonna show my geekness here….. #28 – “Mother died today” – Albert Camus from “The Stranger”. This is the older translation (1947, I believe). The later translation (sometime in the late ’80′s) was much better, and started with “Maman died today.” I only know this cuz I studied this book twice (in French and English) Literary geek out.
I liked this one
#9: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. —Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1859)
Ya think some of those were run-on sentences?? I reckon I’ve read less than 10% of the novels there.
88. Of all the things that drive men to sea, the most common disaster, I’ve come to learn, is women.
—Charles Johnson, Middle Passage (1990)
Preach on brother, preach on.