# Famous First Words **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 1, 2000, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588 "2000-02-01T08:14:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2000, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/181 "2000-02-03T20:46:00Z")
Moosie, Tom, all correct! TomH: > [@](#): > > So if the “D----“ is part of the quote and not the editing out of a giveaway clue, I’ll guess that it’s from Les Miserables again, but it’s not the opening line of the book, is it? It is Les Miserables, and, in the edition I have, at least, it _is_, in fact the first line of the book, proper. (Ignoring the Introduction and Author’s Preface.) Uke: > [@](#): > > T10) I believe this is Carroll’s ALICE IN WONDERLAND, not THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS. Nope, Through the Looking Glass. Alice’s musings on the looking glass world begin when she’s scolding the black kitten, by holding it up to the looking glass, to see how ‘sulky’ it is. I’d give the first line of Wonderland, but someone else might wish to use it. 🙂 * * * _Eschew Obfuscation_ ---
**Author:** ![cher3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/da6949/32.png) [@cher3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cher3)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2000, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/182 "2000-02-03T21:02:00Z")
AW15 is interfering with my work. Can I have a hint? ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2000, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/183 "2000-02-03T21:04:00Z")
While I’m here, I might as well bring the ones of mine that haven’t been guessed back to the front. 🙂 T3: ‘There was a wall.’ (I’ll be kind of impressed if anyone gets this one…^\_\_^) T7: ‘The telephone rang as I was chewing the final bite of the last American cheese Sandwich I ever ate.’ (BTW, checking my copy of Les Miserables, I _finally_ note that it’s abridged. Bah! I guess the person doing the abridging cut the introduction down.) * * * _Eschew Obfuscation_ ---
**Author:** ![G.B.H.Hornswoggler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c67d28/32.png) [@G.B.H.Hornswoggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/G.B.H.Hornswoggler)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2000, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/184 "2000-02-03T21:21:00Z")
Arnold Winkelried: > [@](#): > > AW18 THESEUS As geographers, Sosius, crowd into the edges of their maps parts of the world which they do not know about, adding notes in the margin to the effect, that beyond this lies nothing but sandy deserts full of wild beasts, unapproachable bogs, Scythian ice, or a frozen sea, so, in this work of mine, in which I have compared the lives of the greatest men with one another, after passing through those periods which probable reasoning can reach to and real history find a footing in, I might very well say of those that are farther off, Beyond this there is nothing but prodigies and fictions, the only inhabitants are the poets and inventors of fables; there is no credit, or certainty any farther. ## No one seems to have made any guess for this one, so let me: Plutarch’s _Lives_? …but when you get blue, and you’ve lost all your dreams, there’s nothing like a campfire and a can of beans! ---
**Author:** ![Globe-trotter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/cab0a1/32.png) [@Globe-trotter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Globe-trotter)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2000, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/185 "2000-02-03T21:33:00Z")
MG5: “Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress.” MG6: “On an exceptionally hot evening early in July a young man came out of the garret in which he lodged in S. Place and walked slowly, as though in hesitation, towards K. Bridge.” MG7: “My lifelong involvement with Mrs. Dempster began at 5:58 o’clock p.m. on the 27th of December, 1908, at which time I was ten years and seven months old.” MG8: “The sun rose slowly, as if it wasn’t sure it was worth all the effort.” MG9: “I confess that when I first made acquaintance with Charles Strickland I never for a moment discerned that there was in him anything out of the ordinary.” ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2000, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/186 "2000-02-03T21:51:00Z")
**MoosieGirl** _AW16 On Friday, June 12th, I woke up at six o’clock and no wonder; it was my birthday. But of course I was not allowed to get up at that hour, so I had to control my curiosity until a quarter to seven. The Diary of Anne Frank AW17 To Sherlock Holmes, she is always the woman. Scandal in Bohemia (?), Conan Doyle_ both correct. **cher3** _AW19 and 20 are, respectively: “Kim” by Rudyard Kipling and “Gulliver’s Travels” by Jonathan Swift._ both correct. _AW15 is interfering with my work. Can I have a hint?_ ghost story (obviously), novelette, american author. **Tengu** _BTW, checking my copy of Les Miserables, I finally note that it’s abridged._ I thought so, because my copy (in french) had a different opening sentence. **Da Ace** _AW18 No one seems to have made any guess for this one, so let me: Plutarch’s Lives?_ correct. **MoosieGirl** _MG9: “I confess that when I first made acquaintance with Charles Strickland I never for a moment discerned that there was in him anything out of the ordinary.”_ Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence. **Ukulele Ike** MTS-3 has already been found. ---
**Author:** ![pluto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f08c70/32.png) [@pluto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pluto)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2000, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/187 "2000-02-03T21:51:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally posted by frolix8: > **P16 must be K&R, the C Bible. I don’t have my copy here to check though (the shame!).** Correct. AW9 is easy for me, anyway, and a couple of other regular posters too. _The Book of Mormon_. (Little known fact about **pluto** : not only a card-carrying Mormon but a former bishop!) * * * I’m a vegetarian once removed. I only eat meat from animals that are vegetarians. ---
**Author:** ![cher3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/da6949/32.png) [@cher3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cher3)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2000, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/188 "2000-02-03T21:59:00Z")
AW15 must be “The Turn of the Screw” by Henry James. That could be counted as one of his more straitforward sentences, though. ---
**Author:** ![cher3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/da6949/32.png) [@cher3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cher3)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2000, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/189 "2000-02-03T22:38:00Z")
T3: ‘There was a wall.’ (I’ll be kind of impressed if anyone gets this one…^\_\_^) The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin. (I cheated on this one, but I’m not telling how.) ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2000, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/190 "2000-02-03T23:13:00Z")
MG5: “Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress.” _Middlemarch_ by George Eliot? ---
**Author:** ![Pixoid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pixoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pixoid)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2000, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/191 "2000-02-03T23:19:00Z")
Sorry on the lateness: Absynthetic, you’re correct. And I love that book beyond belief. ---
**Author:** ![Globe-trotter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/cab0a1/32.png) [@Globe-trotter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Globe-trotter)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2000, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/192 "2000-02-03T23:24:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally posted by Fretful Porpentine: > MG5: “Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress.” > > _Middlemarch_ by George Eliot? That’s right! ---
**Author:** ![rackensack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@rackensack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rackensack)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2000, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/193 "2000-02-03T23:28:00Z")
cher3: > [@](#): > > c31: Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was > coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo. _Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man_, James Joyce ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2000, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/194 "2000-02-04T00:12:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally posted by cher3: > \*\*T3: ‘There was a wall.’ (I’ll be kind of impressed if anyone gets this one…^\_\_^) > > The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin. (I cheated on this one, but I’m not telling how.)\*\* Bingo. And even though you cheated, I’m _still_ impressed. That’s not much to go on for a cheat. 🙂 * * * _Eschew Obfuscation_ ---
**Author:** ![TaleraRis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@TaleraRis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TaleraRis)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2000, 9:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/195 "2000-02-04T09:26:00Z")
I should have gotten the Joyce one. I had to read that in World Lit my senior year in HS. - Which wasn’t all that long ago 🙂 - Just to correct, AW12 isn’t really the first line of the series. It’s the first line of the first book, The Fellowship of the King. And that line is actually only the first part of Book 1. There’s a prologue on hobbits before it. Not being picky, just clarifying 🙂 * * * When are you going to realize being normal isn’t necessarily a good thing? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Corrado](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a88e4f/32.png) [@John\_Corrado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Corrado)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2000, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/196 "2000-02-04T09:46:00Z")
Will you take a few from a guy who isn’t smart enough to answer any of them? (I _did_ recognize maybe 3, but wasn’t fast enough to respond…) JC1: Those who wish to win favor with a prince customarily offer him those things which they hold most precious or which they see him most delight in. JC2: We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. JC3: The cell door slammed behind Rubashov. JC4: What _is_ this oozing behemoth, this fibrous tumor, this monster of power and expense hatched from the simple human desire for civic order? How did an allegedly free people spawn a vast, rampant cuttlefish of dominion with its tentacles in every orifice of the body politic? JC5: The terror, which would not end for another twenty-eight years- if it ever did end- began, so far as I know or can tell, with a boat made from a sheet of newspaper floating down a gutter swollen with rain. JC6: I can feel the heat closing in, feel them out there making their moves, setting up their devil doll stool pigeons, crooning over my spoon and dropper I throw away at Washington Square Station, vault a turnstile and two flights down the iron stairs, catch an uptown A train… JC7: Among the incivilities by which nations or individuals provoke and irritate each other, Mr Burke’s pamphlet on the French Revolution is an extraordinary instance. * * * JMCJ This is not a sig. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2000, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/197 "2000-02-04T09:54:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally posted by John Corrado: > \*\*JC5: The terror, which would not end for another twenty-eight years- if it ever did end- began, so far as I know or can tell, with a boat made from a sheet of newspaper floating down a gutter swollen with rain. > \*\* It, Stephen King? Just a guess. * * * _Eschew Obfuscation_ ---
**Author:** ![TomH](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/90db22/32.png) [@TomH](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TomH)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2000, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/198 "2000-02-04T11:13:00Z")
JC1 = _The Prince_, Machiavelli. These are the opening words of the covering letter, or preface, rather than the book proper. JC2 = _Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas_, Hunter S. Thompson. JC 3: No idea. JC 4 = It’s definitely P J O’Rourke. I’ll take a guess at _Parliament of Whores_ (one of his best, IMHO. “Sudden unintelligence incidents” is now part of my day-to-day vocabulary). JC 5: I think Tengu’s probably right. JC 6: Heroin literature is quite a small sub-genre. It isn’t _Trainspotting_ because it’s obviously American, so I’ll guess at _Naked Lunch_, William S. Burroughs. JC 7 = _Rights of Man_, Tom Paine. ---
**Author:** ![G.B.H.Hornswoggler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c67d28/32.png) [@G.B.H.Hornswoggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/G.B.H.Hornswoggler)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2000, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/199 "2000-02-04T14:33:00Z")
For those who don’t know what hasn’t been answered (and I’m probably one of them), here are those of mine I haven’t seen anyone guess: DA3) It is possible I already had some presentiment of my future. **Let me now add the last line, to see if that helps:** It is possible that from the beginning Severian had some presentiment of his future. DA4) Let’s set the existence-of-God issue aside for a later volume, and just stipulate that in some way, self-replicating organisms came into existence on this planet and immediately began trying to get rid of each other, either by spamming their environments with rough copies of themselves, or by more direct means which hardly need to be belabored. (Actually from the first chapter after a short “Prologue”) **Added hint: a bestseller from last year** DA7) In the nighttime heart of Beirut, in one of a row of general-address transfer booths, Louis Wu flicked into reality. **Added hint: a famous award-winning SF novel from the '70s** And some new ones: DA9) “Tonight we’re going to show you eight silent ways to kill a man.” DA10) I always get the shakes before a drop. DA11) His name was Gaal Dornick and he was just a country boy who had never seen Trantor before. DA12) Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral Arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. (this one’s for cmkeller!) Oh, and I forget whose it was, but “I’ve seen through his eyes” is the first line of _Ender’s Game_ by Orson Scott Card (which I found out inadvertently in my search for more of my own). * * * …but when you get blue, and you’ve lost all your dreams, there’s nothing like a campfire and a can of beans! ---
**Author:** ![TomH](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/90db22/32.png) [@TomH](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TomH)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2000, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/200 "2000-02-04T15:07:00Z")
Da Ace, I already had a guess at DA7. Is it not _Ringworld_? If not, it’s _Ringworld Engineers_. Both Larry Niven. DA12 = _The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_, Douglas Adams. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588.md?page=11)