# 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:** 7
**Author:** ![cher3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/da6949/32.png) [@cher3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cher3)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2000, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/121 "2000-02-02T23:20:00Z")
AW7 A La Recherche du Temps Perdu–Marcel Proust (Excuse the highschool French) ---
**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 2, 2000, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/122 "2000-02-02T23:21:00Z")
Absynthetic, correct on AW2. MoosieGirl, the shortness of the sentence in AW7 can be seen as ironic, considering it’s the beginning of the first novel of a long (and famous) series, and the author was known for his page-spanning, complex sentences. ---
**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 2, 2000, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/123 "2000-02-02T23:22:00Z")
Some of you are fast! Congratulations cher3. AW7 is indeed the first sentence of Marcel Proust’s “Du cote de chez Swann”, the first novel in the series “A la recherche du temps perdu.” ---
**Author:** ![cher3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/da6949/32.png) [@cher3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cher3)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2000, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/124 "2000-02-02T23:37:00Z")
Why I’m at it, is AW4 Chandler’s “The Big Sleep?” ---
**Author:** ![Sylence](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b19c9b/32.png) [@Sylence](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sylence)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2000, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/125 "2000-02-02T23:38:00Z")
Da Ace posted: > [@](#): > > DA9) His followers called him Mahasamatman and said that he was a god. Roger Zelazny, _Lord of Light_. > [@](#): > > DA10) He doesn’t know which one of us I am these days, but they know one truth. (This is actually a short story.) Alfred Bester, _Fondly Fahrenheit_. One of the most magnificent uses of language I have ever read. 🙂 – Sylence * * * If a bird doesn’t sing, I’ll wait until it sings. - Tokugawa Ieyasu ---
**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 2, 2000, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/126 "2000-02-02T23:44:00Z")
cher3, right again on “The Big Sleep.” ---
**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, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/127 "2000-02-03T00:15:00Z")
AW6 is drivin’ me nuts. Oh well, here are a couple more: 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. c32: 3 May. Bistritz. - Left Munich at 8:35 P.M., on 1st May, arriving at Vienna early next morning; should have arrived at 6:46, but the train was an hour late. Buda-Pesth seems a wonderful place, from the glimpse which I got from the train and the little I could walk through the streets. ---
**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, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/128 "2000-02-03T00:20:00Z")
AW3 sounds like one of the gospels in the New Testament but I’m not sure which one. Logically it would be Matthew, I guess. Not the King James Version, though! ---
**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, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/129 "2000-02-03T00:25:00Z")
Since I’m sitting at my desk at work here are a couple of technical books: P16: “C is a general-purpose programming language.” (Obviously this _could_ be the start of many books, but there’s an obvious favorite.) P17: “a \a\ n. pl a’s or as \az\ often cap often attrib 1 a: the 1st letter of the English alphabet” (The original has a lot of different typefaces but I’m all thumbs at UBB.) ---
**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, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/130 "2000-02-03T00:27:00Z")
After a little thought, AW3 is beginning to sound like the Gospel According to St. Luke instead. Am I in the ballpark? * * * “pluto … a seriously demented but oddly addictive presence here.” – TVeblen ---
**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, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/131 "2000-02-03T00:27:00Z")
**cher3** : Would it help if I told you that AW6 are the words of a certain Dr. Sheppard? _c32: 3 May. Bistritz. - Left Munich at 8:35 P.M., on 1st May, arriving at Vienna early next morning; should have arrived at 6:46, but the train was an hour late. Buda-Pesth seems a wonderful place, from the glimpse which I got from the train and the little I could walk through the streets._ Dracula, by Bram Stoker. **pluto** : for AW3, close, but no cigar. ---
**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, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/132 "2000-02-03T00:28:00Z")
**pluto** : for AW3, correct on the second guess. Gospel according to St. Luke ---
**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, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/133 "2000-02-03T00:32:00Z")
Yay, somebody finally recognized _Howards End_! Time for a clue on the Mason City one: Political novel. Very famous. I’m surprised this was the last one to be solved. c31: _Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man_, by James Joyce. ---
**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, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/134 "2000-02-03T00:46:00Z")
And now for the next bunch: FP6: An easterly is the most disagreeable wind in Lyme Bay – Lyme Bay being that largest bite from the underside of England’s outstretched south-western leg – and a person of curiosity could at once have deduced several strong probabilities about the pair who began to walk down the quay at Lyme Regis, the small but ancient eponym of the inbite, one incisively sharp and blustery morning in the late March of 1867. FP7: You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings. FP8: In the hospital of the orphanage – the boys’ division at St. Cloud’s, Maine – two nurses were in charge of naming the new babies and checking that their little penises were healing from the obligatory circumcision. FP9: _Here beginneth auspiciously the first part of this work. Question the first._ Whether the belief that there are such beings as witches is so essential a part of the Catholic faith that obstinately to maintain the opposite opinion manifestly savours of heresy. FP10 (For you, pluto): There were crimson roses on the bench; they looked like splashes of blood. * * * I think apathy, depression, irony, and confusion are damned fine ways to view a world going to hell. – Cynthia Heimel ---
**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, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/135 "2000-02-03T00:55:00Z")
_FP8: In the hospital of the orphanage – the boys’ division at St. Cloud’s, Maine – two nurses were in charge of naming the new babies and checking that their little penises were healing from the obligatory circumcision._ The Cider House Rules, John Irving. ---
**Author:** ![Melatonin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b3f665/32.png) [@Melatonin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melatonin)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2000, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/136 "2000-02-03T01:15:00Z")
How 'bout these? t1: “They’re out there.” t2: “The beet is the most intense of vegetables.” t3: “One spring day, in the hour of an uncommonly warm sunset in Moscow at Patriarch Ponds two citizens appeared.” ---
**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, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/137 "2000-02-03T01:16:00Z")
Arnold and Fretful: Right and right. Okay, is AW6 “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd” by Agatha Christie? ---
**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, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/138 "2000-02-03T01:38:00Z")
Fretful Porpentine: > [@](#): > > FP7: You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings. ## _Frankenstein_ by Mary Shelley …but when you get blue, and you’ve lost all your dreams, there’s nothing like a campfire and a can of beans! ---
**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, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/139 "2000-02-03T02:30:00Z")
Dang, beaten to Frankenstein, both as a use, and as a guess… Oh, well. More for you to chew on: T6: ‘At three-thirty A.M. on the night of June 5, 1992, the top telepath in the Sol System fell off the map in the offices of Runciter Associates in New York City.’ T7: ‘The telephone rang as I was chewing the final bite of the last American cheese Sandwich I ever ate.’ * * * _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, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/140 "2000-02-03T03:31:00Z")
Tengu: > [@](#): > > T6: ‘At three-thirty A.M. on the night of June 5, 1992, the top telepath in the Sol System fell off the map in the offices of Runciter Associates in New York City.’ ## I know that’s Phil Dick, and I’m pretty sure that it’s _Ubik_ (I could check, but that’s just cheating… …but when you get blue, and you’ve lost all your dreams, there’s nothing like a campfire and a can of beans! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588.md?page=8)