# 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:** 9
**Author:** ![TomH](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/90db22/32.png) [@TomH](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TomH)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2000, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/161 "2000-02-03T14:49:00Z")
Da Ace: Is it _Steel Beaches_? I can’t remember the author’s name. ---
**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, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/162 "2000-02-03T16:41:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally posted by TomH: > **Da Ace: Is it _Steel Beaches_? I can’t remember the author’s name.** Close enough! It’s _Steel Beach_ by John Varley. Great book. It doesn’t exactly live up to the promise of that first line, but, then, what book could? * * * …but when you get blue, and you’ve lost all your dreams, there’s nothing like a campfire and a can of beans! ---
**Author:** ![frolix8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f04885/32.png) [@frolix8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/frolix8)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2000, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/163 "2000-02-03T16:59:00Z")
P16 must be K&R, the C Bible. I don’t have my copy here to check though (the shame!). ---
**Author:** ![Absynthetic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/97f17d/32.png) [@Absynthetic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Absynthetic)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2000, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/164 "2000-02-03T17:19:00Z")
Pixoid: That has to be _Ender’s Game_, am I right? Best Si-Fi ever written, if you ask me. * * * Applying computer technology is simply finding the right wrench to pound in the correct screw. ---
**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, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/165 "2000-02-03T17:24:00Z")
The two of mine that remained unfound: AW1 Eh bien, mon prince, so Genoa and Lucca are now no more than private estates of the Bonaparte family. was Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace AW5 Sth, I know that woman. She used to live with a flock of birds on Lenox Avenue. Know her husband, too. He feel for an eighteen-year-old girl with one of those deepdown, spooky loves that made him so sad and happy he shot her just to keep the feeling going. was Toni Morrison, Jazz Some more: AW8 I was leaning against the bar in a speakeasy on Fifty-second Street, waiting for Nora to finish her Christmas shopping, when a girl got up from the table where she had been sitting with three other people and came over to me. She was small and blonde, and whether you looked at her face or at her body in powder-blue sports clothes the result was satisfactory. AW9 I Nephi, having been born of goodly parents, therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father; and having seen many afflictions in the course of my days - nevertheless, having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days - and having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God, therefore I make a record of my proceedings in my days; and I make a record in the language of my father, which consits of the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians. AW10 Mr. Utterson the lawyer was a man of a rugged countenance, that was never lighted by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrased in discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary, and yet somehow lovable. AW11 I was sick - sick unto death with that long agony; and when they at length unbound me, and I was permitted to sit, I felt that my senses were leaving me. The sentence - the dread sentence of death - was the last of distinct accentuation which reached my ears. AW12 When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special significance, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton. AW13 Il y a aujourd’hui trois cent quarante-huit ans six mois et dix-neuf jours que les parisiens s’éveillèrent au bruit de toutes les cloches sonnant à grande volée dans la triple enceinte de la Cité, de l’Université et de la Ville. Ce n’est cependant pas un jour dont l’histoire ait gardé le souvenir que le 6 janvier 1482. AW14 Part I. _Perhaps an Accident_ On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travellers into the gulf below. ---
**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, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/166 "2000-02-03T17:52:00Z")
AW8 is from “The Thin Man” by Dashiell Hammett AW12 is the first sentence of “The Lord of the Rings” by J.R.R. Tolkien. ---
**Author:** ![Tinker\_Grey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tinker_grey/32/8136_2.png) [@Tinker\_Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tinker_Grey)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2000, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/167 "2000-02-04T06:08:00Z")
T14: Prologue to Chaucer’s The Cantebury Tales (Spelled wrong - oh well) ---
**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, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/168 "2000-02-04T06:11:00Z")
AW10 = We’re back to R L Stevenson: _Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde_. AW13 = _Notre Dame de Paris_ par Victor Hugo. AW14 = _The Bridge of San Luis Rey_, I forget the author, but IIRC it won the Pulitzer Prize in some time in the 1930s. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2000, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/169 "2000-02-04T06:12:00Z")
NTG2) Jules Verne; 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEAS T10) I believe this is Carroll’s ALICE IN WONDERLAND, not THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS. AW10) Robt Louis Stevenson; THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE AW11) Edgar Allan Poe; THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM AW13) Victor Hugo; NOTRE DAME DE PARIS That last one was a WAG. Here’s another for you: U4) “The mental features discoursed of as the analytical are, in themselves, but little susceptible of analysis.” * * * Uke ---
**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 4, 2000, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/170 "2000-02-04T06:33:00Z")
AW15 The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas eve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be, I remember no comment uttered until somebody happened to say that it was the only case he had met in which such a visitation had fallen on a child. 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. AW17 To Sherlock Holmes, she is always _the_ woman. 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. AW19 He sat, in defiance of municipal orders, astride the gun Zam-Zammah on her brick platform opposite the old Ajaib-Gher - the Wonder House, as the natives call the Lahore Museum. Who hold Zam-Zammah, that “fire-breathing dragon”, hold the Punjab, for the great green-bronze piece is always first of the conqueror¹s loot. AW20 My Father had a small Estate in _Nottinghamshire_; I was the Third of five Sons. He sent me to _Emanuel-College_ in _Cambrige_, at Fourteen Years old, where I resided three Years, and applied my self close to my Studies: But the Charge of maintaining me (although I had a very scanty Allowance) being too great for a narrow Fortune; I was bound Apprentice to Mr. _James Bates_, an eminent Surgeon in _London_, with whom I continued four Years; and my Father now and then sending me small Sums of Money, I laid them out in learning Navigation, and other Parts of the Mathematicks, useful to those who intend to travel, as I always believed it would be some time or other my Fortune to do. AW21 I. Ferryslip. Three gulls wheel above the broken boxes, orangerinds, spoiled cabbage heads that heave between the splintered plank walls, the green waves spume under the round bow as the ferry, skidding on the tide, crashes, gulps the broken water, slides, settles slowly into the slip. Handwinches whirl with jingle of chains. Gates fold upwards, feet step out across the crack, men and women press through the manuresmelling wooden tunnel of the ferry-house, crushed and jostling like apples fed down a chute into a press. ---
**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 4, 2000, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/171 "2000-02-04T06:34:00Z")
Damn! I forgot the first part of the post! You people are smart! and fast! **cher3** _AW8 is from “The Thin Man” by Dashiell Hammett AW12 is the first sentence of “The Lord of the Rings” by J.R.R. Tolkien._ correct on both counts. **TomH** AW10 = We’re back to R L Stevenson: Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. AW13 = Notre Dame de Paris par Victor Hugo. AW14 = The Bridge of San Luis Rey, I forget the author, but IIRC it won the Pulitzer Prize in some time in the 1930s. correct on all 3. _The Bridge of San Luis Rey_ was written by Thornton Wilder. **Ukulele Ike** _AW10) Robt Louis Stevenson; THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE AW11) Edgar Allan Poe; THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM AW13) Victor Hugo; NOTRE DAME DE PARIS_ Correct on all 3. _U4) “The mental features discoursed of as the analytical are, in themselves, but little susceptible of analysis.”_ ? One of the Sherlock Holmes stories? I personally thought AW9 would be easy, but maybe not! ---
**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 4, 2000, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/172 "2000-02-04T06:38:00Z")
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 * * * Eat right, exercise daily, live clean, die anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2000, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/173 "2000-02-03T19:11:00Z")
Moosie, you’re too damn fast. I was hoping to jump on that “A Scandal in Bohemia” puppy. AW: Not Sherlock on U-4, but you’re warm…ish. God, I hope Conan Doyle never started a story with such an off-putting sentence! * * * Uke ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2000, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/174 "2000-02-03T19:25:00Z")
U-Ike: Could that be _The Mystery of Edwin Drood_? (WAG). ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Thin\_Skin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@Mr\_Thin\_Skin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Thin_Skin)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2000, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/175 "2000-02-03T19:37:00Z")
Let me drag this up from page 2: This is from one of my favorite books. MTS-4: “Everyone now knows how to find the meaning of life within himself. But mankind wasn’t always so lucky.” ---
**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, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/176 "2000-02-03T19:48:00Z")
AW19 and 20 are, respectively: “Kim” by Rudyard Kipling and “Gulliver’s Travels” by Jonathan Swift. ---
**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, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/177 "2000-02-03T19:51:00Z")
I think U4 is from “The murders in the Rue Morgue” by Poe. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2000, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/178 "2000-02-03T20:26:00Z")
You got it, cher. Oooooooooooooooh…MTS-3 is REALLY familiar…I’m gonna KICK myself when someone else gets it. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2000, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/179 "2000-02-03T20:27:00Z")
MTS-3: Vonnegut’s THE SIRENS OF TITAN? ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Thin\_Skin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@Mr\_Thin\_Skin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Thin_Skin)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2000, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588/180 "2000-02-03T20:31:00Z")
Yes! What’s the meaning of human life? > [@](#): > > …to get a grounded messenger from Tralfamadore on his way again. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-first-words/13588.md?page=10)