Very impressive! Try this one, from one of the great crime short stories of all time (which is NOT to say it isn’t obscure):
U-3) “At six o’clock of a January evening Mr. Whybrow was walking home through the cobweb alleys of London’s East End. He had left the golden clamour of the great High Street to which the tram had brought him from the river and his daily work, and was now in the chess-board of byways that is called Mallon End.”
Yes it was Cat’s Cradle. After it was mentioned earlier, I thought others would check out the book and get the too-short quote immediately. Strange collection of simu/multi posts I must say.
I don’t know any of the others that haven’t been answered already, so I’ll add a few of my own:
S-1) “Where’s Papa going with that ax?” said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.
S-2) He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.
S-3) The boy with the fair hair lowered himself down the last few feet of rock and began to pick his way toward the lagoon.
S-4) Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy.
S-5) No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water.
S-1) “Where’s Papa going with that ax?” said Fern to her mother as they were setting
the table for breakfast.
E.B. White; CHARLOTTE’S WEB
S-2) He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone
eighty-four days now without taking a fish.
Ernest Hemingway; THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA
S-3) The boy with the fair hair lowered himself down the last few feet of rock and began
to pick his way toward the lagoon.
William Golding; LORD OF THE FLIES
S-4) Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund and
Lucy.
Yipe. You got me there.
S-5) No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this
world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and
yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns
they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a
microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop
of water.
How about this one…
…Minus 100 and Counting…
She was squinting at the thermometer in the white light coming through the window. Beyond her, in the drizzle, the other highrises in Co-Op city rose like the gray turrets of a penitentiary.
“The idea of a walk-in closet sounds frightening. If I’m ever sittin’ at home and a closet walks in, I’m gettin’ outta there.” ~George Carlin
A1) There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.
And do plays count? Although this one is a dead give-away.
A2) Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
**A1) There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë
A2) Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
Romeo and Juliet
Eat right, exercise daily, live clean, die anyway.
Anna Karenina by Tolstoi (don’t trust my spelling, though)
David Copperfield by Dickens (ooh, or is it Great Expectations? I could check, but that would be cheating…)
I’ll have a few of my own soon, but I want to see if I can get in with these guesses first!
…but when you get blue, and you’ve lost all your dreams, there’s nothing like a campfire and a can of beans!