Two from ‘genre’ fiction (though why that would preclude literary merit is beyond me):
“You see, I had this space suit.”
“She worked in one of those Park Avenue buildings which tourists feel obligated to photograph.”
’ John D MacDonald, Nightmare in Pink
During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher.
I am a ridiculous person. Now they call me a madman. That would be a promotion if it were not that I remain as ridiculous in their eyes as before.
“It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me.” – Anthony Burgess, Earthly Powers
I got the first page of this in English-German translation class, and after class went out and bought the book. Bloody brillant writing. Also from translation class:
“I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me; had they duly consider’d how much depended upon what they were then doing; - that not only the production of a rational Being was concern’d in it, but that possibly the happy formation and temperature of his body, perhaps his genius and the very cast of his mind; - and, for aught they knew to the contrary, even the fortunes of his whole house might take their turn from the humours and dispositions which were then uppermost: -Had they duly weighed and considered all this, and proceeded accordingly, - I am verily persuaded I should have made a quite different figure in the world, from that, in which the reader is likely to see me.” from Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy.
And I just gotta second, or third, or whatever, The Hobbit. Leaves so many questions in a reader’s mind, it’s not fair.
Thanks for quoting this, Enterprise. Those who think that the best first Anthony Burgess line comes from A clockwork Orange, are sadly mistaken. This is clearly the best.
[QUOTE=Enterprise]
“It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me.” – Anthony Burgess, Earthly Powers
I got the first page of this in English-German translation class, and after class went out and bought the book. Bloody brillant writing. Also from translation class:
“I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me; had they duly consider’d how much depended upon what they were then doing; - that not only the production of a rational Being was concern’d in it, but that possibly the happy formation and temperature of his body, perhaps his genius and the very cast of his mind; - and, for aught they knew to the contrary, even the fortunes of his whole house might take their turn from the humours and dispositions which were then uppermost: -Had they duly weighed and considered all this, and proceeded accordingly, - I am verily persuaded I should have made a quite different figure in the world, from that, in which the reader is likely to see me.” from Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy.
This I don’t understand. Perhaps too germanic for me; maybe I should offer a whole black page?
I don’t know how I could have forgotten this one.
“The last camel collapsed at noon.”
Key to Rebecca by Ken Follett.
Also the name of a book by Elizabeth Peters. (Well, almost the name, I believe in the titled it’s “Died,” not “Collapsed.”)
That’s a great one and a great book. And sort of reminded me of this, although it is a whole paragraph:
Sati, Christopher Pike.
“Now is the winter of our discontent
Turned to glorious summer by this son of York.”
I wondered if there were any other Francis fans out there. I do like his opening lines.
However, this might be my favorite, for pure oddity:
“I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.”
I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith