# How many first lines from books do you have memorized? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 5, 2009, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-first-lines-from-books-do-you-have-memorized/516382 "2009-11-05T02:49:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2009, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-first-lines-from-books-do-you-have-memorized/516382/41 "2009-11-05T16:43:41Z")
> [@cjepson](#): > > Who remembers the first line to Tom Sawyer? > > “Tom!” :smack: Dangit! I didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2009, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-first-lines-from-books-do-you-have-memorized/516382/42 "2009-11-05T17:03:09Z")
More Heinlein: _“At first Potiphar Breen did not notice the girl who was undressing.”_ ---
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2009, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-first-lines-from-books-do-you-have-memorized/516382/43 "2009-11-05T17:04:34Z")
> [@Blisters](#): > > The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed I just read that one. 🙂 > [@Maserschmidt](#): > > I can quote the first line and the rest of the prologue to The Canterbury Tales because Mrs. Gant made me memorize it 28 years ago, the first line being: > > Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote > The droghte of March hath perced to the roote, > And bathed every veyne in swich licour > Of which vertu engendred is the flour;. My dad has it memorized,too. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2009, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-first-lines-from-books-do-you-have-memorized/516382/44 "2009-11-05T18:07:16Z")
Oddly enough, we’ve reached 43 posts without anyone mentioning the greatest opening line in all of fiction. [spoiler]Gregor Samsa slept fitfully, and when he awoke, he found that he had transformed into a gigantic cockroach. -Franz Kafka, _Metamorphosis_[/spoiler] ---
**Author:** ![Wheelz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wheelz/32/5718_2.png) [@Wheelz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wheelz)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2009, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-first-lines-from-books-do-you-have-memorized/516382/45 "2009-11-05T18:08:34Z")
Kafka’s _Metamorphosis_: “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.” (I did have to look up the exact wording, but I knew it was something like that.) ETA: D’oh! Beaten by one minute! (Interesting, though, the difference in the translations…) ---
**Author:** ![The\_Bith\_Shuffle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ce73a5/32.png) [@The\_Bith\_Shuffle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Bith_Shuffle)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2009, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-first-lines-from-books-do-you-have-memorized/516382/46 "2009-11-05T18:22:50Z")
_The Trial_, Kafka: “Someone must have traduced Joseph K, for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning.” _The Moor’s Last Sigh_, Rushdie: “I have lost count of the days that have passed since I fled the Andalusian mountain-village of Benengeli, ran from death under cover of darkness and left a message nailed to the door.” _Dune_, Herbert: “A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct.” ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2009, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-first-lines-from-books-do-you-have-memorized/516382/47 "2009-11-05T19:03:58Z")
“Once upon a time when the world was young there was a Martian named Smith” - more Heinlein (Stranger in a Strange Land) ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2009, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-first-lines-from-books-do-you-have-memorized/516382/48 "2009-11-05T19:39:14Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > [spoiler]Gregor Samsa slept fitfully, and when he awoke, he found that he had transformed into a gigantic cockroach. > > -Franz Kafka, _Metamorphosis_[/spoiler] > [@Wheelz](#): > > Kafka’s _Metamorphosis_: > > “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.” The second one is a much better translation from the brilliant German original, which I remember as: Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem ungeheueren Ungeziefer verwandelt. ---
**Author:** ![Skara\_Brae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f0a364/32.png) [@Skara\_Brae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skara_Brae)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2009, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-first-lines-from-books-do-you-have-memorized/516382/49 "2009-11-05T20:01:36Z")
Most of mine have already been listed, but I will add _Dante’s Inferno._ Midway through the journey of my life, I found myself alone in a dark wood, the right way having been lost… ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2009, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-first-lines-from-books-do-you-have-memorized/516382/50 "2009-11-05T20:02:25Z")
“It was not long after dawn, when the captain of HM frigate _Lydia_ came up on deck.” - _Beat to Quarters_ by C.S. Forrester “What’s it going to be, then, eh?” - _A Clockwork Orange_, by Anthony Burgess “My dear Wormwood” _The Screwtape Letters_, by C. S. Lewis Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2009, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-first-lines-from-books-do-you-have-memorized/516382/51 "2009-11-05T20:43:06Z")
‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was a dark and stormy night. In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. “Call me Ishmael,” he said. “Who is John Galt?”’ – the first paragraph of a pastiche I’d love to write 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2009, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-first-lines-from-books-do-you-have-memorized/516382/52 "2009-11-05T23:08:07Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was a dark and stormy night. In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. “Call me Ishmael,” he said. “Who is John Galt?”’ > > – the first paragraph of a pastiche I’d love to write 🙂 It’s been done - by Snoopy. ---
**Author:** ![bagga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@bagga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bagga)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-first-lines-from-books-do-you-have-memorized/516382/53 "2009-11-06T01:03:40Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > I always assumed that “13 O’clock” was just a Britishism for 1pm that was current at the time, which would make the sentence not so interesting. Wikipedia is somewhat ambigious: > > Maybe one of our older british posters can set us straight. Was a “clock striking 13” supposed to invoke a slightly different and futuristic world to Orwells readers, or was it just a common way of saying it was an hour after noon. I’m not an \*older \*British poster, but from both personal knowledge and conversation with older British English Lit teachers, can definitely confirm that it wasn’t a common use and it was intended to be striking and unsettling. This is confirmed when Winston (and the reader) occasionally has to mentally convert to the new time: [QUOTE=George Orwell] The clock’s hands said six, meaning eighteen. They had three or four hours ahead of them. [/QUOTE] And further unnatural uses of the 24-hour clock that would sound unusual even for us today: [QUOTE=George Orwell] The clock’s hands said seventeen-twenty: it was nineteen-twenty really. She was coming at nineteen-thirty….When he woke it was with the sensation of having slept for a long time, but a glance at the old-fashioned clock told him that it was only twenty-thirty. [/QUOTE] As for first lines, I never forget the chilling “This is not for you.” of House of Leaves. And for some reason the first sentence of A Void by Perec has stuck with me: “Incurably insomniac, Anton Vowl turns on a light.” ---
**Author:** ![ZenBeam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3ab097/32.png) [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-first-lines-from-books-do-you-have-memorized/516382/54 "2009-11-06T01:28:01Z")
The four I have memorized are from books I’ve never read. Does that count? [spoiler]Call me Ishmael. (Moby Dick) It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. (???) I was born in the house my father built. (Richard Nixon, via SNL) It was a dark and stormy night. (Snoopy)[/spoiler] Actually, those last three I can’t be sure are even real. ---
**Author:** ![Runs\_With\_Scissors](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/278dde/32.png) [@Runs\_With\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Runs_With_Scissors)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-first-lines-from-books-do-you-have-memorized/516382/55 "2009-11-06T02:32:30Z")
> [@ZenBeam](#): > > The four I have memorized are from books I’ve never read. Does that count? > > [spoiler]Call me Ishmael. (Moby Dick) > > It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. (???) > > I was born in the house my father built. (Richard Nixon, via SNL) > > It was a dark and stormy night. (Snoopy)[/spoiler] > Actually, those last three I can’t be sure are even real. I think they count double. It shows the power of writing, and the ability to be culturally relevant. Can someone confirm that the dark and stormy night was, originally, LeGuin? Schulz probably popularized it more than she did. The Nixon/SNL line is familiar…what’s the original? ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-first-lines-from-books-do-you-have-memorized/516382/56 "2009-11-06T04:05:48Z")
> [@bagga](#): > > I’m not an \*older \*British poster, but from both personal knowledge and conversation with older British English Lit teachers, can definitely confirm that it wasn’t a common use and it was intended to be striking and unsettling. Ah, good to know, thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-first-lines-from-books-do-you-have-memorized/516382/57 "2009-11-06T16:52:58Z")
> [@Runs\_With\_Scissors](#): > > Can someone confirm that the dark and stormy night was, originally, LeGuin? Schulz probably popularized it more than she did. I can confirm that it [wasn’t](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Clifford), and that the original line is longer. It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents — except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness. ---
**Author:** ![Enright3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/enright3/32/2897_2.png) [@Enright3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enright3)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-first-lines-from-books-do-you-have-memorized/516382/58 "2009-11-06T18:34:53Z")
> [@Ruby](#): > > Only one. > > “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” Ditto. It was the only one I was sure about. I never knew “they call me Ismael” was the first line in MD. ---
**Author:** ![Enright3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/enright3/32/2897_2.png) [@Enright3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enright3)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-first-lines-from-books-do-you-have-memorized/516382/59 "2009-11-06T18:38:05Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#): > > I can confirm that it [wasn’t](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Clifford), and that the original line is longer. > > It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents — except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness. I always thought that “It was a dark and stormy night” came about because of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest where participants try to come up with the ‘best’ opening line to the worst novel. > **[Home | The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest](https://www.bulwer-lytton.com/)** > > A whimsical literary competition for the worst possible opening sentences to novels never written. ---
**Author:** ![cjepson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9adbd/32.png) [@cjepson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cjepson)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-first-lines-from-books-do-you-have-memorized/516382/60 "2009-11-06T21:45:16Z")
I just remembered another one, from the cosmic years of my teenagerhood – “In watermelon sugar the deeds were done and done again as my life is done in watermelon sugar.” Perhaps you can guess the title of the book… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-first-lines-from-books-do-you-have-memorized/516382.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-first-lines-from-books-do-you-have-memorized/516382.md?page=4)