# "It was the best of times..." **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 28, 2017, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-was-the-best-of-times/797517 "2017-09-28T13:50:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Fugazi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f08c70/32.png) [@Fugazi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fugazi)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2017, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-was-the-best-of-times/797517/61 "2017-09-29T11:31:49Z")
I too will quote a short paragraph. As I left the Kenya Beanstalk capsule he was right on my heels. He followed me through the door leading to Customs, Health, and Immigration. As the door contracted behind him I killed him. Robert Heinlein, Friday ---
**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2017, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-was-the-best-of-times/797517/62 "2017-09-29T11:32:16Z")
From one of my favourite authors… > [@](#): > > You are about to start reading Italo Calvino’s new novel, _If on a winter’s night a traveller_. ---
**Author:** ![LightWithoutHeattttttttttttttt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/bc8723/32.png) [@LightWithoutHeattttttttttttttt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LightWithoutHeattttttttttttttt)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2017, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-was-the-best-of-times/797517/63 "2017-09-29T11:39:54Z")
“It was a pain in the ass waiting around for someone to try to kill you.” Roger Zelazny - Trumps of Doom ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2017, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-was-the-best-of-times/797517/64 "2017-09-29T14:46:59Z")
Snoopy writing his great novel. Of course it starts, “It was a dark and stormy night.” 🙂 Part 1 > **[Peanuts by Charles Schulz for November 13, 2016 | GoComics.com](https://www.gocomics.com/peanuts/2016/11/13)** > > November 13, 2016 Part 2 > **[Peanuts by Charles Schulz for November 27, 2016 | GoComics.com](https://www.gocomics.com/peanuts/2016/11/27)** > > November 27, 2016 Part 3 > **[Peanuts by Charles Schulz for March 26, 2017 | GoComics.com](https://www.gocomics.com/peanuts/2017/03/26)** > > March 26, 2017 ---
**Author:** ![RobDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f07891/32.png) [@RobDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RobDog)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2017, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-was-the-best-of-times/797517/65 "2017-09-29T15:09:21Z")
“It was the day my grandmother exploded.” Iain Banks. The Crow Road. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2017, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-was-the-best-of-times/797517/66 "2017-09-29T16:12:26Z")
“He was 170 days dying but not yet dead.” – Alfred Bester, _The Stars My Destination_ “Limp, the body of Gorrister hung from the pink palette unsupported hanging high above us in the computer chamber; and it did not shiver in the chill, oily breeze that blew eternally through the main cavern.” – “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream” by Harlan Ellison ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2017, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-was-the-best-of-times/797517/67 "2017-09-29T17:41:10Z")
Guys! “Not Long Before the End” and “What Good is a Glass Dagger?” are two different stories. In “Not Long Before the End”, the Warlock fights against a barbarian and a magic sword. In “What Good is a Glass Dagger?”, The Warlock and his werewolf sidekick fight against the magician Wavyhill, who dabbles in illusion, necromancy, and mass murder. If I remember right, **Stainless Steel Rat** ’s quote is from “Not Long Before the End”. But I could be wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2017, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-was-the-best-of-times/797517/68 "2017-09-29T17:54:35Z")
“When I was nine years old I hid under a table and heard my sister kill a king.” _Quest for a Maid_, by Frances Mary Hendry. “It was a dark, blustery afternoon in spring, and the city of London was chasing a small mining town across the dried-out bed of the old North Sea.” _Mortal Engines_, by Philip Reeve. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2017, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-was-the-best-of-times/797517/69 "2017-09-29T18:03:15Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > Guys! “Not Long Before the End” and “What Good is a Glass Dagger?” are two different stories. > > In “Not Long Before the End”, the Warlock fights against a barbarian and a magic sword. > > In “What Good is a Glass Dagger?”, The Warlock and his werewolf sidekick fight against the magician Wavyhill, who dabbles in illusion, necromancy, and mass murder. > > If I remember right, **Stainless Steel Rat** ’s quote is from “Not Long Before the End”. But I could be wrong. Yes, “A swordsman battled a sorcerer once not long before the end” is the opening of “Not Long Before the End” - “What Good is a Glass Dagger” takes place some decades later, and opens with the werewolf being caught sneaking into Warlock’s home (there’s no swordsman in it). ---
**Author:** ![Zuzu\_s\_Petals](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e19b73/32.png) [@Zuzu\_s\_Petals](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zuzu_s_Petals)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2017, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-was-the-best-of-times/797517/70 "2017-09-29T18:07:41Z")
“I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.” Dodie Smith, _I Capture the Castle_ ---
**Author:** ![Saltire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saltire/32/553_2.png) [@Saltire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saltire)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2017, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-was-the-best-of-times/797517/71 "2017-09-29T20:36:07Z")
“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.” –H. G. Wells, _The War of the Worlds_ So very Victorian. ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2017, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-was-the-best-of-times/797517/72 "2017-09-29T21:05:26Z")
“The last camel collapsed at noon.” Ken Follett, Key to Rebecca. > [@RivkahChaya](#): > > That’s not the whole line to the first period, but it’s pretty long, so I’ll stop there. I’m Jewish and don’t even believe in the “droghte of March,” and it still gives me chills. What…do you think “the droghte of March” is? ---
**Author:** ![ZonexandScout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zonexandscout/32/544_2.png) [@ZonexandScout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZonexandScout)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2017, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-was-the-best-of-times/797517/73 "2017-09-29T21:06:05Z")
“This is the saddest story I ever heard.” _ **The Good Soldier** _, Ford Madox Ford. (Originally titled _ **The Saddest Story** _.) ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2017, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-was-the-best-of-times/797517/74 "2017-09-29T21:27:58Z")
> [@Dendarii\_Dame](#): > > “When I was nine years old I hid under a table and heard my sister kill a king.” _Quest for a Maid_, by Frances Mary Hendry. I guess if one starts reading the sample on Amazon, and looks up ten minutes later wanting more, it’s time to buy. Thanks! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2017, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-was-the-best-of-times/797517/75 "2017-09-29T23:42:21Z")
I find it hard to believe that nobody has posted this yet: the first 2 sentences of Jane Austen’s _Pride and Prejudice_. "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters." ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Knig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@Typo\_Knig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Knig)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2017, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-was-the-best-of-times/797517/76 "2017-09-30T04:31:20Z")
> [@Saltire](#): > > “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.” > > –H. G. Wells, _The War of the Worlds_ > > So very Victorian. Also a brilliant bit of foreshadowing. For the transient creatures are what kills the Martians. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-was-the-best-of-times/797517.md?page=3)