# What is the first sentence from the book you are currently reading? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [April 20, 2017, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858 "2017-04-20T16:51:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 41
**Author:** ![mjmlabs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mjmlabs/32/69_2.png) [@mjmlabs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mjmlabs)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/802 "2019-09-14T08:21:33Z")
> [@](#): > > In every culture we know of, whether it be secular or religious, ethnically diverse or not, the question of how to live is central. – _How to Be a Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life_, Massimo Pigliucci ---
**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 15, 2019, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/803 "2019-09-15T19:01:28Z")
“Legends and lore are known from around the world, some dating from oral traditions passed on over a multitude of generations.” \*Chesapeake Legends and Lore from the War of 1812 \*by Ralph E. Eshelman and Scott S. Sheads ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2019, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/804 "2019-09-15T19:41:04Z")
“Lo! the glory of the kings of the people of the Spear-Danes in days of old we have heard tell, how those princes did deeds of valour.” _Beowulf_, translation by J.R.R. Tolkien ---
**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 16, 2019, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/805 "2019-09-16T18:42:47Z")
“Atlantis? A fairy tale!” _Operation Time Search_ by Andre Norton ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2019, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/806 "2019-09-17T10:38:11Z")
Two or three times a week I treat myself to a few sips of iced cappuccino at my local coffee bar. (More than a few sips would cause insomnia and fast heart-beat.) I sip slowly and read from a book I keep in my car just for that purpose. I read slowly from the book to savor it too! The book is _Citizen Hearst_, a splendid biography of one of America’s most splendid characters. (The subject of _Citizen Kane_ led a boring life compared to the real W.R. Hearst.) The first sentence of the book is neither short enough to type easily nor would it give a good idea about the book. But today I read something interesting about the 1932 Democratic Convention. Hearst had tried for the Presidency himself several times, and delighted in playing the role of kingmaker, but although he often controlled both New York City and the State of California, none of his candidates had ever become President. His own candidate in 1932, Speaker John Garner, was failing despite the support of Hearst-controlled delegations, especially from California. It was clear to all the cigar-smokers that the fourth ballot was FDR’s last chance. Otherwise Al Smith would win the nomination. > [@](#): > > Farley [Roosevelt’s campaign manager] telephoned San Simeon… Hearst refused to talk to him. The reason was that Hearst was already setting large wheels of his own into motion… He was not enthusiastic about Roosevelt but the alternative — horror of horrors! — was the S-List Smith or the Wilson-loving internationalist Baker… > > Since 1904, Hearst had personally attended a half-dozen conventions of both major parties … without affecting the outcome in the slightest. Now, in 1932, he stayed away — and decided the convention, the candidate and the future of the nation. > > That evening, on he fourth ballot rollcall, McAdoo strode to the microphone and uttered historic words: “California casts forty-four votes for Franklin D. Roosevelt.” > That did it. Hearst, for the first time in his long life, had named a President… Most observers also believed that he had named Garner as Vice President. Al Smith, an embittered man, took the next train home, possibly wondering whether his remarks years earlier about Hearst and his Mud-Gutter Gazette had cost him the Presidency. ---
**Author:** ![Casparlatete](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/casparlatete/32/3377_2.png) [@Casparlatete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Casparlatete)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2019, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/807 "2019-09-17T11:25:22Z")
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. _Holy Bible_ ---
**Author:** ![uncle\_squeegee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b5e925/32.png) [@uncle\_squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/uncle_squeegee)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2019, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/808 "2019-09-18T05:13:24Z")
The average human can expect to live more than two billion seconds, but there are only a few moments when everything can change at once. “End Times: A Brief Guide to the End of the World” by Bryan Walsh ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2019, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/809 "2019-09-18T07:55:49Z")
“This book is for a boy who was born in Berlin during the last months of the war.” Cornelius Ryan, _ **The Last Battle** _ (Simon and Schuster, 1966) The rest of the paragraph reads: “His name was Peter Fechter. In 1962, he was machine-gunned by his own people and left to bleed to death by the side of the most tragic memorial to the Allied victory—the Berlin Wall.” ---
**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 18, 2019, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/810 "2019-09-18T13:49:55Z")
“It is to you, dear Mother, to you who are doubly my Mother, that I come to confide the story of my soul.” _Story of a Soul_, by St. Therese of Lisieux ---
**Author:** ![Author\_Balk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Author\_Balk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Author_Balk)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2019, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/811 "2019-09-18T14:14:11Z")
In the hospital of the orphanage-the boys’s division at St. Cloud’s, Maine-two nurses were in charge of naming the new babies and checking that their little penises were healing from the obligatory circumcision. se The Cider House Rules by John Irving (Not many books have “penises” in the first line) ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2019, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/812 "2019-09-19T14:37:37Z")
At one minute out, the Black Hawk crew chief slid the door open. _No Easy Day_ – Mark Owen and Kevin Maurer ---
**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 19, 2019, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/813 "2019-09-19T19:07:00Z")
“I’ll never get used to it!” _Pauline_, by Margaret Storey ---
**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 21, 2019, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/814 "2019-09-21T14:19:55Z")
“Sing in me, O Muse, of all things Greek that excite the imagination and delight the senses and magnify the lives of mortals, things that have survived three thousand years and more, since the time before the time of Homer, things that were old then and are new now–you know, the eternal.” _Greek to Me: Adventures of the Comma Queen_, by Mary Norris ---
**Author:** ![Morgyn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morgyn/32/3041_2.png) [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2019, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/815 "2019-09-22T03:41:52Z")
“The wizard Heald coupled with a poor woman once, in the king’s city of Mondor, and she bore a son with one green eye and one black eye.” – _The Forgotten Beasts of Eld_, Patricia McKillip ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2019, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/816 "2019-09-22T06:18:37Z")
“The Soviet system took shape under the impact of not one revolution but of two.” _ **Stalin in Power: The Revolution from Above, 1928–1941** _. Robert C Tucker (WW Norton & Company, Inc; 1990). ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2019, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/817 "2019-09-23T13:56:20Z")
“When I was seven, I found a door.” -The Ten Thousand Doors of January, by Alix Harrow ---
**Author:** ![Casparlatete](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/casparlatete/32/3377_2.png) [@Casparlatete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Casparlatete)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2019, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/818 "2019-09-23T21:35:04Z")
On the 15th of September 1840, at six o’clock in the morning, the \*Ville-de Montereau \* was lying alongside the Quai Saint-bernard, ready to sail, with clouds of smoke coming from its funnel. - Sentimantal Education \* Gastave Flaubert ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2019, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/819 "2019-09-24T04:26:43Z")
“My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance.” _We Have Always Lived in the Castle_ by Shirley Jackson (1962) ---
**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 24, 2019, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/820 "2019-09-24T14:17:54Z")
“In writing forewords to my mystery stories, I have from time to time stressed the importance of legal medicine.” _The Case of the Demure Defendant_, by Erle Stanley Gardner ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2019, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858/821 "2019-09-24T15:08:42Z")
“Marriage was once represented as a field of battle rather than a bed of roses, and perhaps there are some who may still support this view; but just as Dr. Maturin had made a far more unsuitable match than most, so he set about dealing with the situation in a far more compendious, peaceable and efficacious way than the great majority of husbands.” _The Ionian Mission_ by Patrick O’Brian (1981) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858.md?page=40) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-sentence-from-the-book-you-are-currently-reading/784858.md?page=42)