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Famous First Sentences
@FirstsFamous
Famous, fantastic first sentences from the best novels, non-fiction, and movies of all time.
The BeginningJoined April 2021
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We are the antidote to writer's block.
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"If you wanted to get rich, how would you do it?"
From "How to Make Wealth" by
paulgraham.com/wealth.html
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It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope...
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We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. -- From: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream -
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It was the day my grandmother exploded. -- From: The Crow Road -
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As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into an enormous insect. -- From: The Metamorphosis -
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It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. -- From: Nineteen Eighty-Four -
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"You were on your way home when you died."
From: The Egg, a short story by (who also wrote The Martian and Artemis)
galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_
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“This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it.” -
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If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap...
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"What if I told you about a business with strong network effects and 200x YoY revenue growth that was preparing to offer a 25% dividend and implement a permanent share buyback program?"
From
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Far Out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. -- From: The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy -
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I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. -- From: I Capture the Castle -
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A story has no beginning or end; arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead. -- From: The End of the Affair -
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Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. -- From: Anna Karenina -
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A gentleman and a lady traveling from Tunbridge towards that part of the Sussex coast which lies between Hastings and Eastbourne, being induced by business to quit the high road and attempt a very rough lane, were overturned in toiling up its long ascent, half rock, half sand.
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for this was the language he had learned from his good mother. -- From: The Ugly Duckling #booktwt -
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It was so glorious out in the country; it was summer; the cornfields were yellow, the oats were green, the hay had been put up in stacks in the green meadows, and the stork went about on his long red legs, and chattered Egyptian,
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Hard by a great forest dwelt a poor wood-cutter with his wife and his two children. The boy was called Hansel and the girl Gretel. -- From: Hansel and Gretel #booktwt - amzn.to/2YzvDc0
Everybody knows the story of the Three Little Pigs. Or at least they think they do. But I'll let you in on a little secret. Nobody knows the real story, because nobody has ever heard my side of the story. I'm the Wolf.
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Once upon a time there were four little Rabbits, and their names were-Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail, and Peter. -- From: Peter Rabbit #booktwt -
Which meant we only had half a wish each. Wishing is for babies anyway. Wishes don't come true. -- From: The Story of Tracy Beaker #booktwt -
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My name is Tracy Beaker. I am 10 years 2 months old. My birthday is on May 8. It's not fair, because that dopey Peter Ingham has his birthday then too, so we just got the one cake between us. And we had to hold the knife to cut the cake together.
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The Fossil sisters lived in the Cromwell Road. At that end of it which is farthest away from the Brompton Road, and yet sufficiently near it so one could be taken to look at the dolls’ houses in the Victoria and Albert every wet day.
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Mr. and Mrs. Brown first met Paddington on a railway platform. In fact, that was how he came to have such an unusual name for a bear, for Paddington was the name of the station. -- From: Paddington Bear #booktwt -
One sunny Sunday, the caterpillar was hatched out of a tiny egg. He was very hungry. -- From: The very Hungry Caterpillar #booktwt -
and was driven rather slowly through the big thoroughfares. -- From: A Little Princess #booktwt - amzn.to/31R5Hdj
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Once on a dark winter's day, when the yellow fog hung so thick and heavy in the streets of London that the lamps were lighted and the shop windows blazed with gas as they do at night, an odd-looking little girl sat in a cab with her father...
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The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind and another his mother called him 'wild thing!' and Max said 'I'll eat you up!' so he was sent to bed without eating anything. -- From: Where the Wild Things Are #booktwt -
It was an afternoon in late September. In the pleasant city of Stillwater, Mr. Popper, the house painter, was going home from work. -- From: Mr. Popper's Penguins #booktwt -
Here is Edward Bear, coming down the stairs now, bump bump bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. -- From: Winnie the Pooh #booktwt -
It was seven o'clock of a very warm evening in the Seeonee hills when Father Wolf woke up from his day's rest, scratched himself, yawned, and spread out his paws one after the other to get rid of the sleepy feeling in their tips.
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