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Famous first words (Image Credit: Corbis)
Famous First Words
Have you ever been so moved, amused, or provoked by the first line of a novel that it stayed in your memory long after you finished the book and put it back on the shelf? Here’s your chance to see just how many first lines you remember (or how many you can guess). Try to match each of the following opening lines with the correct novel.
1
“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.”
2
“All children, except one, grow up.”
3
“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.”
4
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”
5
“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
6
“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, it was the winter of despair…”
7
“Call me Ishmael.”
8
“Call me Jonah.”
9
“I am a sick man ... I am a spiteful man.”
10
“Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”
11
“The drought had lasted now for ten million years, and the reign of the terrible lizards had long since ended.”
12
“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, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.”
13
“'To be born again,' sang Gibreel Farishta tumbling from the heavens, ‘first you have to die.’”
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