Books : [Challenge] How many of these first sentences from literature do you know?

[Challenge] How many of these first sentences from literature do you know?

1. Call me Ishmael.

2. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

3. Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins.

4. Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

5. It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

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. You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter.

8. Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was arrested.

9. 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.

10. Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.

11. Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.

12. Somewhere in la Mancha, in a place whose name I do not care to remember, a gentleman lived not long ago, one of those who has a lance and ancient shield on a shelf and keeps a skinny nag and a greyhound for racing.

13. All this happened, more or less.

14. He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.

15. It was a pleasure to burn.

16. I was born in the Year 1632, in the City of York, of a good Family, tho' not of that Country, my Father being a Foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull; He got a good Estate by Merchandise, and leaving off his Trade, lived afterward at York, from whence he had married my Mother, whose Relations were named Robinson, a very good Family in that Country, and from whom I was called Robinson Kreutznaer; but by the usual Corruption of Words in England, we are now called, nay we call our selves, and write our Name Crusoe, and so my Companions always call'd me.

17. It was love at first sight.

18. In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.

19. In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains.

20. Three hundred and forty-eight years, six months, and nineteen days ago today the Parisians were awakened by the sound of loud peals from all the bells within the triple precincts of the City, the University, and the Town.

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Re: [Challenge] How many of these first sentences from literature do you know?

Nice. You got a lot of them.

I'm surprised you didn't get number nine. Here's a hint: the narrator is a whiner, spends the book talking about what he did in the past.

Re: [Challenge] How many of these first sentences from literature do you know?

The Catcher In The Rye.

Re: [Challenge] How many of these first sentences from literature do you know?

Ja, breh. You got it. 👍

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Re: [Challenge] How many of these first sentences from literature do you know?

You got Kafka right and I am pretty sure Tolstoy right.

Trust your instincts.

Re: [Challenge] How many of these first sentences from literature do you know?

1) Moby Dick.
2) Pride and Prejudice.
3) Lolita.
4) Anna Karenina.
5) 1984. I hate this book, but it inspired my favourite Muse album.
6) A Tale of Two Cities. Hugo ripped off the Big Plot Moment in this book.
7) This sounds like it's among the "American Classics," which I try to avoid. I'm going to guess it's either Huck Finn or some book about a boy and his dog.
8) Je ne sais pas.
9) Catcher in the Rye.
10) David Copperfield!
11) Ulysses. I love Joyce; he wrote my favourite short story.
12) That has to be Don Quixote. Worst thing I ever had to read in my Spanish classes.
13) Slaughterhouse Five. We had to do a report on Vonnegut just last semester, after reading "Fortitude."
14) No idea.
15) Fahrenheit 451?
16) Robinson Crusoe. It's no challenge if the quotes give the book away without having ever had to read it.
17) I don't know.
18) The Great Gatsby, old sport.
19) *spits in Hemingway's direction*
20) MY JAM! LIGHT MY LIFE, FIRE OF MY LOINS: NOTRE-DAME DE PARIS.

The train is coming with shiny cars, comfy seats, and wheels of stars. Hush, little ones, have no fear; the man in the moon is the engineer.
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