Unforgettable Opening Paragraphs

[birdandbear]

Two of my favorites:

1. It was the day my grandmother exploded.

2. Once when I was six years old I saw a magnificent picture in a book, called True Stories from Nature, about the primeval forest.


Anyone want to take a guess?

[Sorus]

Think the first one is The Crow Road, by Iain Banks?

[Alynna Lis Eachann]

I have the distinct impression of having read #2, but I have no idea what it is.

[Sorus]

I have the distinct impression of having read #2, but I have no idea what it is.

Same here.

[Edge]

#2 is 'The Little Prince' by Antoine de St Exsomething-or-other.

[Zarathustra]

"The sky was crashing into the earth as the riders caught me on the hilltop."

[Lord Mhoram]

In the week before their departure to Arrakis, when all the final scurrying about had reached a nearly unbearable frenzy, an old crone came to visit the mother of the boy, Paul.

[Sorus]

In those days there were oceans of light and cities in the skies and
wild flying beasts of bronze. There were herds of crimson cattle that
roared and were taller than castles. There were shrill, viridian
things that haunted bleak rivers. It was a time of gods, manifesting
themselves upon our world in all her aspects; a time of giants who
walked on water; of mindless sprites and misshapen creatures who
could be summoned by an ill-considered thought but driven away
only on pain of some fearful sacrifice; of magics, phantasms,
unstable nature, impossible events, insane paradoxes, dreams
come true, dreams gone awry, of nightmares assuming reality.

[kevinswatch]

Sweet. I was right about the Vikings.

Yeah, that was it, Waiting for the Galactic Bus. Hold on a minute...you had me read that thing back in high school, and you've never read it? Are you sure you never read it? I thought I remember talking to you about it. Maybe I'm confusing it with something else?

Yeah, I remember Judas was in it. At least I'm pretty sure. I don't remember why. Or anything else about the book. Wasn't that the book that also had that Topside stuff? Bah. My memory stinks.

Ok, I have a quote that will stump EVERYONE!

The Wheel of Time turns,and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, the one called the Forth Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past...

(runs)

Heh.-jay

[Warmark]

<chases Jay with large pointed stick>

[MsMary]

My husband loves this opening sentence:

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.

[lurch]

...As far as being unforgettable..."The Second World War was over---and there I was at high noon, crossing Times Square with a Purple Heart on"----Eliot Rosewater President, The Rosewater Foundation
.........MEL

[Lord Mhoram]

He lay flat on the brown, pine-needled floor of the forest, his chin on his folded arms, and high overhead the wind blew in the tops of the pine trees. The mountainside sloped gently where he lay; but below it was the steep and he could see the dark of the oiled road winding throughout the pass.

Can anyone name that?

[Alynna Lis Eachann]

I'm coming up stumped on everything... guess all that reading I did wasn't as expansive as I'd thought.

Well, a sample of what I did read, then:

The Sergei G. Gorshkov moved through the water as though the sea had been made to carry such ships. As every sailor knew in his deepest soul, there had been no ocean before there were ships, and the ocean had only gotten so large because ships of such bulk came to chase its farthest shorelines, to push its hem forever back, to conquer its lengths and breadths with their intrepid spirit.

The traveler sang.
Amid its complexities and its delicate, immensely long memories, it sang. In the complete cold of space, the song began at one extremity, spun in circles of superconducting power and speed, and evolved. It culminated in the traveler's heart, after a time counted not in micromeasures, but on the galactic scale of the formation of planets.

Not classic, not remarkably written, and both from the same cult genre. Any guesses on which?

[Menolly]

[quote="Alynna Lis EachannWell, a sample of what I did read, then:

The Sergei G. Gorshkov moved through the water as though the sea had been made to carry such ships. As every sailor knew in his deepest soul, there had been no ocean before there were ships, and the ocean had only gotten so large because ships of such bulk came to chase its farthest shorelines, to push its hem forever back, to conquer its lengths and breadths with their intrepid spirit.

Star Trek: TNG #! The Ghost Ship

[Alynna Lis Eachann]

Wow. That's so obscure I didn't think anyone would even bother.

[MsMary]

So, does anyone know where my quote is from?

[MsMary]

I seem to have killed this thread.

[Cheval]

I seem to have killed this thread.

Not killed, just stumped.

[Sorus]

It's vaguely familiar.