christymc44

Lolita

Vladimir Nabokov

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palette to tap, at three, on the teeth.

The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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

Slaughterhouse-Five

Kurt Vonnegut

All this happened, more or less.

Always Coming Home

Ursula K. Le Guin

Stone Telling is my last name.

Look Homeward, Angel

Thomas Wolfe

A destiny that leads the English to the Dutch is strange enough; but one that leads from Epsom into Pennsylvania, and thence into the hills that shut in Altamont over the proud coral cry of the cock, and the soft stone smile of an angel, is touched by that dark miracle of chance which makes new magic in a dusty world.

The Brothers Karamazov

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Alexey Fyodorovich Karamazov was the third son of Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov, a landowner well known in our district in his own day, and still remembered among us owing to his tragic and obscure death, which happened just thirteen years ago, and of which I shall speak in its proper place. (Garnett, 1912)Aleksei Fyodorovich Karamazov was the third son of Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov, a landowner of our district, extremely well known in his time (and to this day still remembered in these parts) on account of his violent and mysterious death exactly thirteen years ago, the circumstances of which I shall relate in due course. (Avsey 1994)Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov was the third son of Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov, a landowner well known in our district in his own day, and still remembered among us owing to his gloomy and tragic death, which happened thirteen years ago, and which I shall describe in its proper place. (Garnett, Great Books, 1952)Alexei Fyodorovich Karamazov was the third son of a landowner from our district, Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov, well known in his own day (and still remembered among us) because of his dark and tragic death, which happened exactly thirteen years ago and which I shall speak of in its proper place. (Pevear/Volokhonsky, 1990)

Moby-Dick

Herman Melville

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world.

Madame Bovary

Gustave Flaubert

Nous étions à l'Etude, quand le Proviseur entra suivi d'un "nouveau" habillé en bourgeois et d'un garçon de classe qui portait un grand pupitre.We were in study hall when the headmaster walked in, followed by a new boy not wearing a school uniform, and by a janitor carrying a large desk.We were at prep, when the Head came in, followed by a new boy not in uniform and a school-servant carrying a big desk.We were at prep when the Headmaster came in, followed by a 'new boy' not wearing school uniform, and by a school servant carrying a large desk.We were in class when the head master came in, followed by a "new fellow," not wearing the school uniform, and a school servant carrying a large desk.

Middlemarch

George Eliot

Who that cares much to know the history of man, and how the mysterious mixture behaves under the varying experiments of Time, has not dwelt, at least briefly, on the life of Saint Theresa, has not smiled with some gentleness at the thought of the little girl waling forth one morning hand-in-hand with her still smaller brother, to go and seek martyrdom in the country of the Moors? (Prelude)Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress.

The Magic Mountain

Thomas Mann

Die Geschichte Hans Castorps, die wir erzählen wollen, - nicht um seinetwillen (denn der Leser wird einen einfachen, wenn auch ansprechenden jungen Mann in ihm kennenlernen), sondern um der Geschichte willen, die uns in hohem Grade erzählenswert scheint (wobei zu Hans Castorps Gunsten denn doch erinnert werden sollte, dass es seine Geschichte ist, und dass nicht jedem jede Geschichte passiert): diese Geschichte ist sehr lange her, sie ist sozusagen schon ganz mit historischem Edelrost überzogenund unbedingt in der Zeitform der tiefsten Vergangenheit vorzutragen.

The Tale of Genji

Murasaki Shikibu

In a certain reign (whose can it have been?) someone of no very great rank, among all His Magesty's Consorts and Intimates, enjoyed exceptional favor.

Emma

Jane Austen

Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.

Bleak House

Charles Dickens

London. Michaelmas term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln's Inn Hall.

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Mark Twain

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.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.

Great Expectations

Charles Dickens

My father's family name being Pirrip, and my christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.

One Hundred Years of Solitude

Gabriel García Márquez

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.Muchos años después, frente al pelotón de fusilamiento, el coronel Aureliano Buendía había de recordar aquella tarde remota en que su padre lo llevó a conocer el hielo.(Bulgarian)<br>Много години по-късно, пред взвода за разстрел, полковник Аурелиано Буендия щеше да си спомни онзи далечен подиробед, когато баща му го заведе да види леда.(Croatian)<br>Mnogo će se godina kasnije, pred streljačkim vodom, pukovnik Aureliano Buendía sjetiti tog davnog poslijepodneva kada ga je otac poveo da upozna led.(Czech)<br>O mnoho let později, když stál před popravčí četou, vzpomněl si plukovník Aureliano Buendía na ono vzdálené odpoledne, kdy ho otec vzal k cikánům, aby si prohlél led.(Dutch)<br>Vele jaren later, staande voor het vuurpeloton, moest kolonel Aureliano Buendía denken aan die lang vervlogen middag, toen zijn vader hem meenam om kennis te maken met het ijs.(Finnish)<br>Vuosia myöhemmin, seistessään teloitusryhmän edessä, eversti Aureliano Buendía muisti kaukaisen illan jolloin hänen isänsä vei hänet tutustumaan jäähän.(German)<br>Viele Jahre später sollte der Oberst Aureliano Buendia sich vor dem Erschießungskommando an jenen fernen Nachmittag erinnern, an dem sein Vater ihn mitnahm, um das Eis kennen zu lernen.(Hebrew)<br>שנים רבות לאחר־כך, כשיעמוד הקולונל אַאוּרליאנוֹ בוּאֶנדִיָה מול כיתת־היורים, ייזכר באותו ערב רחוק שלקח אותו אביו לראות קרח.(Hungarian)<br>Hosszú évekkel később, a kivégzőosztag előtt, Aureliano Buendía ezredesnek eszébe jutott az a régi délután, mikor az apja elvitte jégnézőbe.(Italian)<br>Molti anni dopo, di fronte al plotone di esecuzione, il colonnello Aureliano Buendía si sarebbe ricordato di quel remoto pomeriggio in cui suo padre lo aveva condotto a conoscere il ghiaccio.(Macedonian)<br>Многу години подоцна, наспроти стрелачкот вод, полковникот Аурелијано Буендија ќе се присети на тоа далечно попладне кога неговиот татко го одведе да узнае што е тоа мраз.(Norwegian)<br>Mange år senere, foran eksekusjonspelotongen, måtte oberst Aureliano Buendía tenke på den ettermiddagen for så lenge, lenge siden, da faren tok ham med for å vise ham isen.(Polish)<br>Wiele lat później, stojąc naprzeciw plutonu egzekucyjnego, pułkownik Aurelio Buendía miał przypomnieć sobie to dalekie popołudnie, kiedy ojciec zabrał go z sobą do obozu Cyganów, żeby mu pokazać lód.(Portuguese)<br>Muitos anos depois, diante do pelotão de fuzilamento, o Coronel Aureliano Buendía havia de recordar aquela tarde remota em que seu pai o levou para conhecer o gelo.(Romanian)<br>Mulţi ani după aceea, în faţa plutonului de execuţie, colonelul Aureliano Buendía avea să-şi amintească de după-amiaza îndepărtată cînd tatăl său îl dusese să facă cunoştinţă cu gheaţa.(Slovak)<br>O veľa rokov neskôr, zoči-voči popravnej čate, plukovník Aureliano Buendía si spomenul na to dávne popoludnie, keď ho otec vzal so sebou a on po prvý raz videl ľad.(Swedish)<br>Många år senare, inför exekutionsplutonen, skulle överste Aureliano Buendía påminna sig den avlägsna eftermiddag då hans far tog honom med för att visa honom isen.(Vietnamese)<br>Rất nhiều năm sau này, trước đội hành hình đại tá Aurêlianô Buênđýa đã nhớ lại buổi chiều cha chàng đi xem nước đá.

Crime and Punishment

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

On an exceptionally hot evening early in July a young man came out of the garret in which he lodged in S. Place and walked slowly, as though in hesitation, towards K. bridge. (Garnett translation)Toward the end of a sultry afternoon early in July a young man came out of his little room in Stolyarny Lane and turned slowly and somewhat irresolutely in the direction of Kamenny Bridge. (Coulson translation)On a very hot evening at the beginning of July a young man left his little room at the top of a house in Carpenter Lane, went out into the street, and, as though unable to make up his mind, walked slowly in the direction of Kokushkin Bridge.At the beginning of July, during an extremely hot spell, towards evening, a young man left the closet he rented from tenants in S____y Lane, walked out to the street, and slowly, as if indecisively, headed for the K______n Bridge. (Pevear and Volokhonsky translation)

Buddenbrooks

Thomas Mann

The Tin Drum

Günter Grass

Granted: I'm an inmate of a mental institution; my keeper watches me, scarcely lets me out of his sight; for there's a peephole in the door, and my keeper's eye is the shade of brown that can't see through blue-eyed types like me.

Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen

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

The Scarlet Letter

Nathaniel Hawthorne

A throng of bearded men, in sad-colored garments and gray, steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes.

The Trial

Franz Kafka

Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning.Jemand mußte Josef K. verleumdet haben, denn ohne daß er etwas Böses getan hätte, wurde er eines Morgens verhaftet.

Jane Eyre

Charlotte Brontë

There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined early) the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further out-door exercise was now out of the question.

Things Fall Apart

Chinua Achebe

Okonkwo was well-known throughout the nine villages and even beyond. His fame rested on solid personal achievements. As a young man of eighteen he had brought honour to his village by throwing Amalinze the Cat.

My Ántonia

Willa Cather

I first heard of Ántonia on what seemed to me an interminable journey across the great midland plain of North America. I was ten years old then; I had lost both my father and mother within a year, and my Virginia relatives were sending me out to my grandparents, who lived in Nebraska. I traveled in the care of a mountain boy, Jake Marpole, one of the “hands” on my father’s old farm under the Blue Ridge, who was now going West to work for my grandfather. Jake’s experience of the world was not much wider than mine. He had never been in a railway train until the morning when we set out together to try our fortunes in a new world.

The Sorrows of Young Werther

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I have diligently collected everything I have been able to discover concerning the story of poor Werther, and here present it to you in the knowledge that you will be grateful for it.On 30th October 1772, Legation Secretary Karl Wilhelm Jerusalem in Wetzlar hot and killed himself with a pistol borrowed from J. C. Kestner, a friend of Goethe. (Introduction)

Nineteen Eighty-Four

George Orwell

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

Les Misérables

Victor Hugo

In the Year 1815 Monseigneur Charles-François-Bienvenu Myriel was Bishop of Digne.

Dracula

Bram Stoker

Gone with the Wind

Margaret Mitchell

Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm, as the Tarleton twins were.

I, Claudius

Robert Graves

I, Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus This-that-and-the-other (for I shall not trouble you yet with all my titles) who was once, and not so long ago either, known to my friends and relatives and associates as "Claudius the Idiot", or "That Claudius", or "Claudius the Stammerer", or "Clau-Clau-Claudius" or at best as "Poor Uncle Claudius", am now about to write this strange history of my life; starting from my earliest childhood and continuing year by year until I reach the fateful point of change where, some eight years ago, at the age of fifty-one, I suddenly found myself caught in what I may call the "golden predicament" from which I have never since become disentangled.

Animal Farm

George Orwell

Mr. Jones, of the Manor Farm, had locked the hen-houses for the night, but was too drunk to remember to shut the popholes.

Lord of the Flies

William Golding

The boy with fair hair lowered himself down the last few feet of rock and began to pick his way toward the lagoon.

The Maltese Falcon

Dashiell Hammett

Samuel Spade's jaw was long and bony, his chin a jutting v under the more flexible v of his mouth.

Death Comes for the Archbishop

Willa Cather

One summer evening in the year 1848, three Cardinals and a missionary Bishop from America were dining together in the gardens of a villa in the Sabine hills, overlooking Rome.

Ragtime

E. L. Doctorow

In 1902 Father built a house at the crest of the Broadview Avenue hill in New Rochelle.

The Call of the Wild

Jack London

Buck did not read the newspapers, or he would have known that trouble was brewing, not alone for himself, but for every tide-water dog, strong of muscle and with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound to San Diego.

To Kill a Mockingbird

Harper Lee

When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.

The Color Purple

Alice Walker

You better not never tell nobody but God. It'd kill your mammy.

Charlotte's Web

E. B. White

Where's Papa going with that ax?" said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.

Winnie-the-Pooh

A. A. Milne

Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Ken Kesey

"They're out there. Black boys in white suits up before me to commit sex acts in the hall and get it mopped up before I can catch them."They're out there.

Schindler's List

Thomas Keneally

In Poland's deepest autumn, a tall young man in an expensive overcoat, double-breasted dinner jacket beneath it and - in the lapel of the dinner jacket - a large ornamental gold-on-black enamel <i>Hakenkreuz</i> (swastika) emerged from a fashionable apartment building in Straszewskiego Street, on the edge of the ancient center of Cracow, and saw his chauffeur waiting with fuming breath by the open door of an enormous and, even in this blackened world, lustrous Adler limousine.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

L. Frank Baum

Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer's wife.

In Cold Blood

Truman Capote

The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call 'out there'.

A Separate Peace

John Knowles

I went back to Devon School not long ago, and found it looking oddly newer than when I was a student there fifteen years before.

White Noise

Don DeLillo

The station wagons arrived at noon, a long shining line that coursed through the west campus.

The Little Prince

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Once when I was six years old I saw a beautiful picture in a book about the primeval forest called "True Stories".

Waiting for Godot

Samuel Beckett

Estragon, sitting on a low mound, is trying to take off his boot. He pulls at it with both hands, panting. He gives up, exhausted, rests, tries again. As before. Enter Vladimir ESTRAGON: (giving up again) Nothing to be done.

The Name of the Rose

Umberto Eco

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

The Diary of a Young Girl

Anne Frank

On Friday, 12th June, I woke up at six o' clock and no wonder; it was my birthday

If This Is a Man and The Truce

Primo Levi

Writing Degree Zero

Roland Barthes

The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum

Heinrich Böll

Für den folgenden Bericht gibt es einige Neben- und drei Hauptquellen, die hier am Anfang einmal genannt, dann aber nicht mehr erwähnt werden.

The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge

Rainer Maria Rilke

September 11th, rue Toullier -So this is where people come to live; I would have though it is a city to die in.

The Master and Margarita

Mikhail Bulgakov

One hot spring evening, just as the sun was going down, two men appeared at Patriarch’s Ponds.At the sunset hour of one warm spring day two men were to be seen at Patriarch’s Ponds.Однажды весною, в час небывало жаркого заката, в Москве, на Патриаршихbrпрудах, появились два гражданина.Op een broeihete lentedag daagden omtrent zonsondergang twee burgers op in het park rond de Patriarchvijver.

The Count of Monte Cristo

Alexandre Dumas

On February 24, 1815, the watchtower at Marseilles signaled the arrival of the three-master Pharaon, coming from Smyrna, Trieste and Naples.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass

Lewis Carroll

Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do; once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversation in it, "and what is the use of a book," thought Alice, "without pictures or conversations?"

The Plague

Albert Camus

The unusual events described in this chronicle occurred in 194- at Oran.Les curieux événements qui font le sujet de cette chronique se sont produits en 194., à Oran.Le matin du 16 avril, le docteur Bernard Rieux sortit de son cabinet et buta sur un rat mort, au milieu du palier.

The Executioner's Song

Norman Mailer

Brenda was six when she fell out of the apple tree.

The BFG

Roald Dahl

Sophie couldn't sleep. A brilliant moonbeam was slanting through a gap in the curtains. It was shining right onto her pillow.

Atonement

Ian McEwan

The play – for which Briony had designed posters, programs and tickets, constructed the sales booth out of a folding screen tipped on its side, and lined the collection box in red crepe paper – was written by her in a two-day tempest of composition, causing her to miss a breakfast and a lunch.

His Dark Materials

Philip Pullman

Lyra and her daemon moved through the darkening hall, taking care to keep to one side, out of sight of the kitchen. (Northern lights)Will tugged at his mother's hand and said, "Come on, come on..." (The subtle knife)In a valley shaded with rhododendrons, close to the snow line, where a stream milky with melt-water splashed and where doves and linnets flew among the immense pines, lay a cave, half-hidden by the crag above and the stiff heavy leaves that clustered below. (The amber spyglass)

Austerlitz

W.G. Sebald

In the second half of the 1960s I traveled repeatedly from England to Belgium, partly for study purposes, partly for other reasons which were never entirely clear to me, staying sometimes for just one or two days, sometimes for several weeks.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

J. K. Rowling

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare's date of birth is not precisely known, but it probably preceded his baptism on April 26, 1564, in Stratfordon-Avon, by only a few days.

The Hobbit

J. R. R. Tolkien

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

The Time Traveler's Wife

Audrey Niffenegger

<b>PROLOGUE - Clare:</b> It's hard being left behind.<b>FIRST DATE, ONE<BR></b><i>Saturday, October 26, 1991 (Henry is 28, Clare is 20)</i><BR><BR><b>Clare:</b> The library is cool and smells like carpet cleaner, although all I can see is marble.

Captain Corelli's Mandolin

Louis de Bernières

Dr. Iannis had enjoyed a satisfactory day in which none of his patients had died or got any worse.

The Da Vinci Code

Dan Brown

Robert Langdon awoke slowly.

A Prayer for Owen Meany

John Irving

I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice - not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because he is the reason I believe in God;- I am a Christian because of Owen Meany.

Anne of Green Gables

L. M. Montgomery

Mrs. Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down into a little hollow, fringed with alders and ladies' eardrops and traversed by a brook that had its source away back in the woods of the old Cuthbert place; it was reputed to be an intricate, headlong brook in its earlier course through those woods, with dark secrets of pool and cascade; but by the time it reached Lynde's Hollow it was a quiet well-conducted little stream, for not even a brook could run past Mrs. Rachel Lynde's door without due regard for decency and decorum; it probably was conscious that Mrs. Rachel was sitting at her window, keeping a sharp eye on everything that passed, from brooks and children up, and that if she noticed anything odd or out of place she would never rest until she had ferreted out the whys and wherefores thereof.

The Handmaid’s Tale

Margaret Atwood

We slept in what had once been the gymnasium.

Dune

Frank Herbert

<i>A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct. . . .</i><br><br><b>from "Manual of Muad'dib" by the Princess Irulan</b>In the week before their departure to Arakis, when all the final scurrying about had reached a nearly unbearable frenzy, an old crone came to visit the mother of the boy, Paul.

The Shadow of the Wind

Carlos Ruiz Zafón

I still remember the day my father took me to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books for the first time.Todavia recuerdo aquel amanecer en que mi padre me llevo por primera vez a visitar el Cementerio de los Libros Olvidados. 

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Mark Haddon

It was 7 minutes after midnight.

The Secret History

Donna Tartt

The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation. (Prologue)Does such a thing as "the fatal flaw," that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature?

The Lovely Bones

Alice Sebold

My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie.Inside the snow globe on my father's desk, there was a penguin wearing a red-and-white-striped scarf.

The Secret Garden

Frances Hodgson Burnett

When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle, everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen.

The Bell Jar

Sylvia Plath

It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York.

Possession

A.S. Byatt

The book was thick and black and covered with dust.

A Christmas Carol

Charles Dickens

Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge’s name was good upon ’Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Cloud Atlas

David Mitchell

Beyond the Indian hamlet, upon a forlorn strand, I happened on a trail of recent footprints.

Watership Down

Richard Adams

The primroses were over.

Hamlet

William Shakespeare

<B>Act 1, Scene 1</B><BR><I>Enter</I> <B>Barnardo</B> <I>and</I> <B>Francisco</B><I>, two sentinels.</I><BR><BR><B>Barnardo</B><BR>Who's there?

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Roald Dahl

These two very old people are the father and mother of Mr Bucket.

All Quiet on the Western Front

Erich Maria Remarque

We are at rest five miles behind the front.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

J. K. Rowling

Not for the first time, an argument had broken out over breakfast at number four, Privet Drive.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

J. K. Rowling

The villagers of Little Hangleton still called it 'the Riddle House', even though it had been many years since the Riddle family had lived there.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

J. K. Rowling

Harry Potter was a highly unusual boy in many ways.

The Stand

Stephen King

Hapscomb's Texaco sat on Number 93 just north of Arnette, a pissant four-street burg about 110 miles from Houston."Sally."

Black Beauty

Anna Sewell

The first place that I can well remember, was a large pleasant meadow with a pond of clear water in it.

Artemis Fowl

Eoin Colfer

How does one describe Artemis Fowl? (Prologue)Ho Chi Minh City in the summer.

Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

Neil Gaiman

It was a nice day.

The Godfather

Mario Puzo

Amerigo Bonasera sat in New York Criminal Court No. 3 and waited for justice; vengeance on the men who had so cruelly hurt his daughter, who had tried to dishonor her.

The Clan of the Cave Bear

Jean M. Auel

The naked child ran out of the hide-covered lean-to toward the rocky beach at the bend in the small river.

James and the Giant Peach

Roald Dahl

Until he was four years old, James Henry Trotter had a happy life.

Jurassic Park

Michael Crichton

The late twentieth century has witnessed a scientific gold rush of astonishing proportions: the headlong and furious haste to commercialize genetic engineering.

The Horse Whisperer

Nicholas Evans

There was death at its beginning as there would be death again at its end.

The Odyssey

Homer

By now the other warriors, those that had escaped headlong ruin by sea or in battle, were safely home.Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns driven time and again off course, once he had plundered the hallowed heights of Troy.

Commedia

Dante Alighieri

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita/mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,/chè la diritta via era smarrita.Mildway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a forest dark, For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

Democracy in America; and Two essays on America

Alexis de Tocqueville

On the Origin of Species

Charles Darwin

When on board HMS <i>Beagle</i>, as naturalist, I was much struck with certain facts in the distribution of the inhabitants of South America, and in the geological relations of the present to the past inhabitants of that continent.

On the Social Contract

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

My purpose is to consider if, in political society, there can be any legitimate and sure principle of government, taking men as they are and laws as they might be.

Das Kapital

Karl Marx

Confessions

Saint Augustine

You are great, O Lord, and greatly to be praised: great is your power and to your wisdom there is no limit.You are great, O Lord, and very worthy of praise; mighty is your power and your wisdom isimmeasurable.'Vast are you, Lord, and vast should be your praise' - 'vast what you do; what you know beyond assaying.'

Leviathan

Thomas Hobbes

Nature (the ary whereby God hath made and governs the world) is by the art of man, as in many other things, so in this also imitated, that it can make an artificial animal.

King Lear

William Shakespeare

I thought the king had more affected the Duke of Albany than Cornwall.

Othello

William Shakespeare

Never tell me; I take it much unkindly That thou, Iago, who hast had my purse As if the strings were thine, shouldst know of this.

Night

Elie Wiesel

They called him Moshe the Beadle, as though he had never had a surname in his life.

Stranger in a Strange Land

Robert A. Heinlein

Once upon a time when the world was young there was a Martian named Smith.

Angela's Ashes

Frank McCourt

My father and mother should have stayed in New York where they met and married and where I was born.

Bastard Out of Carolina

Dorothy Allison

I've been called Bone all my life, but my name's Ruth Anne.

The Killer Angels

Michael Shaara

<b>1. THE SPY</B><BR><BR>He rode into the dark of the woods and dismounted.

The Bean Trees

Barbara Kingsolver

I have been afraid of putting air in a tire ever since I saw a tractor tire blow up and throw Newt Hardbines's father over the top of the Standard Oil sign.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Betty Smith

Serene was a word you could put to Brooklyn, New York.

The Joy Luck Club

Amy Tan

The old woman remembered a swan she had bought many years ago in Shanghai for a foolish sum.

Ellen Foster

Kaye Gibbons

When I was little I would think of ways to kill my Daddy.

Where the Wild Things Are

Maurice Sendak

The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind and another, his mother called him wild thing. And so he said, "I'll eat you UP!" And so he was sent to bed without eating anything.

The Alienist

Caleb Carr

<i>January 8th, 1919</i><br> Theodore is in the ground.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

Michael Chabon

In later years, holding forth to an interviewer or to an audience of aging fans at a comic book convention, Sam Clay liked to declare, apropos of his and Joe Kavalier's greatest creation, that back when he was a boy, sealed and hog-tied inside the airtight vessel known as Brooklyn, New York, he had been haunted by dreams of Harry Houdini.

A Wrinkle in Time

Madeleine L'Engle

It was a dark and stormy night.<br> In her attic bedroom Meg Murry, wrapped in an old patchwork quilt, sat on the foot of her bed and watched the trees tossing in the frenzied lashing of the wind.

The Phantom Tollbooth

Norton Juster

There was once a boy named Milo who didn't know what to do with himself—not just sometimes, but always.

Watchmen

Alan Moore

Rorschach's Journal. October 12th, 1985: <br>Dog carcass in alley this morning, tire tread on burst stomach. This city is afraid of me. I have seen its true face.

The Left Hand of Darkness

Ursula K. Le Guin

I’ll make my report as if I told a story, for I was taught as a child on my homeworld that Truth is a matter of the imagination. The soundest fact may fail or prevail in the style of its telling: like that singular organic jewel of our seas, which grows brighter as one woman wears it and, worn by another, dulls and goes to dust. Facts are no more solid, coherent, round, and real than pearls are. But both are sensitive.

A Little Princess

Frances Hodgson Burnett

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, and was driven rather slowly through the big thorough-fares.

A People's History of the United States

Howard Zinn

Arawak men and women, naked, tawny, and full of wonder, emerged from their villages onto the island's beaches and swam out to get a closer look at the strange big boat.

Their Eyes Were Watching God

Zora Neale Hurston

Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

James Joyce

Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo....

Beloved

Toni Morrison

124 was spiteful. Full of baby's venom. The women in the house knew it and so did the children.

The Portrait of a Lady

Henry James

Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea. There are circumstances in which, whether you partake of the tea or not—some people of course never do,—the situation is in itself delightful. Those that I have in mind in beginning to unfold this simple history offered an admirable setting to an innocent pastime. The implements of the little feast had been disposed upon the lawn of an old English country-house, in what I should call the perfect middle of a splendid summer afternoon. Part of the afternoon had waned, but much of it was left, and what was left was of the finest and rarest quality. Real dusk would not arrive for many hours; but the flood of summer light had begun to ebb, the air had grown mellow, the shadows were long upon the smooth, dense turf. They lengthened slowly, however, and the scene expressed that sense of leisure still to come which is perhaps the chief source of one’s enjoyment of such a scene at such an hour. From five o’clock to eight is on certain occasions a little eternity; but on such an occasion as this the interval could be only an eternity of pleasure. The persons concerned in it were taking their pleasure quietly, and they were not of the sex which is supposed to furnish the regular votaries of the ceremony I have mentioned. The shadows on the perfect lawn were straight and angular; they were the shadows of an old man sitting in a deep wicker-chair near the low table on which the tea had been served, and of two younger men strolling to and fro, in desultory talk, in front of him. The old man had his cup in his hand; it was an unusually large cup, of a different pattern from the rest of the set and painted in brilliant colours. He disposed of its contents with much circumspection, holding it for a long time close to his chin, with his face turned to the house. His companions had either finished their tea or were indifferent to their privilege; they smoked cigarettes as they continued to stroll. One of them, from time to time, as he passed, looked with a certain attention at the elder man, who, unconscious of observation, rested his eyes upon the rich red front of his dwelling. The house that rose beyond the lawn was a structure to repay such consideration and was the most characteristic object in the peculiarly English picture I have attempted to sketch.

Little Women

Louisa May Alcott

“Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents,” grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.

Daniel Deronda

George Eliot

Was she beautiful or not beautiful? and what was the secret of form or expression which gave the dynamic quality to her glance?

The Grapes of Wrath

John Steinbeck

To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth.

The Lord of the Rings

J. R. R. Tolkien

When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.

Brave New World

Aldous Huxley

A squat grey building of only thirty-four stories.

The Shell Seekers

Rosamunde Pilcher

She sometimes thought that for her, Nancy Chamberlain, the most straightforward or innocent occupation was doomed to become, inevitably, fraught with tedious complication.

The Chronicles of Narnia

C. S. Lewis

There is a story about something that happened long ago when your grandfather was a child. (From <i>The Magician's Nephew</i>, first in chronological order)Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. (From <i>The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe</i>, first in publication order)