“All that glitters is not gold
Not all those who wander are lost”My first tattoo on my right rib cage, from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. I’ve loved the series since I saw the third film when I was 11. I recently went back and reread the trilogy, and this has always been my favorite quote. Done by Shaun at DaVinci Tattoo in Wantagh, NY.
Ten Wonderful, Memorable First Lines
Some first lines become as famous as the literary works that they introduce. They set the mood and the tone. Those first words need to capture the reader and flow into the rest of the story. One may wonder if these were the necessary words to unleash a creative flow. On the other hand, it may be a carefully crafted welcome for the reader. In any case, the following are some first-rate, first lines…
* “Call me Ishmael”.
-Herman Melville, Moby Dick
* “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.”
—Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the sea
* “It was love at first sight.”
—Joseph Heller, Catch-22
* “The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting.”
—Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage
* “He was an inch, perhaps two, under six feet, powerfully built, and he advanced straight at you with a slight stoop of the shoulders, head forward, and a fixed from-under stare which made you think of a charging bull.”
—Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim
* “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” —Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
* “This is the saddest story I have ever heard.”
—Ford Maddox Ford, The Good Soldier
* “All this happened, more or less.”
—Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five
* “It was a pleasure to burn.”
—Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
* “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”
—George Orwell, 1984
* “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, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way- in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”
—Charles Dickens, Tale of Two Cities
