The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created.\!The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, by Douglas Adams, 1980
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"Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents," mumbled Jo, lying on the rug.\!Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott, 1868
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The captain never drank.\!The Man with the Golden Arm, by Nelson Algren, 1949
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Night was running ahead of itself.\!Sea of Death, by Jorge Amado, 1984
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The tall man stood at the edge of the porch.\!Sounder, by William H. Armstrong, 1969
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It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.\!Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen, 1813
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It was morning, and the new sun sparkled gold across the ripples of a gentle sea.\!Jonathan Livingston Seagull, by Richard Bach, 1970
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All children, except one, grow up.\!Peter Pan, by J.M. Barie, 1911
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The great fish moved silently through the night water, propelled by short sweeps of its crescent tail.\!Jaws, by Peter Benchley, 1973
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I am a white man and never forgot it, but I was brought up by the Cheyanne Indians from the age of ten.\!Little Big Man, by Thomas Berger, 1964
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Like the brief doomed flare of exploding suns that registers dimly on blind men's eyes, the beginning of the horror passed almost unnoticed; in the shriek of what followed, in fact, was forgotten and perhaps not connected to the horror at all.\!The Exorcist, by William Peter Blatty, 1971
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It was a pleasure to burn.\!Farenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, 1953
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First of all, it was October, a rare month for boys.\!Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury, 1962
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1801--I have just returned from a visit to my landlord--the solitary neighbor that I shall be troubled with.\!Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte, 1847
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There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.\!Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte, 1847
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It was Wang Lung's marriage day.\!The Good Earth, by Pearl S. Buck, 1931
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As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place where was a Den, and I laid me down in that place to sleep; and as I slept, I dreamed a Dream.\!The Pilgrim's Progress, by John Bunyan, 1675
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I had this story from one who had no business to tell it to me, or to any other.\!Tarzan of the Apes, by Edgar Rice Burroughs, 1914
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I am always drawn back to places where I have lived, the houses and their neighborhoods.\!Breakfast at Tiffany's, by Truman Capote, 1958
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The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call "out there".\!In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote, 1965
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Afterwards, in the dusty little corners where London's secret servants drink together, there was argument about where the Dolphin case history should really begin.\!The Honourable Schoolboy, by John le Carre, 1977
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Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, 'and what is the use of a book,' thought Alice, 'without pictures or conversation?'\!Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll, 1866
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At a village of La Mancha, whose name I do not wish to remember, there lived a little while ago one of those gentlemen who are wont to keep a lance in the rack, an old buckler, a lean horse and a swift greyhound.\!Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes, 1605
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It was about eleven o'clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills.\!The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler, 1939
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The first time I laid eyes on Terry Lennox he was drunk in a Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith outside the terrace of The Dancers.\!The Long Goodbye, by Raymond Chandler, 1954
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Miss Jane Marple was sitting by her window.\!The Mirror Crack'd, by Agatha Christie, 1962
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The drought had lasted now for ten million years, and the reign of the terrible lizards had long since ended.\!2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke, 1968
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This is the story of what a Woman's patience can endure, and what a Man's resolution can achieve.\!The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins, 1860
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It was sunny in San Francisco; a fabulous condition.\!The Manchurian Candidate, by Richard Condon, 1959
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The Nellie, a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter of her sails, and was at rest.\!Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, 1902
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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.\!Lord Jim, by Joseph Conrad, 1900
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Mr Verloc, going out in the morning, left his shop nominally in charge of his brother-in-law.\!The Secret Agent, by Joseph Conrad, 1906
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To begin with, I wish to disclaim the possession of those high gifts of imagination and expression which would have enabled my pen to create for the reader the personality of the man who called himself, after the Russian custom, Cyril of Isidor--Kiryo Sidorovitch--Razumov.\!Under Western Eyes, by Joseph Conrad, 1910
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A long sultry Syrian day was drawing near its close.\!Barabbas, by Marie Corelli, 1893
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It was a feature peculiar to the colonial wars of North America, that the toils and dangers of the wilderness were to be encountered before the adverse hosts could meet.\!The Last of the Mohicans, by James Fenimore Cooper, 1826
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He did not expect to see blood.\!Kramer vs. Kramer, by Avery Corman, 1977
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The fourteenth of August was the day fixed upon for the sailing of the brig Pilgrim on her voyage from Boston round Cape Horn to the western coast of North America.\!Two Years Before the Mast, by Richard Henry Dana, 1840
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A merry little surge of electricity piped by automated alarm from the mood organ beside his bed awakened Rick Deckard.\!Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, by Philip K. Dick, 1968 (the basis for Bladerunner)
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Marley was dead, to begin with, there is no doubt whatever about that.\!A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens, 1843
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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.\!The Personal History of David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens, 1850
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Now, what I want is Facts.\!Hard Times, by Charles Dickens, 1854
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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 doing 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.\!A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens, 1859
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I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong hills.\!Out of Africa, by Isak Dinesen, 1937
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Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon those not infrequent occasions when he was up all night, was seated at the breakfast table.\!The Hound of the Baskervilles, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1902
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Mr. Hungerton, her father, really was the most tactless person upon earth--a fluffy, feathery, untidy cockatoo of a man, perfectly good-natured, but absolutely centered upon his own self.\!The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1912
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Dusk--of a summer night.\!An American Tragedy, by Theodore Dreiser, 1925
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It goes a long way back, some twenty years.\!The Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison, 1952
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All the beasts in Howling Forest were safe in their caves, nests, and burrows.\!The Neverending Story, by Michael Ende, 1979
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Jewell and I come up from the field, following the path in single file.\!As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner, 1930
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Sitting beside the road, watching the wagon mount the hill beside her, Lena thinks, 'I have come from Alabama: a fur piece.'\!A Light in August, by William Faulkner, 1932
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In the Abalone (Arizona) Morning Tribune for August third there appeared on page five an advertisement eight columns wide and twenty-one inches long.\!The Circus of Dr. Lao, by Charles G. Finney, 1935
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I warn you that what you're about to read is full of lose ends and unanswered questions.\!Invasion of the Body Snatchers, by Jack Finney, 1955
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In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.\!The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925
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Though I haven't ever been on the screen, I was brought up in pictures.\!The Last Tycoon, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1941
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It was the saddest story I have ever heard.\!The Good Soldier, by Ford Madox Ford, 1927
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Although she herself was ill enough to justify being in bed had she been a person weak minded enough to give up, Rose Sayer could see that her brother, the Reverend Samuel Sayer, was far more ill.\!The African Queen, by C.S. Forester, 1935
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On the fifteenth of may, in the Jungle of Nool, In the heat of the day, in the cool of the pool, He was splashing...enjoying the jungle's great joys... When Horton the elephant heard a small noise.\!Horton Hears a Who!, by Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss), 1954
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An extraordinary thing happened today.\!The Diary of a Madman, by Nikolai Gogol, 1915
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The boy with fair hair lowered himself down the last few feet of rock and began to pick his way toward the lagoon.\!Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, 1954
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The Year that Buttercup was born the most beautiful woman in the world was a French scullery maid named Annette.\!The Princess Bride, by William Goldman, 1973
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The mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home.\!The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame, 1908
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There is an old legend that somewhere in the world every man has his double.\!The Tenth Man, by Graham Greene, 1985
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To have a reason to get up in the morning, it is necessary to have a guiding principle.\!Ordinary People, by Judith Guest, 1976
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Halfway down a bystreet of one of our New England towns stands a rusty wooden house, with seven acutely peaked gables, facing towards various points of the compass, and a huge, clustered chimney in the midst.\!The House of the Seven Gables, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1851
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If he had his way, peter McDermott thought, he would have fired the chief house detective long ago.\!Hotel, by Arthur Hailey, 1965
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At half-past six on a Friday evening in January, Lincoln International Airport, Illinois, was functioning, though with difficulty.\!Airport, by Arthur Hailey, 1968
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Samuel Spade's jaw was long and bony, his chin a jutting V under the more flexible v of his mouth.\!The Maltese Falcon, by Dashell Hammett, 1930
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The schoolmaster was leaving the village and everybody seemed sorry.\!Jude the Obscure, by Thomas Hardy, 1895
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Once upon a time there was a Martian named Valentine Michael Smith.\!Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert A. Heinlein, 1961
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It was love at first sight.\!Catch-22, by Joseph Heller, 1955
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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.\!A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway, 1929
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The strange thing was, he said, how they screamed every night at midnight.\!In Our Time, by Ernest Hemingway, 1925
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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.\!The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway, 1951
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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.\!Dune, by Frank Herbert, 1965
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I cannot tell my story without reaching a long way back.\!Demian, by Herman Hesse, 1925
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The day had gone by just as days go by.\!Steppenwolf, by Herman Hesse, 1929
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In the shade of the house, in the sunshine on the river bank by the boats, in the shade of the sallow wood and the fig tree, Siddhartha, the handsome Brahmin's son, grew up with his friend Govinda.\!Siddhartha, by Herman Hesse, 1951
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When you are getting on in years (but not ill, of course), you get very sleepy at times, and the hours seem to pass like lazy cattle moving across a landscape.\!Goodbye, Mr. Chips, by James Hilton, 1934
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It was three hundred forty-eight years, six months, and nineteen days ago today that the citizens of Paris were awakened by the pealing of all the bells in the triple precincts of the City, the University, and the Town.\!The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, by Victor Hugo, 1831
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An hour before sunset, on the evening of a day in the beginning of October, a man traveling on foot entered the little town of D---.\!Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo, 1862
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A squat grey building of only thirty-four stories.\!Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, 1932
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Garp's mother, Jenny Fields, was arrested in Boston in 1942 for wounding a man in a movie theater.\!The World According to Garp, by John Irving, 1978
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Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.\!The Portrait of a Lady, by Henry James, 1881
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There were 117 psychoanalysts on the Pan Am flight to Vienna and I'd been treated by at least six of them.\!Fear of Flying, by Erica Jong, 1973
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A cool heavenly breeze took possession of him.\!The last temptation of Christ, by Nikos Kazantzakis, 1960
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I first met him in Piraeus.\!Zorba the Greek, by Nikos Kazantzakis, 1952
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It has been a quiet week in lake Wobegon.\!Leaving Home, by Garrison Keillor, 1987
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Dr. Strauss says I should rite down what I think and remembir and evrey thing that happins to me from now on..\!Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keys, 1966
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Nobody was really surprised when it happened, not really, not on the subconscious level where savage things grow.\!Carrie, by Stephen King, 1974
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Not so long ago, a monster came to the small town of Castle Rock, Maine.\!Cujo, by Stephen King, 1981
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He rolled the cigarette in his lips, liking the taste of the tobacco, squinting his eyes against the sun glare.\!Hondo, by Louis La'Amour, 1953
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The truth is, if old Major Dover had not dropped dead at Taunton races Jim would have never come to Thurgoods at all.\!Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, by John Le Carre, 1974
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When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.\!To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, 1960
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It was a dark and stormy night.\!A wrinkle in time, by Madeline L'Engle, 1962 (you were thinking Snoopy, perhaps?)
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On a hill by the Mississippi where Chippewas camped two generations ago, a girl stood in relief against the cornflower blue of Northern sky.\!Main Street, by Sinclair Lewis, 1920
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The driver of the wagon swaying through the forest and swamp of Ohio wilderness was a ragged girl of fourteen.\!Arrowsmith, by Sinclair Lewis, 1925
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Elmer Gantry was drunk.\!Elmer Gantry, by Sinclair Lewis, 1927
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The handsome dining room of the Hotel Wessex, with its guilded plaster shields and the mural depicting the Green Mountains, had been reserved for the Ladies' Night Dinner of the Fort Beulah Rotary Club.\!It Can't Happen Here, by Sinclair Lewis, 1935
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I am going to pack my two shirts with my other socks and my best suit in the little blue cloth my mother used to tie round her hair when she did the house, and I am going from the Valley.\!How Green Was My Valley, by Richard Llewellyn, 1940
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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.\!The Call of the Wild, by Jack London, 1903
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All my life I have had an awareness of other times and places.\!The Star Rover, by Jack London, 1914
