Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Top 10 Book Openers

I am qualified to make this list because I have read the first line of EVERY book that has been written. Really I have.

El Alcalde


10. If I am out of my mind, it's all right with me, thought Herzog. -- Saul Bellow, Herzog

9. 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.

8. Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains. -- Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract.

7. " Who is John Galt?" -- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

6.
Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. -- Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

5.
Everything is good as it leaves the hands of the Author of things; everything degenerates in the hands of man. -- Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile

4.
It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. -- George Orwell, 1984

3.
Call me Ishmael -- Herman Melville, Moby Dick

2.
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. -- Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities.

1.
I have long believed that any man interested in either the mystic or the romantic aspects of life must sooner or later define his attitude concerning Spain. -- James A. Michener, Iberia


1 comment:

  1. No# 3 0r 7 can be replaced with "Good is the enemy of great" Good to Great, Jim Collins

    ReplyDelete