First Lines of Famous Books(Only 4% Get All Of These Right)
Only 4% Get All Of These Right
OK, so you probably don't remember exactly what these first sentences were, so just use your general knowledge of the storyline and author to take your best guess.
Usually your first guess is the right one. When you're done, don't forget to share your results with your friends to show them how much smarter you are!
- Moby Dick is a classic novel by Herman Melville that most of us had to read in High School. We're told some people even like it. How did it begin?Call me Ishmael.Call me Maybe.Don't call me late for dinner.I've always hated whales.
- 1984, George Orwell's classic novel about state suppression and control of the individual is a frightening tale that sometimes bears striking similarity to modern society. Remember its first line?When I saw her walk off the train, she looked like a point of light piercing the gray, smoky sky.It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.The year was 1984, and I had to pick up doughnuts for the general.I had never realized it before, but I really needed to start taking better care of my skin.
- Russian writer Leo Tolstoy wrote this epic, and epically long, love story. So what was the first line of Anna Karenina?When I looked at her, I was struck by how much makeup she wore for such an old woman.I met Anna at Starbucks, and she was pissed.She had an otherworldly beauty that struck me as almost alien.Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
- The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford is a classic novel about two couples in the years leading up to WWI.When our paths crossed, we were each startled at the similarity of our lives.This is the saddest story I have ever heard.The is the most pathetic story I have ever written.We met at a spa, and I thought them the most obnoxious people I had ever met.
- The Art of the Deal, Donald Trump's famous ghostwritten book about negotiation. Which sentence launched this historical business masterpiece?I don't do it for the money.Once I brushed up against Melania's brass covfefe, and she demanded that I apologize forthwith.I actually do it for the money.A great deal is like a beautiful woman.
- Ernest Hemingway wrote The Old Man and the Sea, a novel about a fisherman and his struggle during the greatest catch of his life. How did it begin?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.Man, Santiago loved him some FISH!His fingers ached so much that he was beginning to lose the sense that he had them attached to his body at all.Show me the way to go home, I'm tired and I want to go to bed.
- Renowned author J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series spawned a series of wildly popular movies which enchanted children and adults alike. In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, what was the very first line?I was stunned...Lord Voldemort looked just like my aunt Elizabeth without makeup.Not for the first time, an argument had broken out over breakfast at number four, Privet Drive.βI never understood the British fascination with tomato as a breakfast food.I got new shoes.
- People still love reading Daniel Defoe's classic tale of castaway adventure, Robinson Crusoe, even though it was written almost 300 years ago. Do you know the first sentence?I was born in the Year 1632, in the City of York, of a good Family, tho' not of that Country, my Father being a Foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull; He got a good Estate by Merchandise, and leaving off his Trade, lived afterward at York, from whence he had married my Mother, whose Relations were named Robinson, a very good Family in that Country, and from whom I was called Robinson Kreutznaer; but by the usual Corruption of Words in England, we are now called, nay we call our selves, and write our Name Crusoe, and so my Companions always call'd me.Crusoe's the name, and Island life is my game.Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum, I smell the blood of an Englishman.One can imagine, but will never really know, the stench of sea and sweat that lay upon this solitary man.
- Famed American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote his classic The Great Gatsby, in part, based upon the exploits of the original flapper and writer whose work he plagiarized, his wife Zelda. First line?She smelled like money.In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.Jay Gatsby liked french fries...yes, he liked them a great deal.I was nothing if not a coward.
- Virginia Woolf, a woman nobody should be afraid of, wrote Orlando in the early 20th century. Can you guess the first sentence of this gender bending tale of reincarnation?She died that evening, fully corseted, perfumed, powdered, rouged, and wearing an auburn wig made from horse hair. She awoke the next morning - 20 years later - and She was a He.Heβfor there could be no doubt of his sex, though the fashion of the time did something to disguise itβwas in the act of slicing at the head of a Moor which swung from the rafters.His face was his enchantment, he marveled at the delicate beauty it still held, and held no regret for his lost life as the Queen.The days of eating Ding Dongs with zero guilt were over...it was time to become a chick.
- Sylvia Plath, whose work explored the feminine experience in all its glory and ugliness, was best known for The Bell Jar. How did this famous book begin?It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York.When I was between my Sophomore and Junior year at Brown, I took a job at the UN in New York.They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but in my case, absence destroyed any remaining feeling I had for Academia.Donald looked at me with such seething contempt...he was the first man I ever met who truly, and completely, hated women.
- The Life of Pi is an awesome tale of fantastic adventure, and has nothing to do with dessert. We hear it's also a book. First sentence?I grew up in a zoo, more specifically a poorly funded zoo outside of Calcutta.I'll tell you something you didn't know - the Liger really exists.I am not fond of the sea, which was a real bummer considering what was about to happen.My suffering left me sad and gloomy.
- Charles Dickens is one of the most famous, and one of the finest, writers of the British Victorian Era. His masterpiece, A Tale of Two Cities begins how?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.It was a time with a whole bunch of dichotomies.Where is my Absinthe?!London, in the sultry summer of 1847, smelled like a dead rat's festering backside.
- Mark Twain, one of the cleverest writers America has produced, wrote several books about life on the Mississippi. Huckleberry Finn, his sequel to the popular Tom Sawyer, is a classic. How did it begin?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.Proper grammar ain't no goal for a real man.I woke up on the bank, and Tom was standing over me, laughing hysterically."Heya, ya left yo' fishin' pole down by the crick", he told me.
- Catcher in the Rye is in the top 10 list of finest novels ever, according to our staff writer Suzanne. So how does this gem kick off?My mother was distant, my father cruel, nobody noticed my fistula, and it was a muggy June - there, do I have your attention now?If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.I know most stories start of with a lot of lousy details, but I'll save that for later.This isn't going to be about my carefree childhood, or my crappy childhood, or really any kind of childhood at all because I hate that kind of book if you really want to know.
- Fahrenheit 451 is a book about other people destroying books by burning them. A tactic used by more than one Fascist ruler. How does this 1960s novel by Ray Bradbury begin?There were no more fire alarms.It was a pleasure to burn.Hot enough for ya?It was a dark and stormy night...nah, it wasn't really.
- Hunter S. Thompson, a shall we say "free thinker" wrote about his famous binge in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas while driving to Las Vegas in the 60s. How did this drug-fueled tome begin?Whoever said cocaine and rum don't mix was definitely high on meth.We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.She always looked smarter when I was high.This book is about the things I recall, so I have no explanation for why it is so damned long.