The Quotations Home Page
The Other Pages | Quotations Home Page
Quotations #26:  Good Starts
Quotation Categories | Search Suggestions
Author's Last Name Index: A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

- M -
  1. Ryder opened his tired eyelids and reached for the telephone without enthusiasm.
      --Goodbye California, by Alistair MacLean, 1978


  2. My suffering left me sad and gloomy.
      --The Life of Pi, by Yann Martel, 2001


  3. The day broke gray and dull.
      --Of Human Bondage, by W. Somerset Maugham, 1915


  4. In the town there were two mutes, and they were always together.
      The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, by Carson McCullers, 1940


  5. Call me Ishmael.
      --Moby Dick, by Herman Melville, 1851


  6. Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.
      --Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell, 1936



- N -
  1. The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.
      --A Bend in the River, by V.S. Naipaul, 1979


  2. The moon is particularly bright this evening.
      --Conversations with the Moon, by Amy Neftzinger, 2003


  3. It was little more than three miles from the Wall into the Old Kingdom, but that was enough.
      --Sabriel, by Garth Nix, 1995


  4. Fog rose from the river, great billows of white weaving into the soot and smoke of the city of Corvere, to become the popular hybrid thing that the more popular newspapers called smog and the Times "miasmic fog."
      --Abhorsen, by Garth Nix, 2003


  5. It was a hot, steamy summer, and the mosquitos swarmed everywhere, from their breeding grounds in the rotten, reedy shores of the Red Lake up to the foothills of Mount Abed.
      --Lirael, by Garth Nix, 2001


  6. The British are frequently criticized by other nations for their dislike of change, and indeed we love England for those aspects of nature and life that change least.
      --Mutiny on the Bounty, by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall, 1932



- O -
  1. One warm evening in August, 1937 a girl in love stood before a mirror.
      --Them, by Joyce Carol Oates, 1969


  2. She stands up in the garden where she has been working and looks into the distance.
      --The English Patient, by Michael Ondaatje, 1992


  3. Mr. Jones, of the Manor Farm, had locked the henhouses for the night, but was too drunk to remember to shut the popholes.
      --Animal Farm, by George Orwell, 1946


  4. It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.
      --1984, by George Orwell, 1949


  5. The idea really came to me the day I got my false teeth.
      --Coming Up for Air, by George Orwell, 1939



- P -
  1. There is a lovely road that runs from Ixapo into the hills.
      --Cry the Beloved Country, by Alan Paton


  2. On they went, singing "Rest Eternal," and whenever they stopped, their feet, the horses, and the gusts of wind seemed to carry on their singing.
      --Dr Zhivago, by Boris Pasternak, 1957


  3. When I first set eyes on Evelyn Barton-Forbes she was on the streets of Rome--
      --Crocodile on the Sandbank, by Elizabeth Peters, 1975


  4. "What is it you find so amusing, dear?"
      --The Falcon at the Portal, by Elizabeth Peters, 1999


  5. I can see by my watch, without taking my hand from the left grip of the cycle, that it is eight-thirty in the morning.
      --Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert Pirsig, 1974


  6. For the first fifteen years of our lives, Danny and I lived within five blocks of each other and neither of us knew of the other's existence.
      --The Chosen, by Chaim Potok, 1967


  7. All beginnings are hard.
      --In the Beginning, by Chaim Potok, 1975


  8. Here is an account of a few years in the life of Quoyle, born in Brooklyn and raised in a shuffle of dreary upstate towns.
      --The Shipping News, by E. Annie Proulx, 1993


  9. For a long time I used to go to bed early.
      --Remembrance of Things Past, by Marcel Proust, 1924


  10. --Something a little strange, that's what you notice, she's not a woman like all the others.
      --Kiss of the Spider Woman, by Manuel Puig, 1978


  11. Amerigo Bonasera sat in New York Criminal Court Number 3 and waited for justice; vengance on the men who had so cruelly hurt his daughter, who had tried to dishonor her.
      --The Godfather, by Mario Puzo, 1969



- R -
  1. Howard Roark laughed.
      --The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand, 1943


  2. We are five miles behind the front.
      --All quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque, 1928


  3. The Citadel of Troizen, where the Palace stands, was built by giants before anyone remembers.
      --The King Must Die, by Mary Renault, 1958


  4. It was dolphin weather when I sailed into Piraeus with my comrades of the Cretan bull ring.
      --The Bull from the Sea, by Mary Renault, 1962


  5. The child was wakened by the knotting of the snake's coils about his waist.
      --Fire from Heaven , by Mary Renault, 1969


  6. I see . . ." said the vampire thoughtfully, and slowly he walked across the room toward the window.
      --Interview with the Vampire, by Anne Rice, 1976


  7. The girl in the gray deerskins was fifteen, perhaps older, she wasn't exactly sure.
      --A Country of Strangers, by Conrad Richter, 1966


  8. Amoebas leave no fossils.
      --Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, by Tom Robbins, 1976


  9. The first time I saw Brenda she asked me to hold her glasses.
      --Goodbye, Columbus, by Philip Roth, 1959


  10. Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.
      --Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, by J.K. Rowling, 1997



- S -
  1. There is no lake at Camp Green Lake.
      --Holes, by Louis Sachar, 1998


  2. When they pulled her out, she was not crying at all.
      --Contact, by Carl Sagan, 1985


  3. A sky as pure as water bathed the stars and brought them out.
      --Southern mail, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 1929


  4. Once when I was six years old I saw a magnificent picture in a book, called Stories From Nature, about the primeval forest.
      --The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 1943


  5. 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.
      --The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, 1951


  6. The night that Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one sort or another, his mother called him wild thing.
      --Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak


  7. The President of the United States awoke that Monday morning with his usual hangover--fashioned not of liquor but of tensions and worries that sleep had failed to dissolve.
      --The President's Plane is Missing, by Robert J. Serling, 1967


  8. The first place that I can well remember was a large pleasant meadow with a pond of clear water in it.
      --Black Beauty, by Anna Sewell, 1877


  9. You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings.
      --Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, 1816


  10. Petronius woke only about midday. and as usual greatly worried.
      --Quo Vadis, by Henryk Sienkiewicz, 1896 (translated from Polish)


  11. It was four o'clock when the ceremony was over and the carriages began to arrive.
      --The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, 1906


  12. Mma Ramotswe had a detective agency in Africa, at the foot of Kgale hill.
      --The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency, by Alexander McCall Smith, 1998


  13. Mma Ramotswe, the daughter of the late Obed Ramotswe of Mochudi, near Gaborone, Botswana, Africa, was the announced fiancee of Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, son of the late Pumphamiliste Matekoni, of Tlokweg, peasant farmer and latterly chief caretaker of the Railway Head Office.
      --Morality for beautiful Girls, by Alexander McCall Smith, 2001


  14. Isabel Dalhousie saw the young man fall from the edge of the upper circle, from the gods.
      --The Sunday Philosophy Club, by Alexander McCall Smith, 2004


  15. All nights should be so dark, all winters so warm, all headlights so dazzling.
      --Gorky Park, by Martin Cruz Smith, 1981


  16. Not long ago, there lived in London a young married couple of dalmation dogs named Pongo and Missis Pongo.
      --101 Dalmations, by Dodie Smith, 1956


  17. If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book.
      --The Bad Beginning, by Lemony Snicket, 1999


  18. It happened many years ago, before the traders and missionaries first came into the South Seas, while the Polynesians were still great in numbers and fierce of heart.
      --Call it Courage, by Armstrong Sperry, 1940


  19. I shook the rain from my hat and walked into the room.
      --I, the Jury, by Mickey Spillane, 1947


  20. Kino awakened in the near dark.
      --The Pearl, by John Steinbeck, 1945


  21. A few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas River drops in close to the hillside bank and runs deep and green.
      --Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck, 1937


  22. This is the story of Danny and of Danny's friends and of Danny's house.
      --Tortilla Flat, by John Steinbeck, 1935


  23. Lee Chong's grocery, while not a model of neatness, was a miracle of supply.
      --Cannery Row, by John Steinbeck, 1945


  24. The Salinas Valley is in Northern California.
      --East of Eden, by John Steinbeck, 1952


  25. The little town of Verieres is one of the prettiest in Franche-Comte.
      --The Red and the Black, by Stendhal, 1830


  26. I will begin the story of my adventures with a certain morning early in the month of june, the year of grace 1751, when I took the key for the last time out of the door of my father's house.
      --Kidnapped, by Robert Louis Stevenson, 1886



- T -
  1. My father has asked me to be the fourth corner at the Joy Luck Club.
      --The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan, 1989


  2. In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.
      --The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien, 1937


  3. 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.
      --The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien, 1954


  4. All happy families are alike, but an unhappy family is unhappy after its own fashion.
      --Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy, 1878


  5. 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.
      --The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, 1885


  6. In the ancient city of London, on a certain autumn day in the second quarter of the sixteenth century, a boy was born to a poor family of Canty, who did not want him.
      --The Prince and the Pauper, by Mark Twain, 1881


  7. For months the great pleasure excursion to Europe and the Holy Land was chatted about in the newspapers everywhere in America and and discussed at countless firesides.
      --The Innocents Abroad, by Mark Twain, 1869



- U -
  1. Boys are playing basketball around a telephone pole with a backboard bolted to it.
      --Rabbit, Run, by John Updike, 1970


- V -
  1. Mr. Phileas Fogg lived, in 1872, at No. 7 Saville Row, Burlington Gardens, the house in which Sheridan died in 1814.
      --Around the World in 80 Days, by Jules Verne, 1872


  2. When a journey begins badly it rarely ends well.
      --The Floating Island, by Jules Verne, 1895


  3. Looking back to all that has occurred to me since that eventful day. I am scarcely able to believe in the reality of my adventures.
      --A Journey to the Center of the Earth, by Jules Verne, 1864


  4. This is a tale of a meeting of two lonesome, skinny, fairly old white men on a planet which was dying fast.
      --Breakfast of Champions, by Kurt Vonnegut, 1973


  5. All this happened, more or less..
      --Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut, 1968


  6. Ilium, New York, is divided into three parts.
      --Player Pianoe, by Kurt Vonnegut, 1952



- W -
  1. You better not never tell nobody but God.
      --The Color Purple, by Alice Walker, 1982


  2. Just after he entered John F. Kennedy Airport, and as he was having his ticket to Chicago verified, he was handed the urgent message by the attendant at the airline's desk.
      --The Word, by Irving Wallace, 1972


  3. There are songs that come from the blue-eyed grass, from the dust of a thousand country roads.
      --The Bridges of Madison County, by Robert James Waller, 1992


  4. I saw a grey-haired man, a figure of hale age, sitting at a desk and writing.
      --In the Days of the Comet, by H.G. Wells, 1906


  5. The stranger came early in February, one wintry day, through a biting wind and a driving snow, the last snowfall of the year, over the down, walking as it seemed from Bramblehurst railway station, and carrying a little black portmanteau in his thickly gloved hand.
      --The Invisible Man, by H.G. Wells, 1897


  6. I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story.
      --Ethan Frome, by Edith Wharton, 1911


  7. Selden paused in suprise.
      --The House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton


  8. One January evening of the early seventies, Christine Nilsson was singing in Faust at the Academy of Music in New York.
      --The Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton, 1920


  9. "Where's Papa going with that ax?" said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.
      --Charlotte's Web, by E.B. White, 1952


  10. On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travellers into the gulf below.
      --The Bridge of San Luis Rey, by Thorton Wilder, 1928


  11. There's a divinity that shapes our ends.
      --The Man with Two Left Feet, by P.G. Wodehouse, 1917


  12. Brrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinng! An alarm clock clanged in the dark and silent room.
      --Native Son, by Richard Wright, 1940


  13. When a day that you happen to know is Wednesday starts off sounding like Sunday, there is something seriously wrong somewhere.
      --The Day of the Triffids, by John Wyndham, 1951


  14. For many days we had been tempest-tossed..
      --The Swiss Family Robinson, by Johann David Wyss, 1814



- Z -
  1. It was starting to end, after what seemed most of eternity to me.
      --Nine Princes in Amber, by Roger Zelazny, 1970



B A C K  |   H o m e  |  e - m a i l
©1994-2007 Stephen L. Spanoudis, All Rights Reserved Worldwide