×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

It was a dark and stormy night.
6

It was a dark and stormy night.

It was a dark and stormy night.

(OP)
The first sentence in a novel can often set the tone for the entire read.  What are your best...and worst first sentences you've come across?

A couple of examples:

"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.

"Mother died today. Or maybe, yesterday; I can't be sure."
The Stranger by Albert Camus.

"It was well past the time when anyone should feel the least bit embarrassed by asking for another drink."
Gloria by Keith Maillard.

"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.

RE: It was a dark and stormy night.

Worst: Gaulia divisus est en tres partes.

The first words of my highschool Latin I text book.

rmw

RE: It was a dark and stormy night.

"All children, except one, grow up."
Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie

"What's it going to be then, eh?"
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

RE: It was a dark and stormy night.

"The man in black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed."
The Dark Tower, Vol I by Stephen King

RE: It was a dark and stormy night.

2
"Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun."

Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, 1979.

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

RE: It was a dark and stormy night.

(OP)
"The light was so bad in the bar that everyone there looked like they had been painted by Thomas Hart Benton, or carved from dirty bars of soap with rusty spoons."
Howard Waldrop, Do Ya, Do Ya, Wanna Dance?

"Dad was in the basement centrifuging mouse spleen hybridoma, when I informed him that I'd enrolled at the Wilford Military Academy of Beauty."
Mark Leyner, Fugitive from a Centrifuge

RE: It was a dark and stormy night.

"I heartily accept the motto, -'That government is best which governs least;' and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically."
Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience


 

RE: It was a dark and stormy night.

rmw

Isn't it "Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres?"  from Caeser's "Commentarii De Bello Gallico"?

Though I had to look up where the Omnis went (I thought it was the first word.)  And it's one of my favorite first lines along with "Arma virumque canto" from Virgil's Aenid

Patricia Lougheed

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of the Eng-Tips Forums.

RE: It was a dark and stormy night.

Burgess again:
"It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archibishop had come to see me."

Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

RE: It was a dark and stormy night.

"Call me Ishmael"

RE: It was a dark and stormy night.

Bang, bang, bang!  

In the Precense of My Enemies by:  Gracia Burnham

RE: It was a dark and stormy night.

In The Presenceof My Enemies

RE: It was a dark and stormy night.

It was a pleasure to burn. It was a special pleasure to see things blackened and changed.

Ray Bradury - Fahrenheit 451

RE: It was a dark and stormy night.

If you really like this stuff Google on the Bulwer Litton Awards.  Bulwer Litton was the author of "It was a dark........".

RE: It was a dark and stormy night.

Sorry about the misspelling; it is Bulwer Lytton.

Here's this year's winner:

" As he stared at her ample bosom, he daydreamed of the dual Stromberg carburetors in his vintage Triumph Spitfire, highly functional yet pleasingly formed, perched prominently on top of the intake manifold, aching for experienced hands, the small knurled caps of the oil dampeners begging to be inspected and adjusted as described in chapter seven of the shop manual."

RE: It was a dark and stormy night.

Hi,

Re: Bulwer Lytton winner.....

And to make it even worse......

Triumph Spitfires were fitted with S.U. carbs as I remember!!!


Rgds


Harry

RE: It was a dark and stormy night.

Hmmm ... ever hear of implants? smile


Helpful SW websites  FAQ559-520
How to get answers to your SW questions  FAQ559-1091

RE: It was a dark and stormy night.

in the beginning G'd created the heavens and the earth...

so simple, yet so powerful.

saludos.
a.

RE: It was a dark and stormy night.

The worst opening line I've ever heard:

"You're going to love working here"
             HR director, former employer

"If A equals success, then the formula is: A = X + Y + Z, X is work. Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut."
-- by Albert Einstein

RE: It was a dark and stormy night.

I returned a book to the library after reading 1-1/2 pages.  It was exceedingly gory from the first sentence and did not get better -- maybe worse.  It was so bad that I cannot legitemately give you that opeing here.

Definitely my worst!

I even refuse to give you the title of the book!!

RE: It was a dark and stormy night.

[Bulwer Litton was the author of "It was a dark........".]

LOL, I always thought that was Snoopy!

RE: It was a dark and stormy night.

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again ...

Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier. A gently spooky story and the first line encapsulates the mood quite well.

RE: It was a dark and stormy night.

Isn't it "Arma virumque cano" from Virgil's Aeneid..?

Ciao

RE: It was a dark and stormy night.

RWF7437, you should know your classics (sic) better than that ! that would be 'oil dampers' not 'oil dampeners'

RE: It was a dark and stormy night.

superattila,

nah.  "Canto" is definitely "I sing"  -- the word cantor derives from this.  The translation of the first line is "Of a man and his arms, I sing"

Patricia Lougheed

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of the Eng-Tips Forums.

RE: It was a dark and stormy night.

I'm with Superattila.  Cano is the first person present tense.  Canto is the past participle meaning having sung.

RE: It was a dark and stormy night.

(OP)
"Cano I have another beer?"

"No, you canto"

RE: It was a dark and stormy night.

When 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.

Another beer will cost two tolkiens.

RE: It was a dark and stormy night.

"Who is John Galt?"

RE: It was a dark and stormy night.

"The only thing I remembered was that I had seen extraordinary sights on the morning of the day I died."
The Dark Beyond the Stars, Frank M. Robinson

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: It was a dark and stormy night.

stevenal,

You bet me to that one. It is not only the worst opening sentence in any book. It is the opening sentence in a book that I tried to read many times, but never was able to finish. The White Whale is after me in my dreams.

justkeepgiviner,

John Galt is my alter ego in some chat rooms. I do a lot of motor work - so I thought that I could borrow it from "Atlas shrugged" - I do not think that the book(s), or beginning, is that bad.

Gunnar Englund
www.gke.org

RE: It was a dark and stormy night.

skogs--glad to hear I'm not the only one who couldn't finish that book.  I was feeling so illiterate.

Hg

Eng-Tips policies:  FAQ731-376

RE: It was a dark and stormy night.

I've got less than a hundred pages to go - been reading it off and on for three years.

Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

RE: It was a dark and stormy night.

skogs,

Neither do I! Maybe I should have been more specific. But the brevity of my post was for dramatic effect.

When I read Atlas Shrugged I repeatedly had the urge to throw it in the fireplace, but I just got another cup of tea and kept reading... While I don't subscribe to her line of thinking I think there's a lot to be learned from Ayn Rand's writing.

RE: It was a dark and stormy night.

Quote:

As my cab pulled off FDR drive, somewhere in the early Hundreds, a low-slung Tomahawk full of black guys came sharking out of a lane and sloped in fast right across our bows.

My favourite novel - by far.  Anybody else like it?

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources