What is the first sentence or paragraph in the book you are currently reading?

[daydreamergurl15]

I saw this threat someone else and I thought it was a neat idea.

Marley was dead, to being with, there is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change for anything he chose to put his hand to.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

 

[pdudgeon]

from the Prologue....

Edmund Loris, once the Archbishop of Valoret and Primate of All Gwynedd, stared out to sea through the salt-smeared windowpanes of his tower prison and allowed himself a thin smile. The rare display of self-indulgence did nothing to diminish the fury of the wind shrilling at the ill-fitted glass, but the letter secreted in the breviary under his arm gave its own grim comfort. The offer was princely, befitting even the exalted status he had enjoyed before his fall.

the Bishop's Heir, by Katherine Kurtz.

 

[christianmomof3]

"A Mango, thought Peter. The perfect weapon."
Peter and the Shadow Thieves by Barry and Pearson

 

[Midnight's Daughter]

Twenty-three stories up and all I could see out the windows was gray smog. They could call it the City of Angels if they wanted to, but if there were angels out there, they had to be flying blind.

A Kiss of Shadows by Laurell K. Hamilton

 

[daydreamergurl15]

PREFACE
"I felt like I was trapped in one of those terrifying nightmares, the one where you have to run, run till your lungs burst, but you can't make your body move fast enough. My legs seemed to move slower and slower as I fought my way through the callous crowd, but the hands on the huge clock tower didn't slow. With relentless, uncaring force, they turned inexorably toward the end-the end of everything."
New Moon by Stephenie Meyer

 

[TeutonKnight]

1. GREAT art Thou, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is Thy power, and of Thy wisdom there is no end.

St Augustine's Confessions

 

[KinaBolina]

Marty stirred restlessly. The dream had posessed her and now she felt an uncontrollable shiver run through her body.

 

[liesje]

Darkness engulfed Simone Dumas like a protective blanket, cobwebs clinging to her hair and skin. Normally the ten-year-old would have been fearful of such things, but not now. Retreating farther into the embrace of blackness under the rope-tied bed of her parents, Simone listened to the sounds that filled the otherwise silent April night.

~a Shelter of Hope~ Tracie Peterson

 

[Solomon Kane]

Nu, the son of Nu, his mighty muscles rolling beneath his smooth bronzed skin, moved silently through the jungle primeval. His handsome head with its shock of black hair, roughly cropped between sharpened stones, was high held, the delicate nostrils questioning each vagrant breeze for word of Oo, hunter of men.

The Eternal Savage, by Edgar Rice Burroughs

 

[ukok]

I became what I am today at the age of 12, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975 - The Kite Runner.

 

[Rascaduanok]

“Moving is easy.”

— Nick Laird: Utterly Monkey.

 

[jayh]

It was a sound unlike anything I had heard before. Even though I knew it was coming, nothing prepared me for it's impact. It hit my senses with a finality and a shock that is difficult to explain, unless you have experienced it. The crash of the heavy steel door against it's frame echoed around the building. It was the sound of a cell door being closed-and I was on the inside.


Chapter 1 of TO CATCH A THIEF BY RICHARD TAYLOR ..THE STORY OF A TRANSFORMED LIFE

 

[vibrant]

they shoot the white girl first.

paradise, toni morrison

 

[kittysbecute]

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." - The Bible (NIV)

 

[Rascaduanok]

“Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”

— Gabriel García Márquez: One Hundred Years of Solitude.

 

[Marie87]

"The granite was cold and rough against the grey-cloaked man's palms. It was good, solid granite, from the bones of the earth itself. He traced barely perceptible seams between the huge blocks of the wall. It was the seams, he believed, that held the key. The key to the wall's destruction." 1st paragraph from Green Rider by Kristen Britain.

 

[Rascaduanok]

“An icy wind shouldered its way into the Straits of Magellan from the west, pummelling the cliff walls and scouring the rocks as it passed.”

— Harry Thompson: This Thing of Darkness

 

[daydreamergurl15]

"The gate was packed with weary travelers, most of them standing and huddled along the walls because the meager allotment of plastic chairs had long since been taken. Every plane that came and went held at least eighty passengers, yet the gate had seats for only a few dozen"
Skipping Christmas by John Grisham

 

[coastalwanderer]

"The notion of obligations comes before that of rights, which is subordinate and relative to the former. A right is not effectual by itself, but only in relation to the obligation to which it corresponds, the effective exercise of a right springing not from the individual who possesses it, but from other men who consider themselves as being under a certain obligation towards him. Recognition of an obligation makes it effectual. An obligation which goes unrecognized by anybody loses none of the full force of its existence. A right which goes unrecognized by anybody is not worth very much."

Simone Weil, "The Need For Roots"

 

[desjohn30]

The first evening Mama doesn't come back, I make a sandwich with leaves from her good-bye letter.

"Soul Kiss" Shay Youngblood