Opening Line Of The Novel Quotes

Randy stared into the glass he held in his hand, gazing into its cobra eyes. A double shot of thirty-year-old single malt whisky. You can't be an alcoholic when you only drink top shelf. Right? ~ Ted Magnuson

To be born again," sang Gibreel Farishta tumbling from the heavens, "first you have to die. ~ Salman Rushdie

When my cousin Anil-da started telling us what he'd heard at the market about the groom's family, at my aunt Moina-pehi's wedding in January 2002, his eyes shone like inky marbles reflecting sunlight. ~ Aruni Kashyap

They shoot the white girl first. ~ Toni Morrison

I woke up one morning with this song in my head, and the opening line of the song is, 'My name was Richard Nixon, only now I'm a girl.' ~ Bruce Cockburn

I lack the skill to hold a story line for the length required for a novel or even a short story. I have never had an idea that could withstand a hundred thousand words, or even ten thousand words of rubber meeting the road. ~ Henry Rollins

Now, as a reader, you shouldn't feel the decisions the writer makes about this DNA, or it would be boring beyond belief. But, as a writer, you're struggling to make these decisions. What should the title be? What's the first line? The point of view? And the struggle with the decisions is because you're trying to figure out WHAT IS THE NOVEL, WHAT IS THE NOVEL? ~ Mary Kay Zuravleff

We set up our gear for the tune-up and Tony [Iommi] launched into the opening riff of 'Black Sabbath' – doh, doh, doooohnnnn – but before I'd got through the first line of lyrics the manager had run on to the stage, red in the face, and was shouting, 'STOP, STOP, STOP! Are you f**king serious? This isn't Top-Forty pop covers! Who are you people?'
'Earth,' said Tony, shrugging. 'You booked us, remember?'
'I didn't book this. I thought you were going to play "Mellow Yellow" and "California Dream-in'".'
'Who – us?' laughed Tony.
'That's what your manager told me!'
'Jim Simpson told you that?'
'Who the hell's Jim Simpson?'
'Ah,' said Tony, finally working out what had happened. He turned to us and said, 'Lads, I think we might not be the only band called Earth.'

He was right: there was another Earth on the C-list gig circuit. But they didn't play satanic music. They played pop and Motown covers. ~ Ozzy Osbourne

I know California isn't a real destination. You can't get there from New Jersey, not simply by following a line drawn on a map. The process of arrival is more subtle and complex. It involves acts of contrition. You must appease the gods. You must find novel forms of penance. You must tattoo your children and look at the wonder. It's about conjuring and awakening and intuitions you wish you never had. ~ Kate Braverman

Lily Chadwick knew there was something different about the fiercely scowling gentleman the first moment she saw him.
She could feel it.
The instant their gazes met, caught, held, something skittered across her skin like a rain of white sparks. It entered her bloodstream, heating her from the inside until her breath became stilted and her knees went alarmingly weak.
He stared at her from beneath a brow drawn low in a forbidding expression. His eyes were so dark, even the light of the glittering ballroom could not be reflected there. The angles of his face were hard, his jaw sharply defined, and he held his mouth in a harsh line that attempted to harden the full curve of his lower lip but didn't quite manage it.
Lily tried to glance away demurely, but she couldn't seem to manage. She felt a flutter that became a tightening in her belly. Her heart stopped, skipped a few beats, then started up again in a frantic rhythm as he just kept watching her.
Despite his severe, aloof appearance, something about him reached out to her, touching her with an intrinsic sort of recognition. It left her feeling as though she stood in the heart of a firestorm. She sensed with a certainty beyond rational explanation that his unyielding manner was a facade, as if he were a hero in some gothic novel. There was passion in him. She felt it in every quickened, prey-like breath she took while frozen under his intent stare.
The silent interaction between them was becoming mo ~ Amy Sandas

As the chapters took shape, a change came over her. It was the double-sided recognition that this book, the last that she would write, might achieve esteem and success equal to her great novel, but that its emotional heart would lie in her own unhappiness for having failed to find the one thing she wanted. For the first time she was a character in her own writing, and her frailties and mistakes were trapped on the page by the beauty and unsparing focus of her prose. Towards the end it was a battle to finish a page. The story was the story she had told herself for decades, deep within her own mind, and now as it grew, line by line, on the paper before her, she wrestled with each turn in the path all over again, as if it were still possible to change its course with the power of her words. ~ Frederick Weisel

I really like the "two is better than three" line. People ask me is this drama or comedy? I just think the more colors you have to a film the better. The more genres, the more people will like it. I like relating to the whole general speaking public. The script itself is 99 pages but the novel it is based on is 600. I had to leave a lot of stuff out of the script. I had a limitation of what I could present on the big screen. ~ Tommy Wiseau

I guess if I was made responsible for every single line of dialogue in a game and every single piece of textual visual detail, every sign or piece of graffiti, then yes, I think that would be comparable to the time and effort required to write a very long novel, indeed. ~ Richard K. Morgan

The single most important technique for making progress is to write ten words. Doesn't matter if you're badly stuck, or your day is completely jam-packed, or you're away from your computer - carry a small paper notebook and write a sentence of description while you're waiting on line at a coffee shop. I think of this as baiting a hook. Even if you have a few days in a row where nothing comes except those ten words, I find that as long as you have to think about the novel enough to write ten words, the chances are that more will come. ~ Naomi Novik

By running longer it's like I can physically exhaust that portion of my discontent. It also makes me realize again how weak I am, how limited my abilities are. I become aware, physically, of these low points. And one of the results of running a little farther than usual is that I become that much stronger. If I'm angry, I direct that anger toward myself. If I have a frustrating experience, I use that to improve myself. That's the way I've always lived. I quietly absorb the things I'm able to, releasing them later, and in as changed a form as possible, as part of the story line in a novel. ~ Haruki Murakami

Reggie had to take several deep breaths just to keep from screaming "Take me!" like the heroine in some melodramatic romance novel. Ye gods and little fishes. Would she ever get used to the way this man looked? From the top of his tousled, black hair to the soles of his leather-clad feet, the man oozed masculine perfection. And he was all hers. She offered up a quick and fervent prayer of thanks while he prowled toward her on his hands and knees.
"Help," she whispered, a small smile curving her lips while lust darkened his eyes. "I think I'm about to be ravished by a wicked vampire. Help. Somebody please help me."
"There is no one to hear your screams, girl." He grinned at her, wicked and sexy, while he forced her legs wide apart and crawled between them. "I have you at my mercy."
"And will you be merciful?" Her question made it clear mercy was the last thing she wanted. She reached out to trace a line down the center of his chest before she wrapped her hand around his erect cock.
"Not even if you beg, milka. ~ Christine Warren

Jane Austen is at the end of the line that begins with Samuel Richardson, which takes wonder and magic out of the novel, treats not the past but the present. ~ Leslie Fiedler

Anyone who shows up for a midnight opening-night screening of the latest, shiniest geek flick must be a diehard nerd. I mean, you'd have to be a killer-huge fan to wait in line for hours for the newest Star Wars or Marvel Universe film, right? ~ Sam Maggs

The opening line of her last column was: You know you really don't fit in with the other housewives you meet when the only way you can contribute to a discussion about babies is by saying, "Yes, that's what my mother used to do." It went on to talk about how a woman could climb Everest, teach schoolchildren in Cambodia and win the Booker Prize but some people would still think she had good news only when she produced progeny. ~ Shweta Ganesh Kumar

Human nature was smothered by society; healthy instincts were smothered by laws. They were training us to be assembly-line robots; that's why they lined the school desks up in rows and trained kids to respond to opening and closing bells. The monotonous human assembly line squelched the life out of individual experience. ~ Dave Cullen

I live intimately with my characters before starting a book. I cut out pictures of them for my wall. I do time lines for each major character and a time line for the entire novel: What is going on in the world as my characters struggle with their problems? ~ Walter Dean Myers

My notion of a great novel is something like a five-hundred-page shaggy-dog story, with only the punch line omitted. ~ Edward Abbey

The United States had a long bipartisan tradition of negotiating with even its worst enemies, from John Kennedy
'Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate
to Richard Nixon's opening with China, to Ronald Reagan's famous 'walk in the woods' with MIkhail Gorbachev. Obama's position was firmly in line with longstanding diplomatic practice. George W. Bush's post-9/11 policy
'You are either for us or against us'
was the exception, and a bad one. It removed subtlety from international affairs. ~ Mark Bowden

Writing my novel 'The Narrow Road to the Deep North,' I came to conclude that great crimes like the Death Railway did not begin with the first beating or murder on that grim line of horror in 1943. ~ Richard Flanagan

I have always been considered a bit of an outsider, and a general failure at everything I put my hand towards. In fact, you might even go so far as to say that I'm a lesser being of great insignificance! I state this because, when writing a story, you should always start the first line off with at least one basic truth.
-First lines from the novel Sukiyaki ~ Andrew James Pritchard

I need a drink. Now."

After tossing - fine, throwing - my purse and keys on the couch, I march straight into the kitchen. No more delays; it's time to forget tonight. It's been yet another night like all the other first dates that never meet a second one. When you begin to lose count, that's when it's really time for a drink.

Adrian stands there, leaning against the counter in an unbuttoned dress shirt and dark wash jeans. He glances at me as I walk in. "How was your date?" he asks, taking a swig of his scotch.

I brush past him on my mission, opening the cupboard and moving a couple bottles around. I reiterate, "I need alcohol."

Out of the corner of my eye, I catch him hiding a smile before he says, "That bad?"

My face twitches as I ignore his line of questioning. It is more like a statement he wants me to clarify, even though he already knows the answer. Instead, I ask, "I have vodka left, don't I?" I stand on my tiptoes in hopes of spotting something in the very back. Nothing.

He waltzes over and looks with me, his chin almost touching my shoulder. "I think you polished that one off after last week's date." His voice is low right next to my ear, very nearly causing a shiver. ~ Lilly Avalon

It's disingenous for me to say that I wasn't trying to write a moral novel. By its very nature as a novel about the Iraq War, Fobbit steps into the political conversation. There's no way to avoid that. I can appreciate that readers are probably going to line up on one side of the novel or the other. I hope they go to those polar extremes, actually. ~ Dave Abrams

She had just given Liger his food when a tap sounded on the connecting door. Priss's heart leaped into her throat.
With excitement.
Not dread, or annoyance, or even indifference.
Pure, sizzling stimulation. Suddenly she was wide-awake.
Tamping down her automatic smile, Priss leaned on the door. "Yeah?"
"Open up."
Still fighting that twitching grin, Priss tried to sound disgruntled as she asked, "Why?"
Something hit the door - maybe his head - and Trace said, "I heard you up and moving around, Priss. I have coffee ready, but if you don't want any - "
Being a true caffeine junkie, she jerked open the door. "Oh, bless you, man." She took the cup straight out of Trace's hand, drank deeply and sighed as the warmth penetrated the thick fog of novel sentiment. "Ahhhh. Nirvana. Thank you."
Only after the caffeine ingestion did she notice that Trace wore unsnapped jeans and nothing else. Her eyes flared wide and her jaw felt loose. Holy moly.
"That was my cup," Trace told her, bemused.
But Priss could only stare at him. Despite the delicious coffee she'd just poured in it, her mouth went dry.
When she continued to stare at him, at his chest and abdomen, her gaze tracking a silky line of brown hair that disappeared into his jeans, Trace crossed his arms.
Her gaze jumped to his face and she found him watching her with equal fascination.
A little lost as to the reason for that look, Priss asked with some belligerence, ~ Lori Foster

I am on warp-speed headed directly for the sun; I am Icarus." (opening line of 'Girl on a Bar Stool', new / CreateSpace version) ~ Tim Roux

Perhaps, all writers walk such a line. In general - as we all do in our dreams - I believe I put something of myself into all the characters in my novels, male as well as female. ~ Rose Tremain

Just follow that line forever," said the Mathemagician, "and when you reach the end, turn left. There you'll find the land of Infinity, where the tallest, the shortest, the biggest, the smallest, and the most and least of everything are kept."
"I don't have that much time," said Milo anxiously. "isn't there a quicker way?"
"Well, you might try this flight of stairs," he suggested, opening another door and pointing up."It goes there, too. ~ Norton Juster

When I write, I feel that I'm writing with my intellect. When I paint, I think it's some other force making me paint. I - as I wrote in my novel 'My Name is Red' - watch with amazement what my hand is doing on the paper, what kind of line, what kind of strange, beautiful thing it's doing in spite of my will, so to speak. ~ Orhan Pamuk

The novel was born with the Modern Era, which made man, to quote Heidegger, the "only real subject," the ground for everything. It is largely through the novel that man as an individual was established on the European scene. Away from the novel, in our real lives, we know very little about our parents as they were before our birth; we have only fragmentary knowledge of the people close to us: we see them come and go and scarcely have they vanished than their place is taken over by others: they form a long line of replaceable beings. Only the novel separates out an individual, trains a light on his biography, his ideas, his feelings, makes him irreplaceable: makes him the center of everything. ~ Milan Kundera

Bobby's back yard hadn't changed since she was knee-high. It was still littered with bicycle bits and pieces of engine that he was always tinkering with. It looked like the same relentless weeds bravely struggled through the cracked flagstones; the same array of socks and T-shirts flapped on the washing line, though somewhat bigger, and even the same wasps droned around the dustbin. That's how it seemed – a place immune to time. ~ Bernie Morris

A veteran, calm and assured, he pauses for a well-measured moment in the doorway of the office and then, boldly, clearly, with the subtly modulated British intonation which his public demands of him, speaks his opening line, 'Good morning!'
And the three secretaries - each of them a charming and accomplished actress in her own chosen style - recognise him instantly, without even a flicker of doubt, and reply 'Good morning' to him. (There is something religious here, like responses in church; a reaffirmation of faith in the basic American dogma, that it is, always, a Good Morning. Good, despite the Russians and their rockets, and all the ills and worries of the flesh. For of course we know, don't we, that the Russians and the worries are not real? They can be unsought and made to vanish. And therefore the morning can ve made to be good. Very well then, it is good. ~ Christopher Isherwood

I don't mind my friends calling me "Thornes," but the fact of people calling me "Prickly Thornes" draws the line. ~ Simi Sunny

Like a spectre of a seemingly imagined conversation, you continue hosting; exploring me, opening me, holding my very deepest recesses within your grasp. It is such an unguarded feeling, to know that you are there; whether years, or weeks away. It could even be lifetimes of distance between our heartbeats. I think I've lost track of time, waiting patiently for you. Please linger, tarry, peruse, and dwell just a little more. I want to look upon your face - perceive every subtle line around your eyes, and make note of the dips and curves of your countenance. ~ Cheri Bauer

I never used an outline until I started "The Bourne Legacy" project for which I was required to write an outline. To be honest, I thought I'd hate the idea, assuming that if I'd thought of all the ideas at the outset I'd have to incentive to actually write the book, because for me part of the joy of writing are the surprises you come upon as the book takes shape. But something curious and exciting happened. As I wrote the outline, some sections would be very detailed, others quite sketchy, so that whole portions of the book would be covered by one line, such as "Bourne is chased by Khan through Budapest," which when I wrote the novel turned out to be 40-50 pages! Now I'll never write a novel without first doing an outline. Looking back on it, I used to get bogged down in extraneous characters and situations, especially during the first 100 pages (which I find the most difficult to write) that I would later have to scrap, wasting time and energy, and frustrating me. Now that never happens. ~ Eric Van Lustbader

In Gothic fiction, characters must contend with the dead, with active hauntings or with hallucinations of hauntings, as well as whatever other trying circumstances they might find themselves in: orphanhood, lunacy, imprisonment, inheritances that go astray, troubling romantic situations. The Gothic novel does not strive for subtlety, and it isn't to everyone's taste. It can seem adolescent, an immature version of the stately, measured, grown-up realist novel, except that the line between Gothic and the realist is never clear. A disdain for the Gothic is limiting, since this literature, in all its flagrancy, has something to say about emotional as well as physical death, and a tale of a haunting can have a narrative vitality that is far from conclusive. Gothic stories linger especially in the mind. ~ Brenda Walker

This novel humbled me in a number of ways. I was reading manuscripts for a magazine called Accent, and had in front of my prose-bleary eyes a piece called "A Horse in a London Flat." And I was in a doze. More dreariness. More pretension. When will it all end? How shall I phrase my polite rejection? Something, I don't remember what it was now, but something ten pages along woke me up, as if I had nearly fallen asleep and toppled from my chair. Perhaps it was the startle of an image or the rasp of a line. I went back to the beginning, and soon realized that I had let my eyes slide over paragraphs of astonishing prose without responding to them or recognizing their quality. That was my first humiliation. I then carried the manuscript to my fellow editors, as if I were bringing the original "good news," only to learn that they were perfectly familiar with the work of John Hawkes and admired it extravagantly. Hadn't I read The Cannibal, or The Goose on the Grave? Where had I been! What a dummy! (Though my humiliation would have been worse if I had written that rejection.)

A number of years had to erode my embarrassment before I could confess that I had not spotted him at once (as I initially pretended). What a dummy indeed. The Lime Twig is a beautiful and brutal book, and when it comes to the engravement of the sentence, no one now writing can match him. ~ William H. Gass

On this Sunday morning in May, this girl who later was to be the cause of a sensation in New York, awoke much too early for her night before. One minute she was asleep, the next she was completely awake and dumped into despair. It was the kind of despair that she had known perhaps two thousand times before, there being 365 mornings in a calendar year. ~ John O'Hara

The image of a teenage boy dressed in a black uniform, his babyish face partly obscured by an official looking cap, paralysed every muscle and nerve in her body. The pink telegram loomed large in her line of sight... ~ Michael J. Murphy

There's an expectation these days that novels - like any other consumer product - should be made on a production line, with one dropping from the conveyor belt every couple of years. ~ Donna Tartt

Signs imply ways of living, possibilities of existence, they are the symptoms of an overflowing (jaillissante) or exhausted (épuisée) life. But an artist cannot be content with an exhausted life, nor with a personal life. One does not write with one's ego, one's memory, and one's illnesses. In the act of writing there's an attempt to make life something more personal, to liberate life from what imprisons it...There is a profound link between signs, the event, life, and vitalism. It is the power of nonorganic life, that which can be found in a line of a drawing, a line of writing, a line of music. It is organisms that die, not life. There is no work of art that does not indicate an opening for life, a path between the cracks. Everything I have written has been vitalistic, at least I hope so, and constitutes a theory of signs and the event. ~ Gilles Deleuze

I looked past him, to the sea framed in the arched opening of the wall, to the line formed where the water met the sky. The world was not round, I realized. The world was a plate.
'Please,' he whispered. 'Don't.'
Unlike Rurick, Plesec did not die confused. ~ Rick Yancey

From east to west, in fact, her gaze swept slowly, without encountering a single obstacle, along a perfect curve. Beneath her, the blue-and-white terraces of the Arab town overlapped one another, splattered with the dark-red spots of the peppers drying in the sun. Not a soul could be seen, but from the inner courts, together with the aroma of roasting coffee, there rose laughing voices or incomprehensible stamping of feet. Father off, the palm grove, divided into uneven squares by clay walls, rustled its upper foliage in a wind that could not be felt up on the terace. Still farther off and all the way to the horizon extended the ocher-and-gray realm of stones, in which no life was visible. At some distance from the oasis, however, near the wadi that bordered the palm grove on the west could be seen broad black tents. All around them a flock of motionless dromedaries, tiny at the distance, formed against the gray ground the black signs of a strange handwriting, the meaning of which had to be deciphered. Above the desert, the silence was as vast as the space.

Janine, leaning her whole body against the parapet, was speechless, unable to tear herself away from the void opening before her. Beside her, Marcel was getting restless. He was cold; he wanted to go back down. What was there to see here, after all? But she could not take her gaze from the horizon. Over yonder, still farther south, at that point where sky and earth met in a pure line - over yonder it suddenly s ~ Albert Camus