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Openers

"Everything begins with a story,” said Joseph Campbell. And, every story must start with an opening sentence.
Dec 30 '12
“Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.”
—

The first sentence from “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” (Book I of the Harry Potter series) by J.K. Rowling.

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Aug 11 '12
“We meet in airports. We meet in cities where we’ve never been before. We meet where no one will recognize us.”
— The first sentence from “The Kiss” by Kathryn Harrison.

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Aug 11 '12
“They were young, educated, and both virgins, on this, their wedding night, and they lived in a time when conversation about sexual difficulties was plainly impossible.”
—

The first sentence from “On Chesil Beach” by Ian McEwan.

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Aug 9 '12
“He—for there could be no doubt of his sex, though the fashion of the time did something to disguise it—was in the act of slicing at the head of a Moor which swung from the rafters.”
— The first sentence from “Orlando” by Virginia Woolf.

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Aug 7 '12
“Life changes fast.
Life changes in the instant.
You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.
The question of self-pity.”
— The first sentence from “The Year Of Magical Thinking” by Joan Didion. 

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