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Show HN: Opening lines of famous literary works

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Re: Show HN: Opening lines of famous literary works

#31

Post by jihadjihad »

Few can top the opening line of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

But there were brave souls who tried, in the now-defunct Bulwer-Lytton Contest [0].

Where else could you find gems like these?

  > The day I lost my tractor was the same day I found out my wife was moonlighting as a hooker when she gave me a wad of cash and told me, “It’s from a John, dear."
0: https://www.bulwer-lytton.com

Re: Show HN: Opening lines of famous literary works

#33

Post by dantillberg »

olooney wrote: post #14

> so hopefully you can refresh a few times and get a fresh one every time If you randomly sample from only 60 quotes, then after 10 refreshes there will be a greater than 50% chance of at least one repeat, and by 20 refreshes it's up to 95%. This is an example of the birthday paradox[1]. On the flip side, if someone wants to see all 60 quotes, they will have to refresh the page an average of 281 times, mostly (~80%)…

If the user doesn't know how many unique items there are, they would need to keep refreshing even longer to gauge whether the N they've seen is the full set.

Re: Show HN: Opening lines of famous literary works

#36

Post by [deleted] »

atulatul wrote: post #29

May I submit these? Didn't see these after many refreshes: "Into the face of the young man who sat on the terrace of the Hotel Magnifique at Cannes there had crept a look of furtive shame, the shifty, hangdog look which announces that an Englishman is about to talk French." - Wodehouse, The Luck of the Bodkins "When he was nearly thirteen my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow." - Harper Lee. To Kill A…

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: Opening lines of famous literary works

#38

Post by kej »

jihadjihad wrote: post #31

Few can top the opening line of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas . But there were brave souls who tried, in the now-defunct Bulwer-Lytton Contest [0]. Where else could you find gems like these? > The day I lost my tractor was the same day I found out my wife was moonlighting as a hooker when she gave me a wad of cash and told me, “It’s from a John, dear." 0: https://www.bulwer-lytton.com

The "Lyttle Lytton" contest seems to still be going strong, for what it's worth: https://adamcadre.ac/lyttle/2026.html

Re: Show HN: Opening lines of famous literary works

#39

Post by macintux »

DataDaoDe wrote: post #20

I'd be interested to know what everyone's favorite opening lines of all time are. (bonus - to see how much of it you can quote without looking :) For me, its: Whann that aprill with hir shoures soote, The drought of march hath perced to the roote, And zepherus eek with his sweete breath, inspired hath in every holt and heth, the tendre cropes, and the sonne hath in the ram, hir halve cours ironne, Than preketh hem na…

Curiously, it seems difficult to find John Donne's Meditations XVII with the original language. The spelling has been modernized everywhere I can find it online.

(I suppose this technically isn't the opening line, but it's the first line used when most people quote the passage.)

No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine

Re: Show HN: Opening lines of famous literary works

#40

Post by entropie »

Really cool!

> The Man in Black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.

I did not refresh to check if you already have that, but I really find it very strong. Its from Kings "Dark Tower - Black" (edit: its "The Gunslinger", not Black. its named "Schwarz" in the german translations) the first of 8 books in the series.

If you dont know it; its not like the usual King books. It mixes fantasy elements (inspired by LoTR), western, scfi (robots, AI-trains) cyberpunk and horror. Its a great series!

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