First Page Quotes

#1. It would absolutely suck if you paid a few bucks for a book only to find that on the first page it said, 'Once upon a time they all lived happily ever after' and the rest of the book was blank.

Simon Travaglia

#2. The book smelled dusty and old but also carried a sweet tang, a hint of something inviting. She opened to the first page and started to read, pronouncing the words in a reverent whisper.

Shannon Hale

#3. To his shock, as Saarang turned the first page, the words slowly transformed into small cylinders, except for one-letter words which preferred being spheres, and started rolling toward the vertical edges of the book.

Pawan Mishra

#4. (Boris Pasternak described this phenomenon beautifully, when he wrote, "No genuine book has a first page.

Elizabeth Gilbert

#5. The novels I prefer, are those that make you feel uneasy from the very first page.

Italo Calvino

#6. TRIGGER CITY secures Sean Chercover's place as one of the best crime writers of his generation. It grabs you hard on the first page and doesn't let go, even after you've closed the book.

Tasha Alexander

#7. Besides it's not as though the prisoner can truly die, any more than a character in a novel can. You can always flip back to the first page, can't you?

Django Wexler

#8. It was from a very young age that I fell in love with this wonderful artifact
the turn of the first page is almost like a sacred ritual to me. Whenever I walk into a library, it is never without some degree of reverence.

Lang Leav

#9. I can tell you that I never begin working on a story until I have a title centered at the top of the first page.

Kevin Brockmeier

#10. And if our love was a story book
We would meet on the very first page
The last chapter would be about
How I'm thankful for the life we've made.I Love You...

J. Hampden Jackson

#11. When I was little, we had a Golden Book that had all these Disney characters in one portrait on the first page. My dad used to read from it every night. We'd play this game of find Pluto or find Donald Duck. He'd read us stories and do all the voices. Those are great memories.

Danica McKellar

#12. I'm Paige," I whispered.
He was serious, for once. "Are you the first page, or the last?"
I didn't answer, not right then.

Christopher Pike

#13. About as close you can get to the perfect cerebral thriller: searingly smart, ridiculously funny, and fast as hell ... I defy anybody to read the first page and not keep going to the last.

Lev Grossman

#14. When you meet someone for the first time, that's not the whole book. That's just the first page.

Brody Armstrong

#15. I try to research or make up for myself what happened in any character's life. From when he was born until the first page of the script. I fill in the blanks.

Viggo Mortensen

#16. If our love was a story book, we would meet on the very first page.

Shayne Ward

#17. Sit down, Montag. Watch. Delicately, like the petals of a flower. Light the first page, light the second page. Each becomes a black butterfly. Beautiful, eh?' ... There sat Beatty, perspiring gently, the floor littered with swarms of black moths that had died in a single storm.

Ray Bradbury

#18. Stories never really end ... even if the books like to pretend they do. Stories always go on. They don't end on the last page, any more than they begin on the first page.

Cornelia Funke

#19. The presence of the devil is on the first page of the Bible, and the Bible ends as well with the presence of the devil, with the victory of God over the devil.

Pope Francis

#20. The best young writers are convinced they need blurbs from famous writers before an editor will even read the first page of a manuscript. If this is true, then the editorial system that prevails today stinks. And let's start reforming it.

Diane Wakoski

#21. The two things I enjoy the most about writing are the first page of a book and the last. What's in between is very hard work.

Rachel Gibson

#22. When a novel has 200,000 words, then it is possible for the reader to experience 200,000 delights, and to turn back to the first page of the book and experience them all over again, perhaps more intensely.

Jane Smiley

#23. The frail letters on the first page were barely legible; they looked like whispers, if whispers had form.

Susan Meissner

#24. I'm always a little bit cautious around invented terminology because so much science fiction is off-putting to the uninitiated. You open up the first page, and it's full of all these made-up words.

Alastair Reynolds

#25. Sleeping in Eden is intense and absorbing from the very first page. Written in lovely prose, two seemingly different storylines collide in a shocking conclusion.

Heather Gudenkauf

#26. Doing the movies and meeting the people, and I like the stories of the movies. I like names a lot, too. When I do an audition, there is a script and it has a first page that has the names of all the characters. I'm like, Let me see that real quick, I wanna see what my name is gonna be.

Dakota Fanning

#27. People are put off by the perception of science fiction, and it doesn't help if you've got references to quantum this and quantum that on the first page, and people think, 'This isn't for me,' and chuck it. I'm probably a pretty bad offender, given how far in the future some of my stuff is.

Peter F. Hamilton

#28. Promiscuity is like never reading past the first page. Monogamy is like reading the same book over and over.

Mason Cooley

#29. For me, the game would be to assume a very intelligent reader who can extrapolate a lot from a little. And that's become my definition of art; to get that pitch just right, where I can put a hint on page three, and the reader's ears go up a bit, as opposed to dropping it all on the first page.

George Saunders

#30. The accusation is always on the first page, and the retraction on page 19.

Paul Newman

#31. Before I write the first page of a novel, I spend a long time creating detailed backgrounds for my characters. I imagine the experiences that have formed them, what makes them happy, angry, fearful, and what they yearn for.

Lisa Kleypas

#32. In that book which is my memory,
On the first page of the chapter that is the day when I first met you,
Appear the words, 'Here begins a new life'.

Dante Alighieri

#33. Life loiters at the book's first page,
Ah! could we turn the leaf.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

#34. She turned to the first page, feeling vaguely prurient, like an eavesdropper or a peeping tom. Novelists spend a lot of time poking their noses into other people's business. Ruth was not unfamiliar with this feeling.

Ruth Ozeki

#35. If I had the power to influence Indian journals, I would have the following headlines printed in bold letters on the first page: Milk for the infants , Food for the adults and Education for all

Lala Lajpat Rai

#36. I had this bad habit of not writing out a first draft and going back. For me it was the first sentence, then the second sentence, and I might be several weeks on the first page instead of writing a draft and trying to figure it out from there.

Donald Ray Pollock

#37. Do you think it's right to not say goodbye to the man you yourself said was on the very first page of your very first volume of your diary? This is the very last page of his.

Yasunari Kawabata

#38. Lots of people can write a good first page but to sustain it, that's my litmus test. If I flip to the middle of the book and there's a piece of dialogue that's just outstanding, or a description, then I'll flip back to the first page and start it.

Carl Hiaasen

#39. I mark the reading of 'Look Homeward, Angel' as one of the pivotal events of my life. It starts off with the single greatest, knock-your-socks-off first page I have ever come across in my careful reading of world literature.

Pat Conroy

#40. I had read a Tale of Two Cities and found it up to my standards as a romantic novel. She opened the first page and I heard poetry for the first time in my life ... her voice slid in and curved down trough and over the words. She was nearly singing.

Maya Angelou

#41. We read five words on the first page of a really good novel and we begin to forget that we are reading printed words on a page; we begin to see images.

John Gardner

#42. And once I know what the first page is, then the rest will come.

William Bolcom

#43. There are only two kinds of math books: Those you cannot read beyond the first sentence, and those you cannot read beyond the first page.

Chen-Ning Yang

#44. If you read the first page of one of my novels, I can guarantee that you will read the last one. This isn't just social commentary. This is also about writing good page-turners. I want people to keep reading.

Jodi Picoult

#45. I don't care who you are. When you sit down to write the first page of your screenplay, in your head, you're also writing your Oscar acceptance speech.

Nora Ephron

#46. I better make the plot good. I wanted to make it grip people on the first page and have a big turning point in the middle, as there is, and construct the whole thing like a roller coaster ride.

Mark Haddon

#47. Covers, so many covers, so many different, delectable pictures, and although, metaphorically speaking, it is the thing I hate most, when it comes to literature I always judge books by their covers. First the cover will catch my eye, then I read the back of the book, and then finally the first page.

Jane Green

#48. No, this is not the beginning of a new chapter in my life; this is the beginning of a new book! That first book is already closed, ended, and tossed into the seas; this new book is newly opened, has just begun! Look, it is the first page! And it is a beautiful one!

C. JoyBell C.

#49. The parable of the vineyard spoke very deeply to my heart, especially in the context of someone who has just freshly read the Old Testament from the first page to the last page of the Book of Malachi.

Timothy Sng

#50. Everything has already begun before, the first line of the first page of every novel refers to something that has already happened outside the book.

Italo Calvino

#51. From the moment I own a book, even before I open it to the first page, I feel that it has in some way changed my life. I treat my books the same way I treat my clothes or my shoes or my records: I use them.

Joe Queenan

#52. If you do come across 'Sanctus' in a bookshop, please see past the cross on the cover and the sinister outline of a monk and just read the first page and make your own mind up. If it's still not for you, then that's fine; just put it back and walk away.

Simon Toyne

#53. Everything from the brim of this hat to the hem of her dress was too complex for Daniel's eye to comprehend - he was like an illiterate savage staring at the first page of an illuminated Bible - but

Neal Stephenson

#54. Perfection is a feeling; you'll know it if you've ever questioned the competency of your penmanship before writing on the first page of a new notebook.

Louise Gornall

#55. 'In the Wake' was a very bleak book. This relationship was not too good, the father and son. This time around, I wanted a father and a son who really loved each other, which would be visible on the first page and would still be there on the last page.

Per Petterson

#56. This is where it starts. When they write the legend, this will be the first page. Some old monk will go blind illuminating this page, Makin. This is where it all starts. I didn't say how short the book might be though.

Mark Lawrence

#57. The first page sells this book. The last page sells your next book.

Mickey Spillane

#58. As much as I like it when a book I'm writing speeds along, the downside can be that an author becomes too eager to finish and rushes the end. The end is even more important than the first page, and rushing can damage it.

David Morrell

#59. Fictional characters exist in only two places, neither of which is on the printed page. They exist, first, in the mind of the writer and, second, in the mind of the reader.

Maren Elwood

#60. CONTENTS Cover About the Book Title Page Colour First Reader Dedication Chapter

Jacqueline Wilson

#61. My background is in tech. I studied computer science, and was working on TechTV, so the first thing I wanted to do was see my favorite motherboard stories hit the front page; you know, like, really geeky stuff.

Kevin Rose

#62. I have a horror of the blank page. I simply cannot write on a blank page or screen. Because once I do, I start to fix it, and I never get past the first sentence.

Charles Krauthammer

#63. Kennedy invited us into the White House-the first time in the history of the White House picketers had been invited inside. This made front page headlines.

Peter Coyote

#64. The element of change has been the thing, really. We put out the first one, then the second ... then a third LP totally different from them. It's the reason we were able to keep it together.

Jimmy Page

#65. When I was a playwright earlier in my career - my senior project in high school was my first produced play - I used to put on the title page: 'A tragedy with laughs.'

Jeff Lindsay

#66. On a couple of occasions I've shocked myself. Pet Sematery was appalling when it first came out on to the page.

Stephen King

#67. Tomorrow, is the first blank page of a 365 page book. Write a good one.

Brad Paisley

#68. I'll get a three-page letter and the last paragraph says 'I know you'll never read this, but here's my number.' I love to call those people because the first thing they say is, 'Governor, I didn't mean everything I said in the letter about you.'

Dave Heineman

#69. First you have nothing, and then, astonishingly, after ripping out your brain and your heart and betraying your friends and ex-lovers and dreaming like a zombie over the page till you can't see or hear or smell or taste, you have something.

T.C. Boyle

#70. The Thames Torso murders almost fell into my lap. After deciding to use a real historical crime as the focus for the book, I went to Google and searched for unsolved murders in Victorian London, and they basically popped out at me about halfway down the first results page.

Sarah Pinborough

#71. The first paragraph of my book must get me my reader. The last paragraph of a chapter must compel my reader to turn the page. The last paragraph of my book must ensure that my reader looks out for my next book.

Ashwin Sanghi

#72. The first draft is all about freedom, and if loyalty is in question, it is only my loyalty to the characters and situations on the page. All the worries about where the material may have sprung from or what so-and-so might think can be dealt with later.

Jill McCorkle

#73. I always read the last page of a book first so that if I die before I finish I'll know how it turned out.

Nora Ephron

#74. For the first time in memory, I was unable to sleep not because I was anxious but because I was excited. To live in a damp crowded asshole and sing
if these guys don't know the secret to living, I don't know who does. (The Grieving Owl, page 157)

David Sedaris

#75. When I first pursued this with Universal, they had no idea what to do. But now that we've gone through the whole process and I've signed this 60-page document that says what we can and can't do, I suppose it will be a little bit easier for the next person.

DJ Shadow

#76. The writer and his reader are both complicit in the act of storytelling. The writer must first leave a part of his soul on the page,like a contagion, which the reader then catches.

Cynthia Ogren

#77. He seemed to think we were on the same page. I wasn't even sure we were reading the same book.

Jodie Andrefski

#78. Almost everyone who has had an idea that's somewhat revolutionary or wildly successful was first told they're insane.

Larry Page

#79. A shivery, delicious Southern Gothic with feuding families, dark spirits, ancient curses and caught up in the middle, a young girl learning to live and love for the first time. Atmospheric and suspenseful, Compulsion will draw you in and hold you until the very last page.

Leah Cypess

#80. His small but childish handwriting straggled up and down the page, shedding first its capital letters and finally even its full stops:

George Orwell

#81. She had discovered with surprise and pleasure that as she turned each page, the book was written, as if for the first time, all over again.

Arturo Perez-Reverte

#82. This union has been divided in like a civil war - brother against brother - sister against sister. And I'm pulling it together. We've already seen evidence of that in New York, in Pennsylvania, in California. The first thing is we have to get on the same page. We have to be united in one cause.

James P. Hoffa

#83. I'm not good at watching stuff that I'm in at all. I should stop. I shouldn't watch something for the first time with a room full of people at Sundance. It's not a good idea.

Ellen Page

#84. So often it is words or pictures that first tell us what we long for.

Cornelia Funke

#85. The fire first has to be laid before the match can be put to it.

P.K. Page

#86. Eventually I found it had been working all along-but didn't show anything on screen until it had the first full page of text. I inserted 30 new lines, and suddenly my toy said 'hEllO woRlD'. An hour later I understood alphabet shifting rather better!

Graham Nelson

#87. And i'm thinking, aren't i supposed to be the one who's freaking out here? tiny is going to be the first b-b-b- (i can't do it) boy-f-f-f (c'mon, will) boyf-boyf (here we go) boyfriend of mine that she's ever met.

David Levithan

#88. I always write my first draft in longhand, in lined notebooks. I move around the house, sitting where I like, and watch the words spool out in front of me, actually taking a lot of pleasure in the way they look in my strange handwriting on the page.

Sue Miller

#89. A high truth, indeed, fairly, finely, and skilfully wrought out, brightening at every step, and crowning the final development of a work of fiction, may add an artistic glory, but is never
any truer, and seldom any more evident, at the last page than at the first.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

#90. I also helped write the five-page statement of principles that Civic Forum issued in late November. That was the first public expression of what the new government wanted to do.

Vaclav Klaus

#91. Most African Americans, if given a chance, would have chosen to be 'just Americans' ever since the first of us was brought here to Jamestown colony in 1619, a year before the Mayflower landed. But that choice has never been left up to us.

Clarence Page

#92. The first book I ever bought for myself was 'One Fish Two Fish' by Dr. Seuss. My favourite page shows two children carrying an enormous glass jar up some stairs in the dark. In the jar is a tusked beflippered creature floating in brine.

Mini Grey

#93. I always turn to the sports page first, which records people's accomplishments. The front page has nothing but man's failures. - Earl Warren

Max Allan Collins

#94. You have to examine a scene on the page first. Then you get into the basics of acting: Who are you? Who are you talking to? How do you feel about that person?

Debbie Allen

#95. You can tell if you're going to be into a script within the first five or ten pages - if I'm not completely engaged by page 20, I just have to give up on it.

Aaron Paul

#96. My first instinct was to make an excuse or to get bashful or to change the subject...but then I realized I was in good company. I could be honest, and this guy was the one who seemed to be holding back. "Actually, yeah, that was kind of amazing.

Tyler Oakley

#97. Poetry for me is very easy. It's like a lightning bolt. I feel this calling, and the first line of the poem comes into my head, and I just have to go to the page, to the typewriter, to the computer or whatever and write it.

Gioconda Belli

#98. Lots of people think it was Jimmy Page who had the first fuzzbox. It wasn't, No! it wasn't me either.

Jim Sullivan

#99. I wrote my first textbook in 1970. It was called 'The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy,' and over the years, many students told me that they enjoyed reading it because there were so many stories in there; often just a paragraph or a page of something that happened in a group session.

Irvin D. Yalom

#100. I always wanted to be good at something, to be somebody. The minute I got into my first play, which was called 'Excuse My Dust' - I was 17 at the time - I knew that this was what I'd been looking for.

Geraldine Page