Top 100 First Sentence Quotes: Famous Quotes & Sayings About First Sentence

#1. 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

#2. Even at the end of the road, read the first sentence, there is a road. Even at the end of the road, a new road stretches out, endless and open, a road that may lead anywhere. To him who will find it, there is always a road.

D.J. MacHale

#3. They say the first sentence in any speech is always the hardest. Well, that one's behind me, anyway.

Wislawa Szymborska

#4. I was on my bus, and on my bus I have a yoga swing. Jennifes comes on, and she goes, ' Hi, Woody, I'm J
is that a sex swing?' Her first sentence to me.

Woody Harrelson

#5. Today, in the newspapers and magazines, the first sentence is, my restaurant is expensive.

Masa Takayama

#6. ... when writing, always hook the reader with your first sentence ... in love, never settle ... value yourself first and this will help you to value others ... life is short, so enjoy it to the fullest ... everyone in the world is different, and that's ok ...

Spider Robinson

#7. All the elements in an advertisement are primarily designed to do one thing and one thing only: get you to read the first sentence of the copy.

Joseph Sugarman

#8. Wretchedness. It is atrociously unfair, of course, that the Baudelaires have so many troubles, but that is the way the story goes. So now that I've told you that the first sentence will be The Baudelaire

Lemony Snicket

#9. I don't write with a scheme or a plan. I write word to word, so whatever that first sentence is, having said that, one more or less had to say what comes next and next and next. Guilty of no cogitation or forethought.

Padgett Powell

#10. And I don't want to begin something, I don't want to write that first sentence until all the important connections in the novel are known to me. As if the story has already taken place, and it's my responsibility to put it in the right order to tell it to you.

John Irving

#11. I sort through the letters and pull out what I need for the beginning. They snap easily into place. And even though I thought I would need every letter, I finish the first sentence and realize that it's all I have left to say.
I MISS YOU.

Nina LaCour

#12. I used to get stuck trying to find the first sentence of a story, then I realised that it was often because I didn't know what problem a character was facing in the story. As soon as I did, I could have the character trying to do something about it or have the problem whack him between the eyes.

Morris Gleitzman

#13. If you don't hit a newspaper reader between the eyes with your first sentence, there is no need of writing a second one.

Arthur Brisbane

#14. As soon as I started writing Julia, by which I mean while writing its first sentence, I felt a sudden, reassuring charge of excitement. I knew it was going to work.

Peter Straub

#15. When I finally write the first sentence, I want to know everything that happens, so that I am not inventing the story as I write it - rather, I am remembering a story that has already happened.

John Irving

#16. The first American word that I learned was cheeseburger. And the first sentence I learned was, "I'm sorry but we don't serve breakfast after 12 o'clock."

Callan McAuliffe

#17. The category of first sentence makes sense only if it is looking forward to the development of thematic concerns it perhaps only dimly foreshadows.

Stanley Fish

#18. I've written books that have taken me fifteen years, from first sentence to last, and some that only take three or four months.

Paul Auster

#19. The rig began shaking like caffeine withdrawal." --Opening sentence of THE FURY.

"The duct-taped Buick swam north on Rush Street, hunting whores like a lesser white shark." --First sentence of Chapter One, THE FURY

Shane Gericke

#20. You expect far too much of a first sentence. Think of it as analogous to a good country breakfast: what we want is something simple, but nourishing to the imagination.

Larry McMurtry

#21. I finish the book so I can see how it's going to end. I write that first sentence, and if it's the right first sentence, it leads to the right second sentence and three years later you have a 500-page manuscript, but it really is like going on a trip, going on a journey. It's a voyage.

Tom Robbins

#22. I'm drawn to almost any piece of writing with the words 'divine love' and 'impeachment' in the first sentence. But I know the word 'divine' makes many progressive people run screaming for their cute little lives, and so one hesitates to use it.

Anne Lamott

#23. I hardly know what I'm going to write - an article, a story, a poem in free verse - or in some regular form. I only know that when I have the first sentence. And when the first sentence makes a kind of pattern, then I find out the kind of rhythm I'm looking for.

Jorge Luis Borges

#24. The first sentence of a book is a handshake, perhaps an embrace.

Jhumpa Lahiri

#25. What's so hard about that first sentence is that you're stuck with it. Everything else is going to flow out of that sentence. And by the time you've laid down the first two sentences, your options are all gone.

Joan Didion

#26. Oh, Cathy! Oh, my life! how can I bear it? was the first sentence he uttered, in a tone that did not seek to disguise his despair. And now he stared at her so earnestly that I thought the very intensity of his gaze would bring tears into his eyes; but they burned with anguish: they did not melt.

Emily Bronte

#27. Sometime during your life - in fact, very soon - you may find yourself reading a book, and you may notice that a book's first sentence can often tell you what sort of story your book contains.

Lemony Snicket

#28. He repeated the words dutifully, and then put together his very first sentence in elegant King's English. "Cut...fuck...Bil-lee.

Mark Wildyr

#29. 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

#30. When I'm sitting at the desk not being able to write line one, it's silence and despair! It's not so easy to put the pen to the legal pad or type the first sentence on the computer screen.

Erica Jong

#31. The first sentence cant be written until the final sentence is written.

Joyce Carol Oates

#32. The first sentence of a book is a promise.

Barbara Kingsolver

#33. 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

#34. My daughter's first sentence was, 'Dada no hair.' And I was, like, 'No Jasmine, Dada does have hair, Dada just shaves his head.'

Nigel Barker

#35. Look directly into every mirror. Realize our reflection is the first sentence to a story, and our story starts: We were here.

Shane Koyczan

#36. Writing is rewriting; rewriting is writing - from the first crossed-out word in the first sentence to the last word inserted above a caret, that most helpful handwritten stroke.

John Casey

#37. I'm trying hard not to use a specific reference, but you'll probably know it's you after the first sentence.

Donald Glover

#38. Questions that require answers are what keep readers going - and the place to start raising those questions is with your very first sentence.

Nancy Kress

#39. Being in the mood to write, like being in the mood to make love, is a luxury that isn't necessary in a long-term relationship. Just as the first caress can lead to a change of heart, the first sentence, however tentative and awkward, can lead to a desire to go just a little further.

Julia Cameron

#40. Convince yourself that you are working in clay, not marble, on paper not eternal bronze: Let that first sentence be as stupid as it wishes.

Jacques Barzun

#41. Starting is hard so I really need to give myself permission to do a bad job. I always give myself leave to write total nonsense for as long as I need to release the pressure, because it's really hard to start if you feel like that first sentence you write has to actually mean something.

Ann Brashares

#42. That is what I define as a novel: something that has a beginning, a middle and an end, with characters and a plot that sustain interest from the first sentence to the last. But that is not what I do at all.

Guillermo Cabrera Infante

#43. The first sentence of every novel should be: Trust me, this will take time but there is order here, very faint, very human. Meander if you want to get to town.

Michael Ondaatje

#44. But they're too shy to speak when my mother-in-law doesn't; sometimes they open their mouths to begin, but they never get as far as the first sentence. You must get used to an ocean of silence, and just swim about in it as well as you can.

Edith Wharton

#45. One should be able to return to the first sentence of a novel and find the resonances of the entire work.

Gloria Naylor

#46. Ilium, New York, is divided into three parts.

Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

#47. A screaming comes across the sky.

Thomas Pynchon

#48. It was morning, and the new sun sparkled gold across the ripples of a gentle sea.

Richard Bach

#49. Here's your first problem," he said, pointing at a sentence. "'Religion is the opium of the people.' Well, I don't know about people, but I think you'll find that the opium of pirates is actual opium.

Gideon Defoe

#50. From above, start with the privileged view.

Maureen Howard

#51. I remember hating having to cross over the Broadway Bridge again, having to leave the peninsula neighborhood and go back to my apartment in downtown Boston.

Michael Patrick MacDonald

#52. Although I'm afraid I don't get too many clients these days!

Patrick McCabe

#53. The most difficult thing about writing; is writing the first line.

Amit Kalantri

#54. On top of everything else, Boobie's got the clap.

Adam Rapp

#55. Norman Bates heard the noise and a shock went through him.

Robert Bloch

#56. Once you have found the right shot to introduce the scene-written your first declarative sentence-then the rest flows. You've found the key to the whole scene.

John Huston

#57. Five hours' New York jet lag and Cayce Pollard wakes in Camden Town to the dire and ever-circling wolves of disrupted circadian rhythm.

William Gibson

#58. So now get up.'
Felled, dazed, silent, he has fallen; knocked full length on the cobbles of the yard. His head turns sideways; his eyes are turned toward the gate, as if someone might arrive to help him out. One blow, properly placed, could kill him now.

Hilary Mantel

#59. It was shaping up as a beautiful morning. The last thing I wanted to hear about was murder.

Jonathan Kellerman

#60. The Time Traveller (for so it will be convenient to speak of him) was expounding a recondite matter to us.

H.G.Wells

#61. Harry Potter was a highly unusual boy in many ways.

J.K. Rowling

#62. When I sat down and wrote the first paragraph, I was like, 'Oh, I can go with this.' I didn't do an outline. I didn't do anything. I just wrote sentence by sentence, not knowing where the story was going.

Colleen Hoover

#63. Too many!' James shouted, and slammed the door behind him.

Susan Cooper

#64. On my first evening in the back country, I skipped down the porch steps of the farmhouse-leaving my father inside and the radio playing and my small suitcase decorated with neon flower stickers unpacked-and wandered towards the upside-down school bus I'd spied from an upstairs window.

Mitch Cullin

#65. Goldenrod Moram had a first name that sounded like it belonged in the middle of a fairy tale, where she would be the dazzling princess in need of rescuing.

Sarvenaz Tash

#66. I call our world Flatland, not because we call it so, but to make its nature clearer to you, my happy readers, who are privileged to live in Space.

Edwin A. Abbott

#67. An hour and forty-five minutes before Nazneen's life began-began as it would proceed for quite some time, that is to say uncertainly-her mother, Rupban, felt an iron fist squeeze her belly.

Monica Ali

#68. I never believed in dharma. karma, reincarnation, or any of that spiritual crap, which caused sort of a problem growing up because my parents are devout Hindus.

Sonia Singh

#69. To slay the sinner is then the first use of the Law, to destroy the life and strength wherein he trusts and convince him that he is dead while he lives; not only under the sentence of death, but actually dead to God, void of all spiritual life, dead in trespasses and sins.

John Wesley

#70. There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.

C.S. Lewis

#71. At last, the luminous match was struck and the day was lit.

Dorit Rabinyan

#72. Early in the morning, late in the century, Cricklewood Broadway.

Zadie Smith

#73. I am girl of definitions, of logic, of black and white.
Remember this.

Cecelia Ahern

#74. It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. It was the future, and everything sucked.

Greg Nagan

#75. Hapscomb's Texaco sat on Number 93 just north of Arnette, a pissant four-street burg about 110 miles from Houston.

Stephen King

#76. Marley was dead: to begin with.

Charles Dickens

#77. I wonder what kind of sound it would make if I were to smash this glass against the side of his head.

Colleen Hoover

#78. It was hot, the night we burned Chrome.

William Gibson

#79. From the air Anguilla looked narrow, flat, and scrubby, but that was only part of the picture.

Melinda Blanchard

#80. The sky is white.

Diana Abu-Jaber

#81. Baby, groaned the guy-Ted? Tad?-something like that-and crushed his lips against the side of her neck, shoving her face against the wall of the toilet stall.

Jennifer Weiner

#82. The first I heard of the beach was in Bangkok, on the Ko Sanh Road.

Alex Garland

#83. When Matussem Ramoud opened his eyes each morning, his wife would still not be there.

Diana Abu-Jaber

#84. When I die, if the word 'thong' appears in the first or second sentence of my obituary, I've screwed up.

Albert Brooks

#85. Indian summer is like a woman.

Grace Metalious

#86. Everyone thinks it was because of the snow. And in a way, I suppose that's true.

Gayle Forman

#87. We slept in what had once been the gymnasium.

Margaret Atwood

#88. Who was blowing on the nape of my neck.

David Mitchell

#89. At the age of three my grand aunt proclaimed her independence by categorically refusing to have her feet bound, resolutely tearing off the bandages as fast as they were applied.

Adeline Yen Mah

#90. The night before I left my mother, I wrote a letter.

Esmeralda Santiago

#91. In a single sentence the moral is: admit that complexity always increases, first from the model you fit to the data, thence to the model you use to think about and plan about the experiment and its analysis, and thence to the true situation.

John Tukey