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Show HN: Opening lines of famous literary works

verbaprima.com

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This came from an idea that had been knocking around in my head for several years. I had been collecting opening lines of famous works and thought it would be cool to see one everyday as I opened the browser. I tried different styles but landed on the simple background with the text, let the words speak for themselves. Over time i've added more quotes I believe now there are close to 60, so hopefully you can refresh a few times and get a fresh one every time. I hope you guys like it, enjoy!

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> 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%) seeing quotes they've already seen before. This is an example of the coupon collector's problem[2].

The way to avoid both these problems is to shuffle the quotes into a random order, just once, and remember that order. The first time a user comes to the page, start at a random index in that shuffled list, and from then on, simply move to the next item in the list. Every user will get a unique set of random quotes, but will see no repeats until the list is exhausted, and will be guaranteed to be able to see all available content in just 60 refreshes.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coupon_collector%27s_problem

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.

Is there a good way to determine after seeing N unique items in M trials how many items there potentially are? Would tracking the time between seeing new unique items help? Is this an already solved problem?

There are many different statistical estimators for this problem, many from the ecology literature (e.g. Chao1). This paper and a Python library based on it covers many of them:

https://www.vldb.org/conf/1995/P311.PDF

https://pydistinct.readthedocs.io/en/latest/docs/readme_link...

This is the “German tank problem”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_tank_problem?wprov=sfti...

No, it's not the same as the German tank problem, because that assumes all sampled values are unique (and totally ordered). It's closer to the "species richness" estimation problem, where you estimate the total number of species from a sample (specimens) with many repeated values (species).

Ah, you’re right! The German tank problem was based on reading the serial numbers I think.

I'd prefer have a unique and shared quote each day keyed on the day of the year. Then restart when going above N and shuffle.

Why shuffle, though?

TIL about the coupon collector problem. Thanks for sharing that link

Make sure you fingerprint every user to make sure they're using the right index value /s

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

Truly evidence that we’re living in the worst timeline — the Bulwer-Lytton has been one of the highlights of my year for as long as I can remember. My parents introduced me to it before I could read; I remember them laughing and crying as they tried to explain to four-year-old me why this one inscrutable sentence was the funniest thing on earth. I’ve looked forward to it ever since, though recently I’ve only checked in to read the dishonorable mentions and winners once every few years.

Knowing I’ll never again check and find a year’s crop of perfect sentences dims the light more than I would have expected. Sad times.

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

That link is fantastic, thank you.

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!

I actually read the first book and it was so poorly written it made me wonder if I should continue, because I did find the general story quite engaging. I've heard it gets better/tighter in subsequent books, but it was the only King i've ever read so wasn't sure if he just had a sort of sloppy style (he did write pretty prolifically). I also read it following a Cormac McCarthy book so that might have lead me to believe it was sloppier than it deserved.

> I actually read the first book and it was so poorly written it made me wonder if I should continue

In his defense, that was early in his career, and in one of the countless afterwords or prefaces, he also mentions that he has, of course, evolved since then.

"The Gunslinger" is really a bit borderline. The next one, "The Drawing of the Three" is much more complex and better written. You could also read the last book first ("The Wind Through the Keyhole"); it’s separate from the main story and set somewhere in between, but it’s the final book.

> Cormac McCarthy

No country for old men? Its probably in my top 5 of all the books (and movies) that I read. A masterpiece.

Edit: i realized i mixed the names up. Its not black, its "The Gunslinger". Its translated as black in the german series and confused me.

I haven't read No Country yet - I think at the time it was Suttree which is definitely in my top 5 - I also read The Road recently and was pretty blown away, really quick read and very meticulously structured, I loved it. I'll make a point to read No Country, I heard it was originally written as a screenplay and so is less descriptive than his other work.

I may be one of the few people who preferred the original version of The Gunslinger.

I dropped it after Wizard and Glass, though. I really like the setting and the concepts in the Dark Tower but it started to feel a bit too self indulgent and up King's own ass, and I just kind of stopped caring.

Also the older I got the more cringe Susannah Dean became as a character.

> I may be one of the few people who preferred the original version of The Gunslinger.

In case it isn't clear, I think poster I'm replying to is referencing the fact that King went back decades later and re-wrote The Gunslinger, mostly for continuity I believe. I've not yet read the rewrite, so I'm unsure if it changes the writing style at all. (I didn't mind the first book, it's just a bit slow)

The exact same thing happened to me. I re-read The Gunslinger a decade after my first read, and somehow found it even worse.

For a long time I refused to read King, but I've since read Salem's Lot, Pet Sematary and The Shining and all were great.

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 Mockingbird

"Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were."- Margaret Mitchell. Gone With the Wind

"First of all, it was October, a rare month for boys." - this line always makes me settle back in my chair. 'Something Wicked This Way Comes', Ray Bradbury. It's mysterious and nostalgic and sets the tone for the book right away, like any good first line should.

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 natur in hir courages, and longon folk to gon on pilgrimages.

Somehow that has always stuck with me, I'm sure I'm missing parts, but from the first time I ever heard these lines the just imprinted themselves like a song to me.

"The moon blew up without warning and for no apparent reason." - Seveneves

"All this happened, more or less." - Slaughterhouse-Five

Vonnegut is great.

"The war tried to kill us in the spring" from The Yellow Birds always stuck with me, for its complete decoupling of the war from the men who had come thousands of miles to fight it.

** ETA the full opening:

“The war tried to kill us in the spring. As grass greened the plains of Nineveh and the weather warmed, we patrolled the low-slung hills beyond the cities and towns. We moved over them and through the tall grass on faith, kneading paths into the windswept growth like pioneers. While we slept, the war rubbed its thousand ribs against the ground in prayer.

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.”

Though for me it’s the second line that nails it: “We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.”

I was taught to use the term "action sentence" for an opening line that actually does something to a reader, and to aspire to that. I think it's a Gordon Lish-coined term, but it might not be.

Hard to pick an absolute favourite, but one would be:

"There was a time when I thought a great deal about the axolotls."

From Cortazar's short story Axolotl.

I don't know for certain why I find it so evocative, but it certainly draws me in, and makes me want to know more.

Quoting without looking attempt:

"I went to see them in the aquarium in the Jardin des Plantes and stayed for hours watching them, observing their immobility, their faint movements. Now, I am an axolotl."

"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 speak French."

― P.G. Wodehouse, The Luck of the Bodkins

Being English, from the south, where learning French to only a poor standard is a common pastime, you can just picture it instantly.

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

last night i dreamt i went to Manderley again

From memory: The sky was the color of a TV tuned to a bad channel

Close! (I had to look it up.) "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." (Neuromancer, William Gibson)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvNCSw_gXXI

There’s also: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

"All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way" -- Leo Tolstoy, "Anna Karenina"

My mom died today.

—The Stranger, Camus

For reference, a famous Irish coffee-table (read: bathroom) book in a similar vein:

https://www.abebooks.com/Said-Duchess-First-Lines-Gemma-OCon...

And from a cursory few refreshes I didn't see the obvious one come up:

"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." Orwell, 1984

It’s there.

You've found the right market. There's an awful lot of tech folk who don't read but want to feel like they do.

I gotta rep my favorite though, even if it's typical. "Call me Ishmael." It's not the narrator's actual name - he just feels like an outcast. It sets the pace for the mythic and worldly talk throughout the book. A high bar with complete follow-through. I'm a total sucker for it.

I'm with the pedants on this one, in that I'd argue the prologue is inseparable from the novel, and the first line would be either be:

"(Supplied by a late consumptive usher..."

or:

"The pale Usher-threadbare in coat, heart, body, and brain; I see him now."

But straight fire either way. And, when it comes down to it, that "Call me Ishmael" is considered so consistently as the novel's opening line makes it the opening line. A testament to its power :-)

Can't argue with that! And what a prologue it is.

After trying a lot, I only saw lines from books written originally in English.

Therefore, I assume I'll not see my favorite:

> Muchos años después, frente al pelotón de fusilamiento, el coronel Aureliano Buendía había de recordar aquella tarde remota en que su padre lo llevó a conocer el hielo.

My translation:

"Many years later, in front of the firing squad, colonel Aureliano Buendía would remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."

>I assume I'll not see my favorite

Your favorite was the first I saw. Just FYI.

Nevertheless, García Márquez preferred Rabassa's English translation to his original!

There's an okay Netflix mini series of it, FYI.

It's a fucking banger of an opening line.

Frustrating without a way to get to the list of works, because it's not clear when you've seen them all.

You start having to guess how many there are, based on how many you have seen and how many have repeated, and the distance between seeing ones you haven't yet seen before.

A problem made worse, the more quotes there are, as if you have N quotes, then you expect to see the one you see the most often approximately e.ln(N) times ( iirc, for large N ).

( Or put another way: given N items, you expect the gap between discovering the penultimate one and the last one to be N. )

I cheated and looked at the source:

There are 60 quotes.

So expect ~280 refreshes to collect 'em all.

should i do it? im looking for the "The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years" opening lines

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_Lasts_More_Than_a_Hund...

"The hungry vixen had to be patient as she searched for prey among the dried-out gullies and the bare ravines."

https://www.amazon.com/Lasts-More-than-Hundred-Years/dp/0253...

OK, and the median?

Really cool idea! Add a possibility to send you tips for other books. Here is mine: "As GREGOR SAMSA awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect" Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

obligatory note that there's no great single translation for Ungezeifer. Vermin, pest, insect, arthropod, spider, bug, mouse, "animal unfit for sacrifice" all fit https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Ungeziefer

I implemented a lot of your suggestions, thanks for the feedback and enjoy the new version!

This is awesome! 9 months ago or so some coworkers and I had the idea to make a Wordle style game where you have to guess the book using some clues from a book including the first sentence. I stopped adding clues myself but your post reminded me to get it open sourced :)

There's a small client-only app here to check out: https://github.com/loganintech/bookdle https://loganintech.github.io/bookdle/

Or if you want to see the source code for the "platform" where I added a database and such: https://github.com/loganintech/bookdle-platform

This reminds me how much weight a great opening sentence carries. Some of them are memorable decades later because they establish the tone immediately

Either that or they’ve been repeated by the audience so often as to lose all their appeal.

Nice. The only opening line I remember offhand is from Neuromancer (which I'm glad to see is included in the site!)

"The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel."

It's so interesting that the intuitive meaning of this has changed - first meaning grey, then bright blue, and now... perhaps black, perhaps nothing? What does "a dead channel" mean to kids today?

I recently re-read the sprawl trilogy and thought Neuromancer stood up very well, but the others not so much.

To me, not just grey but an ever shifting speckled rainbow colored static with a heavy bias towards grey.

:) Me too, but it seemed like the people who knew would know and for the ones who didn't "grey" was going to be close enough...

to kids today a dead channel would likely mean a youtube channel with no posts for a few years

"Okonkwo was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond" (Things Fall Apart).

It's a line that does character, culture, and foreshadowing all at once without straining any of them.

> "I was born in the City of Bombay… once upon a time." > Midnight's Children > Salman Rushdie · 1981

Ok so I guess it is literally just openings of famous literary works, and not great first lines

This same idea as a Wikidata query: https://w.wiki/SV9k (something something everything is a nail)

There’s something so beautiful and heavy about the how frank and pithy the opening line of Anna Karenina is:

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

This points in the direction of a "what book should I read next?" tool.

Inspired me to chase down rabbit holes about J.M Barrie (Peter Pan) and Slaughterhouse-Five (Vonnegut)

The minimal style works, the words really do speak for themselves. Have you thought about a movie section? Famous opening lines from films could fit the same format.

Film is a visual medium, so this is more appropriate: https://www.rogerebert.com/category/opening-shots

It was a dark and stormy night.

Whoever likes this will likely also enjoy this clock announcing the time using literary quotes: https://www.amazon.com/Author-Clock-Literary-Quotes-Unique/d...

(What I particularly enjoy is that one can contribute to the database of quotations.)

It's not a famous literary work, and you don't need to post this, but my favorite opening sentence is "The smallmouth bass can be considered the gentleman of the warm water stream". Harry Murray's book on fly fishing for small mouth in the Shenendoah valley. Thanks for the opportunity to share :-)

My favorite is

"Brother Francis Gerard of Utah might never have discovered the blessed documents, had it not been for the pilgrim with girded loins who appeared during that young novice's Lenten fast in the desert."

Walter Miller's "A Canticle for Liebovitz"

What about making it a daily style game where you have to guess which book the opening is from?

I like how "A Wrinkle in Time" starts:"It was a dark and stormy night."

I only opened this page to see if this quote was here. I know the line from Star Trek TNG.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_was_a_dark_and_stormy_night

"Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know." - The Stranger, Camus

I am guessing you are looking for good/inspiring ones and picking and choosing which you want to see? Otherwise, why not just scrape sections of project gutenberg's text versions into a csv so you have more variety?

Great idea! I would love a tailored version based on Goodreads or Storygraph

I've always wanted to do this! I've scraped Gutenberg and tried some clever ways to get the first line, but I always got so much noise. Perhaps it's a good time to try again!

This is called incipit, right? In both English and French afaik.

"It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love." > Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel García Márquez

Thank you for all the good feedback guys, i've already started implementing some of your suggestions, including some of your favorite quotes!

It would be fun if you had to guess what book it’s from

Would it be hard to translate to Spanish? I'd love to share with some friends that love books but don't speak English!

Nice idea and execution!

I’d like to submit one:

“I am seated in an office, surrounded by heads and bodies.” - David Foster Wallace, “Infinite Jest”

English literature heavily overrepresented

Classic HN

I tried to press space, arrow keys, enter, tab, etc to get to next quote. None of those worked

Click on "NEXT CHAPTER" in the upper right hand corner

"In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing"

A River Runs Through It

Norman Maclean

Love the aesthetics ... the fonts ... sizes ... colors ... nicely done!

The Go-Between:

The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.

Just clicked through a few and it was there all the time! Nice idea

Actually I think it is better to show a random poem. Novels are long, and opening lines can easily trick you to think that you "know" the works. But poems, on the other hand, can be short (and long), with more vivid language in just a few lines.

You can have short poems (The fog comes / on little cat feet./ It sits looking / over harbor and city / on silent haunches /and then moves on.) or a passage of long poems (I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,/ dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix).

this is nice, simple idea, but nice. I think the style of the site is also appropriate for what this is :)

thirty seconds and now I have three new books to read. Thanks! Great idea.

No Pride and Prejudice?

wonderful project thanks for making it :)

you should add closing line too.

That has the possibility of being full of spoilers.

Make it an option then.

sample: You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter.[...] I been there before.

Attending Burning Man made me simultaneously one of the most photographed people on the planet and one of the least surveilled humans in the modern world.[...]I gathered Ange into a hug that started off stiff and awkward and then turned into the most familiar feeling in the world.

Now please please make for with the first comment of every HN front page posts ever.

edit: added “please”

Cool beans.

It was a dark and stormy night... /s

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