Famous First Lines Quiz Answers

Here are the answers to the quiz I posted last week about the first lines of famous books, or famous first lines that are just incredible.

1. “It was a dark and stormy night.”
(Y) Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford (1830)
2. “I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.”
(A) Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle (1948)
3. “Physicist Leonardo Vetra smelled burning flesh, and he knew it was his own.”
(T) Dan Brown, Angels & Demons
4. “‘I’ve watched through his eyes, I’ve listened through his ears, and I tell you he’s the one.'”
(B) Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game
5. “The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”
(K) William Gibson, Neuromancer
6. “He woke, and remembered dying.”
(G) Ken MacLeod, The Stone Canal.
7. “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”
(L) George Orwell, 1984
8. “Marley was dead, to begin with.”
(C) Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
9. “Call me Ishmael.”
(V) Herman Melville, Moby Dick
10. “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”
(N) Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
11. “All children, except one, grow up.”
(D) J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan
12. “‘TOM!’ No answer. ‘TOM!’ No answer.”
(P) Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer
13. “There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.”
(Q) C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
14. “I see…,” said the vampire thoughtfully, and slowly he walked across the room towards the window.”
(E) Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire; The Vampire Chronicles, [1976]
15. “It was the day my grandmother exploded.”
(X) Iain M. Banks, The Crow Road (1992)
16. “It was a pleasure to burn.”
(J) Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, [1953]
17. “The Time Traveller (for so it will be convenient to speak of him) was expounding a recondite matter to us.”
(S) H.G. Wells, The Time Machine, [1895]
18. “Nobody was really surprised when it happened, not really, not on the subconscious level where savage things grow.”
(O) Stephen King, Carrie, [1974]
19. “When Mr Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.”
(U) JRR Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring, [1954]
20. “Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.”
(M) J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
21. “As soon as he stepped into the dim apartment he knew he was dead.”
(F) Jeffery Deaver, Garden of Beasts, [2004]
22. “When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold.”
(R) Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games, [2008]
23. “The Sun did not shine.”
(W) Dr. Seuss, The Cat in the Hat
24. “All this happened, more or less.”
(H) Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five, [1969]
25. “Renowned curator Jacques Sauniere staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum’s Grand Gallery.”
(I) Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code