{"quotes":[{"text":"What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died?","author":"Erich Segal","tags":["eulogy","first-lines","loss","opening-lines"],"id":5230,"author_id":"Erich+Segal"},{"text":"In darkness there is death.","author":"Bob Mayer","tags":["fiction","first-lines","thriller","thrillers"],"id":10056,"author_id":"Bob+Mayer"},{"text":"After killing the red-haired man, I took myself off to Quinn’s for an oyster supper.","author":"Michael Cox","tags":["fiction","first-lines","gothic","murder","opening-sentences"],"id":17883,"author_id":"Michael+Cox"},{"text":"Dr Weiss, at forty, knew that her life had been ruined by literature.","author":"Anita Brookner","tags":["first-lines","literature","ruined"],"id":27655,"author_id":"Anita+Brookner"},{"text":"I never sleep. Like the dolphin and the spiny anteater, I don't experience REM. Unlike the dreamless mammals, I'm a construct. I am a living program inside a vast network of electronic impulses known as the LINK. In that datastream I've uncovered the meaning of another kind of dreaming--that of a fond hope or aspiration, a yearning, a desire, or a passion. This much I have. When I dream, I dream of Mecca.","author":"Lyda Morehouse","tags":["first-lines","science-fiction"],"id":68192,"author_id":"Lyda+Morehouse"},{"text":"I never really wanted to die. But I followed through anyway. The pain in my heart was excruciating, and death was beautiful.","author":"Rae Hachton","tags":["death","death-and-dying","first-lines","gothic-fantasy","gothic-romance","love","opening-sentences","vampire-romance"],"id":92636,"author_id":"Rae+Hachton"},{"text":"Who is John Galt?","author":"Ayn Rand","tags":["first-lines","galt","objectivism","opening-lines","philosophy","taggart"],"id":103194,"author_id":"Ayn+Rand"},{"text":"Hi. I'm here to enlist.You can't. You aren't human.You see, little fella, we don't do sociological stuff like 'interspeciated workplaces.' We're a crack company of space mercenaries. We do 'hurting people' and 'breaking things.'Sounds like my kind of fun.-Schlock \u0026 Lieutenant Der Trihs.","author":"Howard Tayler","tags":["first-lines","humour","mercenary","violence"],"id":115357,"author_id":"Howard+Tayler"},{"text":"Your mother hollers that you’re going to miss the bus. She can see it coming down the street. You don’t stop and hug her and tell her you love her. You don’t thank her for being a good, kind, patient mother. Of course not -- you vault down down the stairs and make a run for the corner.Only if it’s the last time you’ll ever see your mother, you sort of start to wish you’d stopped and did those things. Maybe even missed the bus.But the bus was barreling down our street so I ran.","author":"Emmy Laybourne","tags":["first-lines","monument-14","post-apocalyptic","young-adult","young-adult-fiction"],"id":165355,"author_id":"Emmy+Laybourne"},{"text":"If you want to know the age of the Earth—look upon the sea in a storm. But what storm can fully reveal the heart of a man? Between Suez and the China Sea are many nameless men who prefer to live and die unknown. This is the story of one such man. Among the great gallery of rogues and heroes thrown up on the beaches and ports—no man was more respected or more damned than—Lord Jim.","author":"Joseph Conrad","tags":["adventure","first-lines"],"id":177446,"author_id":"Joseph+Conrad"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":24,"pages":3,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}