Opening Lines

I searched for famous opening lines in literature on Google and stopped counting the web sites after fifty.  The literati love opening lines, and even more, they love to makes lists that rank them, but often avoid describing their criteria by which they make their selection.  It is not surprising that some remarkable opening sentences have all but been ignored, never finding a spot on one or more of the coveted lists.

In an effort to correct this sad injustice I have attempted to identify for you some of these sadly overlooked opening masterpieces.

“His gaze shifted slowly from the book lying before him to her face, with the red thumb tack stuck to her lower lip.”

“The hole in the faded sock slowly opened, exposing the pink fleshy toes.”

“Where are the goddamn pillows, he exploded in a rage.”

“It was a cold dark night and his Temporal Mandibular joint was near the point of total exhaustion.  Relief was imperative if his face was to survive.”

"The newspaper clung desperately to his ear throughout the night hoping to hear the harmony, however high."

"Terrible thoughts tore at his tormented mind.  Too timid to resist, he tottered toward the tilting tower.  Too tempting he thought, and he abruptly took a turn to the left and disappeared, never to be thought of again."

The wiggly worm poked through the keyhole and wondered, “what in the hell am I doing here”?

“My God, this is warm”, he thought, as the flames engulfed his pants.

“Why do I allow myself to get into these situations”, he thought, as he stepped into a foot deep layer of molasses with his bare feet.

“I wonder where it all ends” she thought as she wrapped the string into a tight ball."

"Poised on the brink, suspended in time, he release his grip, and the last rigatoni tumbled effortlessly into the boiling water."

FULL MOON By P.C.Renzulli

I’ve always had the ability to make people laugh, usually with a spontaneous remark or comment that just seems to appear or happen, usually without pre-meditation.  Sometimes I worry that I am close to being a “smart-ass” with some of the things I say.

A few years ago I began writing a studio-galley newsletter on a regular basis (once or twice a month), and in the process discovered that just as in conversation, something humorous would suddenly occur to me and find its way into the writing.  Eventually I became determined to make the letters entertaining as well as informative, but sadly I discovered that my humor was like my smile, it cannot be forced or brought on my sheer will power, it has to simply “happen”. It is totally unpredictable, occurring during conversation, when writing, or when my thoughts are elsewhere.  I am entirely dependent on the inspired, unconscious quip.  Try as I may, like my smile, I cannot force it to happen; when someone points a camera at me my face turns to stone…Unless…

Let me tell you a story about one memorable “unless”.  We were living on the farm in Maryland and had just opened our new medical office in a rehabbed barn.  The local paper thought that was worthy of an article and photo and sent out a photographer to take some pictures of me in front of the office.  As this was happening, Patience was leading several horses to the paddock adjacent to the office and saw me standing there with an idiotic forced smile.  She placed the horses in the paddock and quickly returned to help me.  Standing behind the photographer, who had no idea she was there, dear sweet prim and proper Patience (that may be hard to believe, but yes, she really is quite proper.) turned her back to me, dropped her drawers, and gave me a full moon that is forever seared in my memory.  Needless to say, I smiled.  In fact I think I didn’t stop smiling for at least 3 days.  It was a great photo.

Humor is a funny thing.