First Page Quotes

“For Beatrice - you will always be in my mind, in my heart and in your grave.”
― Lemony Snicket, The Austere Academy

“It was the sunlight coming through the window that woke Alex up; mother nature's own alarm clock rudely snapped him back to consciousness. The white light poured in so arrogantly that it was too much for his eyes to handle. Squinting did not seem enough to defend against it and the light slipped between his fingers when he held up his hand in an attempt to shield his eyes.”
― J.C. Henderson, Halfway To Nowhere

“Inshore, across the pellucid jade-green waters of the bay, gently ruffled by the north-easterly breeze that was sweetly tempering the torrid heat of the sun, rose the ramage of masts and spars of the shipping riding there at anchor.”
― Rafael Sabatini, The Black Swan

“You know the feeling when you're falling? When you take a step onto what used to be sold ground and suddenly it just falls out from under you? You start to spiral slowly, gathering speed until you know that you are within seconds from hitting the ground, and you're praying that you'll hit, that everything will just disappear, that everything you've been fighting to escape will just consume you and everything will be over. But then the ground doesn't come and you just keep falling and falling and falling, trapped in a nightmare that will never end.”
― B.C. Hedlund, Consigned to Oblivion

“I hear ding her neglectials to smilined,
- there is a brownstone in the East Seventies where, during the early years of the war, I had my first New York apartment. It was one room crowded with attic fur-niture, a sofa and fat chairs upholstered in that itchy, particular red velvet that one associates with hot days on a train. The walls were stucco, and a color rather like tobacco-spit. Everywhere, in the bathroom too, there were prints of Roman ruins freckled brown with age.
The single window looked out on a fire escape. Even so, my spirits heightened whenever I felt in my pocket the key to this apartment; with all its gloom, it still was a place of my own, the first, and my books were there, and jars of pencils to sharpen, everything I needed, so I felt, to become the writer I wanted to be.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany's