Books (first lines) Quotes, Quotations, and Sayings

25 Books (first lines) Quotes
[1-25] 
“Cricket is a game that owes much of its unique appeal to the fact that it should be played not only within its Laws but also within the Spirit of the Game.”
Unattributed Author Quotes
Source: The Laws of Cricket
“1a \'a\ n, pl a's or as \'az\ often cap, often attrib (bef. 12c) 1 a : the 1st letter of the English alphabet b : a representation of this letter c : a speech counterpart of orthographic a 2 : the 6th tone of a C-major scale 3 : a graphic device for reproducing the letter a 4 : one designated a esp. as the 1st in order or class 5 a : a grade rating a student's work as superior in quality b : one graded or rated with an A 6 : something shaped like the letter A - Unattributed Author,”
Unattributed Author Quotes
Source: Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (10th edition)
“Baseball is a game between two teams of nine players each, under direction of a manager, played on an enclosed field in accordance with these rules, under jurisdiction of one or more umpires.”
Unattributed Author Quotes
Source: Official Rules of Baseball, Rule 1.01
“The morning was as dark and cold as city snow could make it--a dingy whirl at the window; a smoky gust through the fire-place; a shadow black as a bear's cave under the table. Nothing in all the cavernous room, loomed really warm or familiar except a glass of stale water, and a vapid, half-eaten grape-fruit.”
Eleanor Hallowell Abbott Quotes
Source: Molly Make-Believe [1910] (ch. 1)
“Christopher Carson, whose renown as Kit Carson has reached almost every ear in the country was born in Madison county, Kentucky, on the 24th of December, 1809.”
John S.C. (Stevens Cabot) Abbott Quotes
Source: Kit Carson, the Pioneer of the West [1874] (ch. I), (also titled Christopher Carson, familiarly know
“According to the tapes, my father, then about as run-of-the-mill as Joe Blow himself, didn't want to see the thing.”
Lee K. Abbott Quotes
Source: The Talk Talked Between Worms [1996], a short story
“At about six in the morning of July 3, 1860, while I was watering my petunias, and thinking of nothing in particular, I perceived coming towards me, a tall, beardless, fair-haired young fellow, wearing a German cap and gold-rimmed spectacles.”
Edmond About Quotes
Source: The King of the Mountains [1857] (ch. 1)
“No man can deny that Chief the Honourable M.A. Nanga, M.P. was the most approachable politician in the country.”
Chinua Achebe Quotes
Source: A Man of the People [1966]
“Okonwko was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond. His fame rested on solid personal achievements.”
Chinua Achebe Quotes
Source: Things Fall Apart [1958]
“Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.”
Douglas Adams Quotes
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy [1979] (prologue)
“For reasons which many persons thought ridiculous, Mrs. Lightfoot Lee decided to pass the winter in Washington.”
Henry Brooks Adams Quotes
Source: Democracy [1880]
“The new church of St. John's, on Fifth Avenue, was thronged the morning of the last Sunday of October, in the year 1880. Sitting in the gallery, beneath the unfinished frescoes, and looking down the nave, one caught an effect of autumn gardens, a suggestion of chrysanthemums and geraniums, or of October woods, dashed with scarlet oaks and yellow maples.”
Henry Brooks Adams Quotes
Source: Esther [1884] (ch. 1)
“The primroses were over.”
Richard Adams Quotes
Source: Watership Down [1972]
“It was a cold winter Sunday afternoon.”
David A. Adler Quotes
Source: Cam Jansen and the Mystery of the Monster Movie [1984] (ch. 1)
“We are talking now of summer evenings in Knoxville, Tennessee in the time that I lived there so successfully disguised to myself as a child.”
James Agee Quotes
Source: A Death in the Family [1957]
“Early one morning I, Vadim Maslennikov, set off for school (I was going on seventeen at the time) having forgotten the envelope with the first-semester fees Mother had left me in the dining room the day before.”
M. Ageyev (a pseudonym--real name unknown) Quotes
Source: Novel with Cocaine
“One night, at the latter end of April 1665, the family of a citizen of London carrying on an extensive business as a grocer in Wood Street, Cheapside, were assembled, according to custom, at prayer.”
William Harrison Ainsworth Quotes
Source: Old St. Paul's [1841]
“On the 10th of July 1553, about two hours after noon, a loud discharge of ordnance burst from the turrets of Durham House, then the residence of the Duke of Northumberland, grandmaster of the realm, and occupying the site of the modern range of buildings known as the Adelphi; and at the signal, which was immediately answered from every point along the river where a bombard or culverin could be planted-- . . .”
William Harrison Ainsworth Quotes
Source: The Tower of London [1840]
“In the twentieth year of the reign of the right high and puissant King Henry the Eighth, namely, in 1529, on the twenty-first of April, and on one of the loveliest evenings that ever fell on the loveliest district in England, a fair youth, having somewhat the appearance of a page, was leaning over the terrace-wall on the north side of Windsor Castle, and gazing at the magnificent scene before him.”
William Harrison Ainsworth Quotes
Source: Windsor Castle [1843]
“"Please, sir, is this Plumfield?" asked a ragged boy of the man who opened the great gate at which the omnibus left him.”
Louisa May Alcott Quotes
Source: Little Men [1871]
“"Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents," grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.”
Louisa May Alcott Quotes
Source: Little Women [1868]
“To stretch his legs between consultations, Maclean escorted his last patient to Baker Street station.”
Brian W. Aldiss Quotes
Source: Life in the West [1980]
“Obeying an inalienable law, things grew, spreading riotous and strange in their instinct for growth.”
Brian W. Aldiss Quotes
Source: The Long Afternoon of Earth [1962]
“In 1846 the prairie town of Oak River existed only in a settler's dream.”
Bess Streeter Aldrich Quotes
Source: Miss Bishop [1933]
“It was the first Tuesday in August. The Nebraska heat rolled in upon one like the engulfing waves of a dry sea,--a thick material substance against which one seemed to push when moving about.”
Bess Streeter Aldrich Quotes
Source: A White Bird Flying [1931]