First Sentences

There are two kinds of people in this world: those who know where their high school yearbook is and those who do not.

The second I was old enough to know what sex was, I knew I wanted to have a one-night stand.

I know it seems like a late start, but I was twenty-two my first time.

if I ever have kids, this is what I'm going to do with them; I am going to give birth to them on foreign soil--preferably the soil of someplace like Oostende or Antwerp--destinations that have the allure of being obscure, freezing, and impossibly cultured.

There is a point in most abusive relationships when it occurs to the beaten party that they are guilty of putting their face in the way of someone else's fist.

I have never met two people more afraid of their house burning down than my parents.

As many New Yorkers have done, I have given serious and generous thought to the state of my apartment should I get killed during the day.

Before I launch into a discussion of what a nerd is and where the idea of nerds comes from, I'd like to disclose that when I was eleven, I had a rich fantasy life in which I carried a glowing staff.

Tolstoy was always in trouble with the censor and the Czar's police.

Lawrence the man and D. H. Lawrence the writer: both provoked strong reactions in his lifetime, and it all still goes on.

If there is one generally popular novel in the English language, it is Pride and Prejudice and this was true before a recent successful television version.

Off the coast of Kamchatka, Siberia, bundled up and standing on the deck of a German container ship, I gripped the railing with oil-stained gloves to avoid being pitched into a heaving ocean the color of a wet gravestone.

By the way, Alice, have you picked out your dress yet?

I thought what I told Ace was just common sense.

How would you like to be able to paint wherever you find yourself, whenever the mood strikes?

"I haven't enjoyed a rant this much since Thoreau," Beth said.

I'm surprised you came back.