Quote:
Originally Posted by Grancey
No one has mentioned "Call me Ishmael".........
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I must say I haven't read it. But that line is striking in its simplicity.
A few more:
Although the thread asks of "books," I'm going to take the liberty of assuming it's okay to use opening lines of poems as well....
"The Waste Land" T. S. Eliot APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour. "Howl" Allen Ginsberg I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly
connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night [...]
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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön
Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot
Last edited by Baraka_Guru; 04-03-2009 at 10:12 AM..
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