"There are tales that are told many times.

Some tales you tell children, stories that tell them the history of the tribe, what is good to eat, what is not. Cautionary tales.
There are the tales the women tell, in the private tongue men children are never taught and older men are too wise to learn, and these tales are not told to men.
There are the tales the men tell each other, in the men's hut at night, crude raucous tales of the lizard who lost his male member, or of the Malabayo, the trickster, who sold ape dung to King Lion, telling him it was the soul of the moon.
There are the tales the whole tribe tell each other, at festivals, at feasts: the story of the rock that jumped, of how fire came, a thousand others.
Low tales, high tales, tales that are told and heard many, many times.

One tale is only ever told once."

(Neil Gaiman, The Sandman II "The Doll's House", Prologue: Tales in the Sand, 1990)

Erste Sätze

"Wenn Sie meine Geschichte tatsächlich hören wollen - und ich empfehle Ihnen eindringlich, sie zu hören -, so müssen Sie sich zunächst mit dem Gedanken vertraut machen, daß Sie keine angenehme Geschichte hören werden. Im Gegenteil, die mysteriösen Geschehnisse, durch die ich mich im vorigen Herbst und Winter hindurchquälen mußte, ließen mir endgültig bewußt werden, daß Harmonie und ein geruhsames Leben selbst für meinesgleichen eine Angelegenheit von kurzer Dauer sind."

(Akif Pirinçci, "Felidae", 1989)

Erste Sätze

On the afternoon it rained frogs, sun perch and minnows, Sunset discovered she could take a beating good as Three-Fingered Jack. Unlike Jack who had taken his in the sunshine, she took hers in her own home at the tail end of a cyclone, the windows rattling, the roof lifting, the hardwood floor cold as a stone.

(Joe R. Lansdale, Sunset and Sawdust, 2004)

Erste Sätze

"The door to Dr. Hannibal Lecter's memory palace is in the darkness at the center of his mind and it has a latch that can be found by touch alone. This curious portal opens on immense and well-lit spaces, early baroque, and corridors and chambers rivaling in number those of the Topkapi Museum."

(Thomas Harris, 'Hannibal Rising', 2006)

Erste Sätze

"Solche Abende machen die Menschen verrückt. Da sind diese Gerüche von geschnittenem Gras, von Hitze auf dem Asphalt, von viel zu süßem Jasmin. Da fächelt der laue Wind sogar in die großen Städte eine Erinnerung von Blumenwiesen hinein, von flüsternden Gärten mit silbernen Wasserspielen, wie es sie vielleicht nur in Büchern gibt."

(Jo Pestum, Der Kater und die Nacht der Jäger, 1977)

Erste Sätze

When the gate fell on top of me I knew I was really back home.

James Herriot, "The Lord God made them All", 1981

Erste Sätze

"Nothing ever begins.
There is no first moment; no single word or place from which this or any other story springs.
The threads can always be traced back to some earlier tale, and to the tales that preceded that; though as the narrator's voice recedes the connections will seem to grow more tenuous, for each age will want the tale told as if it were of its own making."

(Clive Barker, "Weave World", 1987)

Erste Sätze