The auditorium had the strong perfume scent of too many roses, like the hospital room of an accident victim. That sweet, not entirely healthy air. It smells so good you just know something terrible has happened.

(Scott Frost, Run the Risk, 2005)

.

To care about my body would be to suggest that I had a body worth caring about.

(Stephen Fry, The Fry Chronicles, 2010)

I have never been what you'd call a crying man.

(Stephen King, 11.22.63, 2011)

Hier war es. Da stand sie. Diese steinernen Löwen, jetzt kopflos, haben sie angeblickt. Diese Festung, einst uneinnehmbar, ein Steinhaufen jetzt, war das letzte,
was sie sah. Ein lange vergessener Feind und die Jahrhunderte, Sonne, Regen, Wind haben sie geschleift. Unverändert der Himmel, ein tiefblauer Block, hoch, weit. Nah die zyklopisch gefügten Mauern, heute wie gestern, die dem Weg die Richtung geben: zum Tor hin, unter dem kein Blut hervorquillt. Ins Finstere. Ins Schlachthaus. Und allein.
Mit der Erzählung geh ich in den Tod.

(Christa Wolf, Kassandra, 1983)

1. Satz des Prologs ("the 9,000 Year Prologue"):

THE FLOTILLAS OF THE DEAD sailed around the world on underwater rivers.

1. Satz des 1. Kapitels:

They say that the prospect of being hanged in the morning concentrates a man's mind wonderfully; unfortunately, what the mind inevitably concentrates on is that it is in a body that, in the morning, is going to be hanged.

(Terry Pratchett, Going Postal, 2004)

Erste Sätze

It was the day my grandmother exploded.

(Iain Banks, The Crow Road, 1992)

Erste Sätze

Some people read for instruction, which is praiseworthy, and some for pleasure, which is innocent, but not a few read from habit, and I suppose that this is neither innocent nor praiseworthy. Of that lamentable company am I.

(W. Somerset Maugham, aus "The Book-Bag" - the Complete Short Stories III)

Erste Sätze