Tuesday, September 2, 2008

First Sentences

Halldor Laxness, in The Fish Can Sing:
A wise man once said that next to losing its mother, there is nothing more healthy for a child than to lose its father.

Brad Leithauser is apparently a huge fan of this opening sentence. Alice Munro has a similarly good one in the current New Yorker:
I am convinced that my father looked at me, really saw me, only once. After that, he knew what was there. ("Face")

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