Show HN: Opening lines of famous literary works

Posted by plicerin 6 hours ago

Show HN: Opening lines of famous literary works(www.verbaprima.com)

This came from an idea that had been knocking around in my head for several years. I had been collecting opening lines of famous works and thought it would be cool to see one everyday as I opened the browser. I tried different styles but landed on the simple background with the text, let the words speak for themselves. Over time i've added more quotes I believe now there are close to 60, so hopefully you can refresh a few times and get a fresh one every time. I hope you guys like it, enjoy!

120 points | 73 commentspage 2

loganintech 4 hours ago|

This is awesome! 9 months ago or so some coworkers and I had the idea to make a Wordle style game where you have to guess the book using some clues from a book including the first sentence. I stopped adding clues myself but your post reminded me to get it open sourced :)

There's a small client-only app here to check out: https://github.com/loganintech/bookdle https://loganintech.github.io/bookdle/

Or if you want to see the source code for the "platform" where I added a database and such: https://github.com/loganintech/bookdle-platform

jambalaya8 2 hours ago||

I am guessing you are looking for good/inspiring ones and picking and choosing which you want to see? Otherwise, why not just scrape sections of project gutenberg's text versions into a csv so you have more variety?

veraxapp 1 hour ago||

The minimal style works, the words really do speak for themselves. Have you thought about a movie section? Famous opening lines from films could fit the same format.

preetham_rangu 5 hours ago||

This reminds me how much weight a great opening sentence carries. Some of them are memorable decades later because they establish the tone immediately

tangenter 5 hours ago||

Either that or they’ve been repeated by the audience so often as to lose all their appeal.

jll29 4 hours ago||

Whoever likes this will likely also enjoy this clock announcing the time using literary quotes: https://www.amazon.com/Author-Clock-Literary-Quotes-Unique/d...

(What I particularly enjoy is that one can contribute to the database of quotations.)

arkensaw 5 hours ago||

> "I was born in the City of Bombay… once upon a time." > Midnight's Children > Salman Rushdie · 1981

Ok so I guess it is literally just openings of famous literary works, and not great first lines

plicerin 2 hours ago||

Thank you for all the good feedback guys, i've already started implementing some of your suggestions, including some of your favorite quotes!

sizzzzlerz 2 hours ago||

"In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing"

A River Runs Through It

Norman Maclean

purpleflame1257 4 hours ago||

I like how "A Wrinkle in Time" starts:"It was a dark and stormy night."

fhdkweig 2 hours ago|

I only opened this page to see if this quote was here. I know the line from Star Trek TNG.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_was_a_dark_and_stormy_night

stevetron 5 hours ago|

It was a dark and stormy night.

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