Scatter Brained

C H A P T E R   8

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210
S C A T T E R B R A I N E D
09
  Great First Sentences in Literature 
(and When to Use Th
 em)
Whenever James Joyce comes up in conversation, or 
whenever someone stately and/or plump enters a room:
“Stately plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bear-
ing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.”
—James Joyce, 
Ulysses
✖  ✖  ✖
Whenever  you  find  yourself  in  Faulkner’s  hometown  of 
Oxford, Mississippi:
“Sitting beside the road, watching the wagon mount the hill 
toward  her,  Lena  thinks,  ‘I  have  come  from  Alabama:  a  fur 
piece.’ ”
—William Faulkner, 
Light in August
✖  ✖  ✖
Whenever a situation arises requiring a sad, wistful com-
ment (you got dumped; you were passed over for a pro-
motion;  your  favorite  NASCAR  driver  just  missed  the 
Chase for the Cup):
“Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board.”
—Zora Neale Hurston, 
Th
  eir Eyes Were Watching God
✖  ✖  ✖
Whenever you are called upon to say anything about a 
family—yours or another:
 
“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is un-
happy in its own way.”
—Leo Tolstoy, 
Anna Karenina

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211
✖  ✖  ✖
When introducing yourself to a curious stranger, or when 
the opportunity to take a jab at 
David Copperfield
 arises:
“If you really want to hear about it, the fi rst thing you’ll prob-
ably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy 
childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and 
all before they had me, and all that David Copperfi eld kind of 
crap,* but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know 
the truth.”
—J. D. Salinger, 
Th
  e Catcher in the Rye
✖  ✖  ✖
When you wish to simultaneously prove your intelligence 
and take a subtle jab at the patriarchy:
“Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the fl owers herself.”
—Virginia Woolf, 
Mrs. Dalloway
✖  ✖  ✖
When  you  wish  to  convey  your  heartbrokenness  or  note 
how unrequited love smells a lot like arsenic:
“It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always re-
minded him of the fate of unrequited love.”
— Gabriel García Márquez, 
Love in the Time of Cholera
✖  ✖  ✖
When you’re explaining that you’ve never read 
Ethan 
Frome
 because the sheer number of commas in the first 
sentence scared you off:
 
* Th
  at David Copperfi eld kind of crap: “Whether I shall turn out to 
be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held 
by anybody else, these pages must show.” —Charles Dickens, 
David Copperfi eld