Literary meme

[magid]

I've seen this in many friends' journals already, giving the first lines of 10 favorite books. It's making me think of the game I was given this holiday season, Ex Libris, where you're supposed to write the first (or last) sentence of a given book (rather like a literary version of Dictionary).

So, here are first (and last, just as a nod to Ex Libris, which I suppose makes it easier to figure out which they are...) lines of some of the books I've read far too many times. I find myself unable to determine which my "10 favorite" books are, but these are definitely on a list of books I've loved... (OK, and it helps if I have the books actually here in my apartment.)

1. On February 24, 1815, the watchtower at Marseilles signaled the arrival of the three-master Pharaon, coming from Smyrna, Trieste and Naples.
   ("My darling," said Valentine, "the count just told us that all human wisdom was contained in these two words: Wait and hope.")
   
   
2. A great city is nothing more than a portrait of itself, and yet when all is said and done, its arsenals of scenes and images are part of a deeply moving plan.
   (At least until there are new lakes in the clouds that open upon living cities as yet unknown, and perhaps forever, that is a question which you must answer within your own heart.)
   
   
3. 'I'm writing a history of the world,' she says.
   (And beside the bed the radio gives the time signal and a voice starts to read the six o'clock news.)
   
   
4. It was just past midday, not long before the third summons to prayer, that Ammar ibn Khairan passed through the Gate of the Bells and entered the palace of Al-Fontina in Silvenes to kill the last of the khalifs of al-Rassan.
   (And it cast its pale light upon the three glasses of wine that had each been left deliberately behind, brim-full, on a stone table, a stone bench, on the rim of the fountain there.)
   
   
5. The marble rolls around in my hand at the bottom of my pocket.
   (Perhaps...)
   
   
6. This is the little town, far across the sea in Lithuania, where the family lived.
   ("I wouldn't be surprised,' he said, "if Gadya came from Elijah after all.")
   
   
7. Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had pe eped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, 'and what is the use of a book,' thought Alice, 'without pictures or conversations?'
   (Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in t he aftertime, be herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood; and how she would gather about her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago; and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days.)
   
   
8. There was once a boy named Milo who didn't know what to do with himself - not just sometimes, but always.
   (There's just so much to do right here.")
   
   
9. They rode through the lush farm country in the middle of autumn, through quaint old towns whose streets showed the brilliant colors of turning trees.
   ("Full weight," Deborah said.)
   
   
10. I wonder if there isn't a lot of bunkum in higher education?
    ("Not on your life!" said the Professor.)
    
    Bonus track/book
    
11. When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.
    (He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning.)

Really, it was hard to narrow it down to these books; I could've put so many more in this list...

Mood: Nostalgic, also groundhogic (happy one-third birthday, Wolf!), while continuing to not write about Columbia...