Statistics for First Lines of Novels

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General Stats

This quiz has been taken 1,842 times
The average score is 14 of 50

Answer Stats

Hint	Answer	% Correct
Call Me Ishmael	Moby Dick	87%
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.	Pride and Prejudice	79%
You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter.	The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn	78%
Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.	Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone	76%
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.	A Tale of Two Cities	75%
It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.	1984	70%
If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably 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 Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.	The Catcher in the Rye	58%
"Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents," grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.	Little Women	57%
I was born in the Year 1632, in the City of York, of a good Family, tho' not of that Country, my Father being a Foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull; He got a good Estate by Merchandise, and leaving off his Trade, lived afterward at York, from whence he had married my Mother, whose Relations were named Robinson, a very good Family in that Country, and from whom I was called Robinson Kreutznaer; but by the usual Corruption of Words in England, we are now called, nay we call our selves, and write our Name Crusoe, and so my Companions always call'd me.	Robinson Crusoe	55%
He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.	The Old Man and the Sea	55%
As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.	The Metamorphosis	51%
Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.	Anna Karenina	44%
In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.	The Great Gatsby	44%
To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth.	The Grapes of Wrath	41%
Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.	The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy	40%
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.	David Copperfield	35%
It was a pleasure to burn.	Fahrenheit 451	34%
Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was arrested.	The Trial	32%
Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.	One Hundred Years of Solitude	31%
Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.	Rebecca	31%
It was love at first sight.	Catch-22	28%
1801 – I have just returned from a visit to my landlord – the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with.	Wuthering Heights	25%
You better not never tell nobody but God.	The Color Purple	22%
Mother died today.	The Stranger	22%
Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.	Ulysses	21%
All this happened, more or less.	Slaughterhouse-Five	20%
You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings.	Frankenstein	19%
It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York.	The Bell Jar	19%
I will not drink more than fourteen alcohol units a week.	Bridget Jones's Diary	14%
The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn.	The Picture of Dorian Gray	13%
Amergo Bonasera sat in New York Criminal Court Number 3 and waited for justice; vengeance on the men who had so cruelly hurt his daughter, who had tried to dishonor her.	The Godfather	12%
ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE is scrawled in blood red lettering on the side of the Chemical Bank near the corner of Eleventh and First and is in print large enough to be seen from the backseat of the cab as it lurches forward in the traffic leaving Wall Street and just as Timothy Price notices the words a bus pulls up, the advertisement for Les Miserables on its side blocking his view, but Price who is with Pierce & Pierce and twenty-six doesn't seem to care because he tells the driver he will give him five dollars to turn up the radio, ‘Be My Baby’ on WYNN, and the driver, black, not American, does so.	American Psycho	11%
A screaming comes across the sky.	Gravity's Rainbow	10%
Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting.	The Sound and the Fury	10%
In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains.	A Farewell to Arms	8%
Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress.	Middlemarch	7%
At night I would lie in bed and watch the show, how bees squeezed through the cracks of my bedroom wall and flew circles around the room, making that propeller sound, a high-pitched zzzzzz that hummed along my skin.	The Secret Life of Bees	7%
The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.	The Go-Between	5%
The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting.	The Red Badge of Courage	5%
I am an American, Chicago born—Chicago, that somber city—and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted; sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes a not so innocent.	The Adventures of Augie March	4%
This is the saddest story I have ever heard.	The Good Soldier	4%
This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it.	The Princess Bride	4%
The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.	Murphy	3%
It was about eleven o’clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills.	The Big Sleep	3%
It was a wrong number that started it, the telephone ringing three times in the dead of night, and the voice on the other end asking for someone he was not.	City of Glass	2%
It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the house-tops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.	Paul Clifford	2%
It was the day my grandmother exploded.	The Crow Road	2%
The candleflame and the image of the candleflame caught in the pierglass twisted and righted when he entered the hall and again when he shut the door.	All the Pretty Horses	1%
Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person.	Back When We Were Grownups	1%
Time is not a line but a dimension, like the dimensions of space.	Cat's Eye	1%