POST YOUR FAVORITE INTRO LINES

>DURING the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher.

...

See the kid.

Swift as a spirit hastening to his task
Of glory and of good, the sun sprang forth,
Rejoicing in its splendour, and the mask
Of darkness fell from the awakened earth.

>semi-colon follow by 'and'

i laughed

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.

maman

A screaming comes across the sky.

Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo.

One day, or night, Abraham woke to a lacking sunlight.

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

What a fucking HACK!

He looked up and, bunching the cuff of his sleeve, swiped it this way and that, smearing the ejaculate from his chin and rising from his knees, dusting off the lint of the hearth rug.

>nicens

Even if he's impersonating a kid, who says that?

nah

Weird idea but maybe Irish chldren in the late 19th century spoke differently to you?

Possibly. They are and were sub-human, after all.

I always thought he was impersonating the way adults talks to toddlers.

These are good

>I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me; had they duly consider'd how much depended upon what they were then doing;—that not only the production of a rational Being was concerned in it, but that possibly the happy formation and temperature of his body, perhaps his genius and the very cast of his mind;—and, for aught they knew to the contrary, even the fortunes of his whole house might take their turn from the humours and dispositions which were then uppermost;—Had they duly weighed and considered all this, and proceeded accordingly,—I am verily persuaded I should have made a quite different figure in the world, from that in which the reader is likely to see me.

...

*tips alt-right hat*

>No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.

It's the first one that came to my mind.

michael crichton...

>You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a winter's night a traveler.

'I just read a book that changed my life.' Brave opener.

>One learns very little here, there is a shortage of teachers, and none of us boys of the Benjamenta Institute will come to anything, that is to say, we shall all be something very small and subordinate later in life.

No it's from The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson.

Or did you perhaps mean something else?

Aujourd’hui, maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas.

Its a solid 7/10. House of Leaves is not much better.

>dad took me to see the ice a a week ago, it was pretty neat

I'm not much of a reader, so this was probably the best horror book I've read for now. (Feel free to recommend some if you want / can.)

>Now, Eleanor thought, perceiving that she was lying sideways on the bed in the black darkness, holding with both hands to Theodora‟s hand, holding so tight she could feel the fine bones of Theodora‟s fingers, now, I will not endure this. They think to scare me. Well, they have. I am scared, but more than that, I am a person, I am human, I am a walking reasoning humorous human being and I will take a lot from this lunatic filthy house but I will not go along with hurting a child, no, I will not; I will by God get my mouth to open right now and I will yell I will I will yell “STOP IT,” she shouted, and the lights were on the way they had left them and Theodora was sitting up in bed, startled and disheveled. “What?” Theodora was saying. “What, Nell? What?”
“God God,” Eleanor said, flinging herself out of bed and across the room to stand shuddering in a corner, “God God—whose hand was I holding?”

Man, this paragraph described something in a way that I've never seen / read before. All the horror movies that I saw were, imho, put to shame by this.

I've tried reading House of Leaves, and it started out quite interesting. It then suddenly starter talking about the Navidson Record or w/e, and I was like wtf. Idk, it somehow felt like there wasn't really any story or w/e, so I stop reading it. Maybe I've got the wrong version or I'm reading it wrong?

I think this is accurate, since the first line is supposed to be Stephen's father talking, not Stephen himself

Snow-Balls have flown their Arcs, starr'd the Sides of Outbuildings, as of Cousins, carried Hats away into the brisk Wind off Delaware,— the Sleds are brought in and their Runners carefully dried and greased, shoes deposited in the back Hall, a stocking'd-foot Descent made upon the great Kitchen, in a purposeful Dither since Morning, punctuated by the ringing Lids of various Boilers and Stewing-Pots, fragrant with Pie-Spices, peel'd Fruits, Suets, heated Sugar,— the Children, having all upon the Fly, among rhythmic slaps of Batter and Spoon, coax'd and stolen what they might, proceed, as upon each afternoon all this snowy Advent, to a comfortable Room at the rear of the House, years since given over to their carefree Assaults.

Midway along the journey of our life
I woke to find myself in a dark wood,
for I had wandered off from the straight path.

It was a dark and stormy night.

Nice choice, user.

You may call me Ishmael.