The "You Had Me At Hello" Awards

These are the best of the best. The first lines that have stuck with me through the entire year (2008) and left a lasting impression:

Tell me about the fire.

My father took one hundred and thirty-two minutes to die. I counted.

There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife.

T.S. Eliot was wrong.

"This is a story of what happened to Wombat on Tuesday. I could tell you about Monday, but nothing happened on Monday. So Tuesday it is."

"The longest day of my life began tardily."

On the morning of the best day of her life, Maud Flynn was locked in the outhouse, singing "The Battle Hymn of the Rupublic."

I knew it would begin with the end, and the end would look like death to these eyes.

"There was once a young man who wished to gain his Heart's Desire. And while that is, as beginnings go, not entirely novel (for every tale about every young man there ever was or will be could start in a similar manner) there was much about this young man and what happened to him that was unusual, although even he never knew the whole of it."

This is a story about darkness and light, about sorrow and joy, about something lost and something found. This is a story about Love.

Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board.

There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.

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First Place: My father took one hundred and thirty-two minutes to die. I counted.

Second Place: There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife.

Third Place: On the morning of the best day of her life, Maud Flynn was locked in the outhouse, singing "The Battle Hymn of the Rupublic."


© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews