As I have been given

First sentences of culled books
enroute to Sally Ann
July, 2011

As I have been given a large and magnificent diary for Christmas--seven by ten and nearly two inches thick--I intend to fill it in as long as may ardour lasts.

It is difficult to know quite where to begin this story, but I have fixed my choice on a certain Wednesday at luncheon at the Vicarage.

I'd never felt so intimidated ringing a doorbell.

The espresso machine behind my shoulder hissed like an angry snake.

"Thanks be, I'm done with geometry, learning or teaching it," said Anne Shirley, a trifle vindictively, as she thumped a somewhat battered volume of Euclid into a big chest of books, banged the lid in triumph, and sat down upon it, looking at Diana Wright across the Green Gables garret, with grey eyes that were like a morning sky.

It was late May.

It was the opening day of the summer term at Meadowbank school.

The July storm moved down the valley, rumbling around either side of the hills and Pembina Lake.

Mrs. Ferrars died on the night of the 16th-17th September--a Thursday.

Miss Jane Marple was sitting by her window.

I was standing at the window of Poirot's rooms looking out idly on the street below.

"Anything of interest this morning, Miss Lemon?" he asked as he entered the room the following morning.

The memory of the public is short.

Both Frank and Nancy have been married before.

When Farmer Oak smiled, the corners of his mouth spread till they were within an unimportant distance of his ears, his eyes were reduced to chinks, and diverging wrinkles appeared round them, extending upon his countenance like the rays in a rudimentary sketch of the rising sun.

Every time he drove through Yorkville, Rosenbaum got angry, just on general principles.

Look at me now, Joshua thought.

I, Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus This-that-and-the-other (for I shall not trouble you yet with all my titles), who was once, and not so long ago either, known to my friends and relatives and associates a 'Claudius the Idiot', or 'That Caludius', or 'Claudius the Stammerer', A.D. 41 or 'Clau-Clau-Claudius', or at best as 'Poor Uncle Claudius', am now about to write this strange history of my life; starting from my earliest childhood and continuing year by year until I reach the fateful point of change where, some eight years ago, at the age of fifty-one, I suddenly found myself caught in what I may call the'golden predicament' from which I have never since become disentangled.

We called him Old Yeller.

About midway along the Atlantic seaboard of the North American continent lies a strip of land which is known today as the Sate of Old Catawba.

"That is New York."

The children were at the Theatre, acting to Three Cows as much as they could remember of Midsummer Night's Dream.

I was nothing but a pimply little question mark on the day my sister and I first walked into Ken Jones Music in Etobicoke.

Some twelve miles west of Istanbul, beyond the outskirts of the city in the flat farm country near the coast, is Yesilkoy International Airport.

The extent of territory occupied by the Ojibway nation, is the largest of any Indian possessions of which there is any definite knowledge.

We started dying before the snow, and like the snow, we continued to fall.

The ship that was carrying me away from England to Africa in the autumn of 1938 was called the SS Mantola.

After an hour the young policewoman brought Fielding a cup of coffee and left him alone in the room.

The Beast destroyed my brief peace.

I was never so amazed in my life as when the Sniffer drew his concealed weapon from its case and struck me to the ground, stone dead.