As a writer I have significant interest invested in understanding the way that people think about good art, and why they have the opinions that they do of said work. How, I ask, does a readership physically hold a piece of writing in its collective mind, examine it, feel it, weigh its worth, and ultimately decide to keep it dearly in its consciousness, or to let it whither away into the ever-widening black hole of forgotten things?

This week, I have stumbled upon the importance of beginnings. 

How many novels, poems, plays, or other written pieces do you know by their first line? Ask yourself. Do not ask yourself why--yet--but allow the idea to sink in. If you are like me, you derive some sort of comfort from the fact that you can seemingly bundle up so many beautiful works of art in so many first words. Let that feeling sweep over you--try to remember some of your favorites.

In the miniature library that I happen to have brought with me to Nashville, TN, taken as a satellite of sorts from the larger one in my home in North Carolina, I have compiled a list of first lines that many of you, Dear Readers, will probably recognize. It is missing some of the most famous and most dazzling, but my limited library will serve the point at hand:

"They're out there." --Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." --Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" --William Shakespeare, "Sonnet XVIII"

"Call me Ishmael." --Herman Melville, Moby Dick

"I am an invisible man." --Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

 "The idea of eternal return is a mysterious one..." --Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being