Opening Lines

MARLEY WAS DEAD: TO BEGIN WITH. THERE IS NO DOUBT WHATEVER ABOUT THAT. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge’s name was good upon ’Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens, 1843

SOMEONE MUST HAVE BEEN TELLING LIES ABOUT JOSEF K., HE KNEW HE HAD done nothing wrong but, one morning, he was arrested.

The Trial, Franz Kafka, 1925