First Paragraphs Quotes

“My name is Herbert Badgery. I am a hundred and thirty-nine years old and something of a celebrity. They come and look at me and wonder how I do it. There are weeks when I wonder the same, whole stretches of terrible time. It is hard to believe you can feel so bad and still not die.”
― Peter Carey, Illywhacker

“He came into my life in February 1932 and never left it again. More than a quarter of a century has passed since then, more than nine thousand days, desultory and tedious, hollow with the sense of effort or work without hope- days and years, many of them as dead as dry leaves on a dead tree. I can remember the day and the hour when I first set eyes on this boy who was to be the source of my greatest happiness and of my greatest despair.”
― Fred Uhlman, Reunion