It was a dark and stormy night

[Sibling Qwertyuiopasd]

I have another one to steal from somewhere else, but it's a more obscure quote, and I'll actually be surprised if anyone gets it.

and no googling!

"Little Red Hood was a little girl with a Red hood and GREAT FLAMING EYEBROWS!"

[beagle]

I'm not sure how we're going to beat the start of Anthony Burgess's "Earthly Powers".

"It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me."

I hear rumours that this start was the result of a bet on the strangest novel starting he could get away with.

My own modest contribution:

"Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do, so she lit a spliff".

[Griffin NoName]

In the same vein,

Bobby got out of the shower, deciding dreams were a waste of other people's time.

[beagle]

"The past is a foreign country, except harder to catch a plane to".

[Swatopluk]

In the same vein,

Bobby got out of the shower, deciding dreams were a waste of other people's time.

Gott sieht alles, nur nicht Dallas. 

---

"No more double-whoppers this night", he said to himself, "but another quarterpounder with soymilk, that is something else.". The fool! Another victim that had not read "Soy and the connections to the Unconscious Mind".

[beagle]

"Call me Ishmael. Actually my name's Mick, but I'll be embellishing things a bit as we go along."

[Swatopluk]

Had he just kept his mouth open! But closing it he did instead of doing the rational thing of keeping it wide open. Now the case had to be closed despite most question remainung open as his mouth should have been.

[Bluenose]

Norbet looked around just in time to see the truck that ran him over and killed him

[Alpaca]

It wasn't the best of times, nor was it the worst of times. In fact, the times were pretty much mediocre.

[Swatopluk]

Another day like chewing gum lay before her, endless and with the spearmint flavor long gone (which was actually an improvement because she preferred strawberry).

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

He had a dreamless night and then he washed his teeth.

[anthrobabe]

What happens in Waterloo, stays in Waterloo...

[Opsa]

"In this book I will reveal to you the secrets that I have learned in my life (the hard way) that will solve all of the (comparatively simple) problems in your life!"

[Swatopluk]

Shells dropped like raindrops on the bloodsoaked fields of Texamilque during the afternoon break.
"Say!", said Colonel James "Millipede" Corkrich to the quartermaster's elderly but still handsome assistent, "That peanut addiction gets out of hand with the troops."

[beagle]

And they lived happily ever after.

Until one day the princess accidentally said "toilet".


(This joke, which makes no sense outside the UK, courtesy of the Telegraph cartoonist).