First Lines

I have a lot on my mind, but nothing I'm ready to write about just yet. Instead, I'll give you the first lines of books I'm reading, recently finished reading, or plan to start reading next.

"In the 1700s in the New World, thirteen small British colonies hugged the Atlantic coast -- separate colonies, not one country."

"If you shall chance, Camillo, to visit Bohemia, on the like occasion whereon my services are now on foot, you shall see, as I have said, great difference betwixt our Bohemia and your Sicilia."

"The Jebel es Zubleh is a mountain fifty miles and more in length, and so narrow that its tracery on the map gives it a likeness to a caterpillar crawling from the south to the north."

"There was once a little princess whose father was a king over a great country full of mountains and valleys."

"Now consider the tortoise and the eagle."

"1. A point is that which has no part."

"Children, grace be with you. Amen."

"I didn't know how much I needed to read this book until after I'd written it."

"Some controversy is crucial for the sake of life-giving truth."