And the winners are.......

Five opening lines that I find interesting from my Essay readings are:

1. One is in a hurry to leave, but one’s visitor keeps chattering away.

From Hateful Things p. 24

2. To the extent that useful thoughts are fuller and more solid, they are also more absorbing and more burdensome.

From On some verses of Virgil p. 58

3. There is a spider crawling along the matted floor of the room where I sit (not the one which has been so well allegorized in the admirable Lines to a Spider, but another of the same edifying breed); he runs with heedless, hurried hasted, he hobbles awkwardly towards me, he stops—he sees the giant shadow before him, and, at a loss whether to retreat or proceed, meditates his huge foe—but as I do not start up and seize upon the straggling caitiff, as he would upon a hapless fly within his toils, he takes heart, and ventures on with mingled cunning, impudence, and fear.

From On the Pleasure of Hating p. 189

4. Every age has a keyhole to which its eye is pasted.

From My Confession p. 555

5. I have no ear.

From A Chapter on Ears p. 165