Happy new year! A new year is a time for new beginnings. But first, can you identify these famous beginnings in literature, music and movies?
1. “Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?”
- “Hotel California,” by Eagles
- “Bohemian Rhapsody,” by Queen
- “Stairway to Heaven,” by Led Zeppelin
- “Let It Be,” by The Beatles
2. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”
- A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
- Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
- Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
- War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
3. “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.”
- Raiders of the Lost Ark
- Citizen Kane
- Casablanca
- The African Queen
4. “When there’s somethin’ strange in your neighborhood…”
- Theme from Weird Science
- Theme from Ghostbusters
- Theme from Beetlejuice
- Theme from The Addams Family
5. “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
- Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy
- War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy
- Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky
6. “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…”
- Battlestar Galactica
- Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
- Spaceballs
- Star Wars: Episode IV—A New Hope
7. “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”
- 1984, by George Orwell
- Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
- Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
- The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood
8. “Once upon a time you dressed so fine, threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn’t you?”
- “Free Fallin’” by Tom Petty
- “Go Your Own Way,” by Fleetwood Mac
- “Like a Rolling Stone,” by Bob Dylan
- “Go Where You Wanna Go,” by The Mamas and the Papas
9. “Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
- The Declaration of Independence
- The U.S. Constitution
- The Gettysburg Address
- John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address
10. “I believe in America. America has made my fortune.”
- The Wolf of Wall Street
- The Great Gatsby
- Wall Street
- The Godfather
Answers:
- That famous four-part acapella chorus is the understated opening of one of rock-and-roll’s most creative, head-banging anthems: Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
- Wisdom, foolishness, belief, incredulity, light, darkness, hope, despair… all these contrasts are woven together in the paragraph-long introductory sentence of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, considered by many to be the greatest opening statement in English literature.
- That classic Hollywood opening line was uttered by Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine in the 1942 classic Casablanca.
- Who ya gonna call? Ghostbusters!
- Betrayal, faith, family, marriage, desire…you’ll find it all in the pages of Anna Karenina, which Leo Tolstoy reluctantly finished in serial periodical installments in 1877, having come to detest it by the time of its completion. It was published in book form in 1878.
- You’d have to be living in another dimension to not know this one. Those famous words first flashed on the screen in 1977, setting the stage for the swashbuckling, galactic blockbuster Star Wars.
- This unsettling description immediately signifies something isn’t right in the opening of George Orwell’s 1984. When Orwell finished his dystopian tale in 1948, he simply reversed the last two digits to create his then-futuristic title.
- Its cynical, pugnacious lyrics derived from a verse written after an exhausting 1965 tour of England, Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” was a breakthrough that paved his transition from acoustic folk poet to electric rock star.
- In 1863, Abraham Lincoln used the fancy “four score and seven” phrase to indicate the 87 years elapsed since the founding of the U.S. in 1776. It was the only frill in a somber and succinctly powerful Gettysburg Address to dedicate a portion of the Civil War battlefield as a resting place for the fallen.
- Undertaker Amerigo Bonasera utters these words while petitioning Don Corlione (Marlon Brando) to take retribution on his daughter’s attackers in the opening scene of The Godfather.
