The Noble Knight

In a place at La Mancha, which name I do not want to remember, not very long ago lived a country hidalgo, one of those gentlemen or hidalgos who keep a lance in the lance-rack, an ancient shield, a skinny old horse, and a fast greyhound.
--Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, "The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha"

The sea-swept hero

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.
--James Joyce, "Ulysses"

25 years ago

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. --George Orwell, "Nineteen Eighty-Four"

Distant lands

The Emperor of China is a Chinaman, as you most likely know, and everyone around him is a Chinaman too. --Hans Christian Andersen, "The Nightingale"

Because the moon landing was 40 years ago

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. --Douglas Adams, "The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy"

Innocence

Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K., he knew he had done nothing wrong but, one morning, he was arrested.
--Franz Kafka, "The Trial"  ("Der Prozeß")

In the End

Marley was dead, to begin with. -Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol.

In the Middle

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita mi ritrovai per una selva oscura, ché la diritta via era smarrita.
In the middle of the road of our life I found myself in a dark forest, so that the straight way was lost.
Dante Alighieri, La Divina Commedia, 1308

In the Beginning

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." The Gospel According to John, Chapter 1, Verse 1; also, Umberto Eco, "The Name of the Rose".