Indeed, so commonplace is this assumption that it had already been satirised by Jane Austen nearly a century earlier: in Persuasion, Captain Harville says to Anne Elliot, "I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman's inconstancy.
It was the first time I ever opened up about my history of sexual abuse, but I still held back.
After having been closed out of a senior seminar that had "One Hundred Years of Solitude" on its reading list, I went out and read the novel anyway -- the one time in all my years of schooling that I ever opened a book for a course in which I wasn't enrolled.
I doubt I'll ever open a laptop on a plane again after tomorrow.
'I hadn't been home for a while and I hardly ever open my mail anyway, but I had to tell the poor woman that I wouldn't believe it until I saw it in writing.' The next day a confirmation letter from Downing Street duly arrived by special delivery.
"I don't think I will ever open them; they are lovely just to keep and admire".
"I don't know if I will ever open again," he said.
When we bought the contaminated oysters and I made the decision to close the Fat Duck, not knowing if I would ever open again.
But the agency's database shows no evidence it ever opened an investigation.
The book was sometimes simply unbearable to read and I was often sorry I'd ever opened it.
