It is an extraordinary opening, written with such taut understatement that the mother's grief is given a visceral power: we empathise with it immediately, despite knowing little about either Laura or her relationship with her daughter.
For example, instead of stating "opening," write "Ant problem in the office".
"The gates to a world of grotesquerie seem to be opening," he wrote.
The section on "Ode on Melancholy" includes an opening stanza written by Keats's close friend, Charles Brown, who transcribed the poem.
"Am somewhat worried by your opening salvo," writes Louise Wright, who can clearly spot a cry for help when she sees one.
Maxtone-Graham raved about an opening Handey wrote in which the show's host, Jerry Seinfeld, was to stand with the cast pretending that they're delivering the good nights, thanking all the incredible guest stars who showed up that night.
The letter's opening sentences, written as a numbered list of injunctions, specify the ways in which the terrorists were to prepare themselves mentally, spiritually and even sartorially for death.
The New Yorker, May 8 , 1948P. 21 Bartley Crum & Joseph Barnes, the new proprietors of PM in their opening announcement wrote one of those sentences that the English language is always good for - a language more treacherous than an unsprung bear trap.
In her opening poem, "Write a Book," you'll see her modus operandi clearly stated.
Stevenson's poem "had me at the opening lines," wrote food critic Mimi Sheraton of New York: "I should like to rise and go / Where the golden apples grow".
