People Are Adding "And Then The Murders Began" To Famous Book Openings, And It's Impossible Not To Laugh

Once upon a time, a little girl named Laura traveled in a covered wagon across the giant prairie. And then the murders began. (Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder)

At daybreak Billy Buck emerged from the bunkhouse and stood for a moment on the porch looking up at the sky. And then the murders began. (The Red Pony, John Steinbeck)

I sat by the lake, I looked at the sky, and as i looked, a fly went by. And then the murders began. (A Fly Went By, Mike McCintock)

It was love at first sight. And then the murders began. (Catch-22, 1961 —Joseph Heller)

"Hello Dad", said Bernard.
"Not now, Bernard", said his father.
And then the murders began.
Not Now Bernard by David Mckee

A mile above Oz, the Witch balanced on the wind’s forward edge, as if she were a green
fleck of the land itself, flung up and sent wheeling away by the turbulent air. And then the murders began.

- "Wicked: Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West" by Gregory Maguire

"Do you like my hat?"
"I do not."
And then the murders began.

~Go, Dog, Go - P. D. Eastman

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. And then the murders began. (Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy)

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. And then the murders began. (Pride And Prejudice, Jane Austen)

All this happened, more or less. And then the murders began. (Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut)

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate leading to the drive, and for a while I could not enter, for the way was barred to me. And then the murders began. (Rebecca, Daphne Du Maurier)

The morning had dawned clear and cold, with a crispness that hinted at the end of summer. (A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin)

An abandoned auto court in the San Berdoo foothills; Buzz Meeks checked in with ninetyfour thousand dollars, eighteen pounds of high-grade heroin, a 10-gauge pump, a.38 special, a.45 automatic and a switchblade he'd bought off a pachuco at the border-right before he spotted the car parked across the line: Mickey Cohen goons in an LAPD unmarked, Tijuana cops standing by to bootjack a piece of his goodies, dump his body in the San Ysidro River.

And then the murders began.

(L.A. Confidential, *)

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. And then the murders began. (US Constitution)

Clad in a fragile but frolicsome nightgown which disclosed some rather interesting feminine topography, Sally Willows sat on the edge of her bed and bent a pair of large brown eyes on her husband. And then the murders began. (Turnabout ~ Thorne Smith)

Everyone poops... And then the murders began. (Everyone Poops, Taro Gomi)

There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it. And then the murders began. (The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader, C. S. Lewis)

“When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen. And then the murders began.“ (The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett)

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. And then the murders began. (Ulysses, 1922 - James Joyce)

Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself. And then the murders began.