Endings are elusive, middles are nowhere to be found, but worst of all is to begin, to begin, to begin.

-Barthelme, Donald
  Unspeakable Practices, Unnatural  Acts,'The Dolt'.

'Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?' he asked. 'Begin at the beginning,'the King said, gravely, 'and go on till you come to the end; then stop.'

-Dodgson
  Alice's  Adventures in Wonderland, ch.12, 'Alice's Evidence'.

All, all of a piece throughout; Thy chase had a beast in view; Thy wars brought nothing about; Thy lovers were all untrue. 'Tis well an old age is out, And time to begin a new.

-Dryden,John
  The Secular Masque, l.92^7.

  All this will not be finished in the first100 days, nor will it be finished in the first1,000 days, nor in the life of this Administrationönor even, perhaps, in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.

-Kennedy,John F(itzgerald)
  Inaugural address, Washington, 20  Jan.

When did we begin to dress ourselves?

-Rich, Adrienne Cecile
  Diving into theWreck,'Blood-Sister'.

Ce qu'ils ont en commun, c'est simplement le fait qu'ils estiment que l'existence pre¤  ce'  de l'essence, ou, si vous voulez, qu'il faut partir de la subjectivite¤  . What [existentialists] have in common is simply the fact that they believe that existence comes before essenceöor, if you will, that we must begin from the subjective.

-Sartre,Jean-Paul
  L'Existentialisme est un humanisme (Existentialism and Humanism,1948) (translated by Philip Mairet).

To begin at the beginning: It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent and the hunched, courters'-and- rabbits' wood limping invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea.

-Thomas, Dylan Marlais
  Under MilkWood, opening words.