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The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (BLFC) is a tongue-in-cheek contest that takes place annually and is sponsored by the English Department of San José State University in San Jose, California. Entrants are invited "to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels" – that is, deliberately bad. According to the official rules, the prize for winning the contest is "a pittance".[1]
The contest was initiated in 1982 by Professor Scott Rice of the English Department at San Jose State University and is named "in honor" of English novelist and playwright Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, author of the much-quoted first line "It was a dark and stormy night." This opening, from the 1830 novel Paul Clifford, continues floridly:
"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness." The first year of the competition attracted just three entries from on-campus, but it went public the next year, received international media attention, and attracted 10,000 entries.[2] There are also now several subcategories, such as detective fiction, romance novels, Western novels, and purple prose. Sentences that are notable but are judged not quite bad enough to merit the Grand Prize or a category prize are awarded Dishonorable Mentions.
Prior winners of the award include Gary Dahl, inventor of the Pet Rock, in the 2000 contest.
E. G. Bulwere Lytton also immortalized presiding familiarities of:
"The pen is mightier than the sword.", and:
"The great unwashed."
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(May the cliche-curtain commence to rise and fall with the endless encores?)
Happening upon the above information inspired Truly Yours to post it, with the suggestion that an anthology of well known - and obscure - one liners (and paragraphs) may accumulate thenceforth and thereby, as in once bitten twice shy:
once upon a time,
by and by,
it may come to pass,
and they lived happily after,
on the other hand this entire post
may meet an untimely end,
and so forth and so on...
I wouldn't be so sure.
You never can tell.
It's not over until it's over.
Two birds with one stone.
A bird in the hand is better than two in the bush.
Save the last bullet for yourself.
The way of all flesh.
I wouldn't do that if I were you.
Go for it.
Famous last words.
I suppose you think you know all the answers.
To be or not to be, that is the question, whether it be nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,or take up arms against them; etceteras (approximately?).
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Originally Posted by RascalPuff 
