Had I been brighter, the ladies been gentler, the Scotch been weaker, had the gods been kinder, had the dice been hotter, this could have been a one-sentence story: Once upon a time I lived happily ever after.
Once upon a time. . . the only autonomous intelligences we humans knew of were us humans. We thought then that if humankind ever devised another intelligence that it would be the result of a huge project. . . a great mass of silicon and ancient transistors and chips and circuit boards. . . a machine with lots of networking circuits, in other words, aping-if you will pardon the expression-the human brain in form and function. Of course, AIs did not evolve that way. They sort of slipped into existence when we humans were looking the other way.
We've strayed into a zone with a high magical index,' he said. 'Don't ask me how. Once upon a time a really powerful magic field must have been generated here, and we're feeling the after-effects. ' Precisely,' said a passing bush.
Nothing in recent years, on television or anywhere else, has improved on a good story that begins "Once upon a time. . . "
There is no such thing as a happy ending. I never met a single one to equal "Once upon a time.
Even in the Future the Story Begins with Once Upon a Time.
Once upon a time people talked about the infallibility of the pope; today it is that of the merchant which they wish to establish.
Once upon a time is now.
Maybe a story will cheer you up. . . Once there was an ugly barnacle. He was so ugly that everyone died. The End.
Basically, when I hear it now, I don't recognize myself directly in a lot of cases. I was expecting more menace. And the fact that it didn't seem menacing at first troubled me. Then I thought, What the hey, you know? I'm 66 years old, and I could just crack open a beer and listen to it, and it doesn't trouble me that it doesn't kill. Once upon a time, it probably would have.
Once upon a time," he said out loud to the darkness. He said these words because they were the best, the most powerful words that he knew and just the saying of them comforted him.
Once upon a time, I awoke in a strange place.
Thou shalt not' might reach the head, but it takes 'Once upon a time' to reach the heart.
Once upon a time when there was no time.
Once upon a time there was a fairy godmother, but the rest of the time there was none. This story is about one of those other times.
Once upon a time there was an old country, wrapped up in habit and caution. We have to transform our old France into a new country and marry it to its time.
Once upon a time there was a lady. She had no children, and no happiness either. And at first she cried for a long time, but then she became wicked.
The shapes arranged themselves into words, and the words spelled out a delicious and wonderful phrase: Once upon a time.
That's the ideal meeting. . . once upon a time, only once, unexpectedly, then never again.
Our story is a 'once upon a time', but it's not a 'happy ever after'.
