Is it ok if I use a quote to begin my reasearch paper

Answer 1

You can. Here are some other ideas that are probably more successful:

Professional writers who write for magazines and receive pay for their work use five basic patterns to grab a reader's interest:

historical review
anecdotal
surprising statement
famous person
declarative

from: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/intros.htm
Scroll down about 1/4th of the way to read the details for each of these ideas.