Best opening lines of books EVER

[Aletheia Dolorosa]

This refers only to non-HDM books, obviously.

Mine is from I Capture the Castle:

'I write this sitting in the kitchen sink'.

It's a perfect first line because it makes you go 'huh?'

[Aurone]

While I've yet to find the time to read the actual book, I think one of the greates opening lines is Moby Dick's "Call me Ishmale."

[furbaby]

A haunting and immortal opening line:

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again - Rebecca

And some of Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine's novels have irresistible openings. I will return with some...

[Aletheia Dolorosa]

While I've yet to find the time to read the actual book, I think one of the greates opening lines is Moby Dick's "Call me Ishmale."

You should read it. But be prepared for long passages on whales, whaling and whalers that seem to go nowhere. I got it for my 21st birthday, and struggled through it during a trip to Europe, but it was worth it.

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again - Rebecca

An excellent book. It's one of my sister's favourites, and scared her so much that when she was reading it, she couldn't read it at night.

[Somewhat]

"They say that the prospect of being hanged in the morning concentrates a man's mind wonderfully; unfortunately, what the mind inevitably concentrates on is that it is in a body that, in the morning, is going to be hanged."
-Going Postal, Terry Pratchett

It's the first line and the first paragraph, too. It certainly isn't the very best but I do like it a lot.

[Jaya]

A haunting and immortal opening line:

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again - Rebecca

One of my favourites too Rebecca is an awesome book.

On the topic of Discworld, one of my favourite Pratchett openings is:

The rumour spread through the city like wildfire (which had quite often spread through Ankh-Morpork since its citizen's had learned the words 'fire insurance'). - The Truth

[cassingtonscholar]

Mine is from I Capture the Castle:

'I write this sitting in the kitchen sink'.

Ugg! I hated that book.


Anyways, my favorite opening line is the classic one from A Tale of Two Cities. Please do me the honor of reading the whole way through it because this is going to take me forever to type out. Here goes:

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good of for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."

Great book, if anyone hasn't read it.

[Somewhat]

Mine is from I Capture the Castle:

'I write this sitting in the kitchen sink'.

Ugg! I hated that book.


Anyways, my favorite opening line is the classic one from A Tale of Two Cities. Please do me the honor of reading the whole way through it because this is going to take me forever to type out. Here goes:

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good of for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."

Great book, if anyone hasn't read it.

It makes Dickens sound bipolar.

[Aletheia Dolorosa]

I like your taste in books, even if you don't like mine. When I was younger, my mother read A Tale of Two Cities aloud to me and my sister. For about the last 5 chapters, we were all sobbing uncontrollably.

[AUST]

The opening from 1984... Wodnerful.

[Aletheia Dolorosa]

Quote it again for me, I'm not remembering. *winces in shame*

[Ultracommando93]

Quote it again for me, I'm not remembering. *winces in shame*

1984? "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirtee. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly thorugh the glass doors of Victory mansions, though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of grtty dust from entering along with him". It goes on to describe the rather nasty apartment block.

[furbaby]

Here’s a few Ruth Rendell/ Barbara Vine openers. She has a great knack for hooking you right from the start, or as Aletheia put it, making you go “huh?”

The clothes of the dead won’t wear long. They fret for the person who owned them. (The Brimstone Wedding)

A great many things that other people did all the time she had never done. (King Solomon’s Carpet)

They have sent me here because of what happened on the pylon. (Grasshopper)

Eunice Parchman killed the Coverdale family because she could not read or write. (A Judgement In Stone)

On the morning Vera died I woke up very early ….. In these circumstances alone one knows when someone is going to die. All other deaths can be predicted, conjectured, even anticipated with some certainty, but not to the hour, the minute, with no room for hope. (A Dark-Adapted Eye)

Cheated a bit with the last one by leaving out a few sentences from the first paragraph, but as an opening it has that “must read on” quality.

[jordan college girl]

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." - Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

My most favoritest book of all time.

[Aletheia Dolorosa]

[quote="Ultracommando93]"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirtee.[/quote]

Of course, how could I forget?

[rats_rox]

As Matt watched the rain through the window, the rain watched him back --- Justin Richards, The Chaos Code

I like it, it's random.

[Ultracommando93]

Redemption Ark by Alastair Reynolds: "The dead ship was a thing of obscene beauty". That's random for you.

[highandrandom]

"Far out in the uncharted quarters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded sun."

The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Oh - and as a side-note, I adore 'I Capture the Castle', though I've never really been able to understand why, it's not exactly typical of the books that I fall in love with.

[Tristan]

Hmm, my favorite single opening line is from One Hundred Years of Solitude:

"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."

Favorite opening *section*, though, I'd say is Lolita's:

"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.

She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.

Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, a certain initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns."

[Blossom]

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." - Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

My most favoritest book of all time.

Deffinately a great opening line