What's your favorite first line?

[Isagel]

I´m always delighted when I find a book with a good opening sentence. Sometimes the first sentence is almost like poetry.

Right now I´m reading "Mortal engines" by Philip Reeve. It´s a childrens book and this is the first sentence:

"It was a dark , blustery afternoon in spring, and the city of London was chasing a small mining town across the dried out bed of the old north sea."

After a start like that, I had to read the whole book.

As I´m always curious I decide to ask you -- What is your favorite first sentence of a book? How did the book you read right now start? What do you think make an opening line great?

--

There are also 2 quizzes on the site to test you on first lines from novels :)

"Famous First Lines from Classic Literature Quiz"
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/quiz.php?quizid=112

and

"Great First Lines Quiz"
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/quiz.php?quizid=390

[ravana]

As a rule, only after reading the annotation I deside to read that book, or not. And don't like poetry beginning. I became more interested with narration beginning like in "Catcher in the Rye":
"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'l probably want to know is where I was born.............."

[emily655321]

That's interesting. People always ask, "memorable last lines?" but never first ones. I don't think I have any. Usually I'm horribly bored with a book until I get about 20 or 30 pages into it. Same with movies. I guess I tend not to notice lines unless they really hit me, because the only time I enjoy a book is once I'm engrossed in it and forget that someone was actually sitting at a table writing it.

[Koa]

I think I'm much more interested in first lines than in last lines... maybe the first ones are even more famous than the last ones (Im thinking of the famous beginning of Anna Karenina: 'happy families are all happy in the same way, unhappy ones are unhappy in their own way'. Or something like that).

When I was younger I used to read the first and last lines of a book before buying it, or just reading it. Once the last lines were a true spoiler, and from that day on, I decided to lose that habit...:eek: :D

There's an Italian book I love, whose first lines I've learnt by heart, and they came to my mind a few days ago, after years...and I realised i still remember them, with I can say 90% of accuracy (I could quote them but...well...:D). I often like to learn by heart things like that if they represent something to me.

Oh, and every averagely-educated Italian knows by heart at least the first 2 lines of the Divine Comedy. (I know the first 16 cos I learnt them at school) Older people might remember more cos they were forced to learn a lot of it at school.
Oh and there's another Italian stuff we study at school, whose first words are quite famous...(but that's another thing I doubt you know, so I'd leave it for when I'll open a thread on Italian literature, which I had in mind but never did...and now exams are too close to turn into a forum-addicted teacher ;))

[Lara]

There are two first lines that stand out in my mind. One comes from a book that, oddly enough, I have never read, but it is famous:

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, starts off, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

and, as simple as it is, I do like Herman Melvilles, "Call me Ishmael."

[imthefoolonthehill]

His name was Bob. Bob had ***** ****

(from fight club)

... translation.... Bob had female dog milk-secreting organs.

[ajoe]

Originally posted by Lara
and, as simple as it is, I do like Herman Melvilles, "Call me Ishmael."

lol, I was going to put this! But that's fine, I'll settle with Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle's first line instead: Call me Jonah. :D

[ajoe]

Originally posted by imthefoolonthehill
His name was Bob. Bob had ***** ****

(from fight club)

... translation.... Bob had female dog milk-secreting organs.

that's cute! *grins*

[imthefoolonthehill]

thanks... I was trying to be unoffensive yet still let people know what was said.

[Isagel]

"His name was Bob. Bob had ***** **** "
Talk about setting the tone for the rest of the book!
:-) That sentence hits like a slap. (Actually I´ve only seen the movie. I have too read the book some day)

ravana - I ´really like books that start like someone telling you a tale, like they are sitting next to you. Not all writers can do it so that it doesn´t feel like a cliche, though. But Salinger can. He is one of the few who makes the story feel like something personal, that you share with him. At least I think so. I hope I´m making sense.


I told my fiance about this and I had to promise to write his favorite first lines. He thinks they are the best ones ever written:

"The man in black fled through the desert, and the gunslinger followed". "The Gunslinger", by Stephen King.

[Basil]

"This is a tale of a meeting of two lonesome, skinny, fairly old white men on a planet which was dying fast."

Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions

[Dexter]

It's not the first line ("Call me Ishmael"") but the second "When I feel a dark November in my soul, I know it is time to go to sea again ..." I hope that's close - lost my copy of Moby Dick, so I can't check it. Somebody check it for me?

Another favorite first line is "Hwaet we gear-dagum theod-cyninga" (Beowulf) But I recommend Seamus Heaney's translation. Dexter .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................

[Dexter]

Somehow my second line got lost in the quote "When I feel a dark november in my soul, I feel the need to go to sea again." I hope that's close - lost my cpy of Moby Dick, so can't check it.

Another favorite line is "Hwaet we Gar-Dena in gear-dagum ..." although I recommend Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf.

Try "Stately plump Buck Mulligan ..." (Ulysses)

or "Riverrun past Eve and Adams ... (Finnegan's Wake)

[Basil]

Or, if you will indulge me three lines:

Mother died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; I can't be sure. The telegram from the Home says: YOUR MOTHER PASSED AWAY. FUNERAL TOMORROW. DEEP SYMPATHY. Which leaves the matter doubtful; it could have been yesterday.

Albert Camus, The Stranger

[Diceman]

Some good entries folks, but I feel obliged to point out that the first sentence of a book ends with ".". Anything after this is most emphatically not the first sentence!

I like the simple ones, which grab you with the promise of something more to come. My choice might make a few of you cringe, but here goes:

"Who is John Galt?"

Perfect: short, sweet, and sets up a mystery that lasts for most of the novel.

[ravana]

"Call me Ishmael" posts inspired me to read Melville's book. After reading about Moby Dick immediately recollected that I read its adapted version when was at school. Still remember what new words I learned from that book and that poor, mad captain.


Isagel, then you'll like reading "Ali and Nino" by Kurban Said. It begins in same way. It stayed in my bookshelf for a long time while I thought over to read it or not. But after the first lines read it on one breath. It consists of only 30 chapters. It's better to read it in German. English version isn't very nice.
Russian version is quite cool - in this link.
http://www.azeribook.com/proza/kurban_said/ali_nino.htm

[simon]

Originally posted by Basil
Or, if you will indulge me three lines:

Mother died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; I can't be sure. The telegram from the Home says: YOUR MOTHER PASSED AWAY. FUNERAL TOMORROW. DEEP SYMPATHY. Which leaves the matter doubtful; it could have been yesterday.

Albert Camus, The Stranger

That's the exact one I was thinking of when I opened this thread to comment basil. The whole disregard and lack of effort or caring as to time is fabulous.

[subterranean]

My fav firsts sentence is the first verse of Genesis..

"At the beginning......"

[Tabac]

Originally posted by Basil
Or, if you will indulge me three lines:

Mother died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; I can't be sure. The telegram from the Home says: YOUR MOTHER PASSED AWAY. FUNERAL TOMORROW. DEEP SYMPATHY. Which leaves the matter doubtful; it could have been yesterday.

Albert Camus, The Stranger

A true classic! The style sets the tone of the book: everything to Mersault is no more than a telegram-style, saccadic event in his life.

[IWilKikU]

I was also going to say Camus. Also, the first line from 1984 about the clock striking 13. I don't have a copy here, but I'm going home tomorow. If no one else posts it, I'll put it up tomorow.

[papayahed]

It started in mud, as many things do.

[granji]

Several points of view make great first sentences.

I like the sentence to put me in the middle of the action.
Conversational first sentence is fine, also. like being offered a
chair at a table where you're immediately accepted.

[5Parker]

Call me Jonah. :D

God bless Vonnegut

[Taliesin]

I am not very sure how it is in English but still: "And so they killed our Ferdinand,"
From Shvejk of course.

[amuse]

did you draw your avatar, Taliesin? i like it, too.
-az

[Taliesin]

No, that is made by a great artist called Paul Kidby.

[WingedSpirit]

One day, I was already old, in the entrance of a public place, a man came up to me. He introduced himself and said: "I've known you for years. Everyone says you were beautiful when you were young, but I want to tell you I think you're more beautiful now than then. Rather than your face as a young woman, I prefer your face as it is now. Ravaged."

Those are the opening lines of The Lover.

Learn to read them properly. They are sacred.
-Marguerite Duras speaking of her own writing

[Taliesin]

"You're reading this for the wrong reason"
Dan Simmons, "Endymion"
I remembered this just now and I think that it is one of the best I can recall.

Oh, and if I am not mistaken, the worst one is : "It was a dark, stormy night"

[Tabac]

Jeffrey Eugenides begins:

"I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974."

[severian]

There are two first lines that stand out in my mind. One comes from a book that, oddly enough, I have never read, but it is famous:

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, starts off, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

and, as simple as it is, I do like Herman Melvilles, "Call me Ishmael."


I love the beginning of "tale of two cities" but I hate that people never put the whole thing. His entire sentence is this:

"It was the best of time, 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 ws the season of Light, it wsa the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everythying before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way --- in short, ther period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being recieved, for good or for eveil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."

There is so much more too it than just the first phraise.

[mono]

I think your question is nearly impossible for me to answer, but the first line to the book I am reading now, The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio, should make the list:

"It is inherently human to show pity to those who are afflicted; it is a quality that becomes any person, but most particularly is it required of those who have stood in need of consolation and have obtained it from others; now if ever there was a man who craved pity or valued it or rejoiced in it, that man was I."

[Isagel]

Isagel, then you'll like reading "Ali and Nino" by Kurban Said. It begins in same way. It stayed in my bookshelf for a long time while I thought over to read it or not. But after the first lines read it on one breath. It consists of only 30 chapters. It's better to read it in German. English version isn't very nice.
Russian version is quite cool - in this link.
http://www.azeribook.com/proza/kurban_said/ali_nino.htm

Oh - I wish my german was good enough. And russian I can´t read at all.
I´ll just get the english one. I´ll see if my library has it.


I wish I had time to read all of these books. All these lines makes me want to read more.

severian - the beginning of A Tale of Two Cities always seems like poetry to me. It´s just perfect.

[Nemerov]

Many years later, in front of the shooting platoon, colonel Aureliano Buendía would remember that remote afternoon when his father took him to meet the ice.

Muchos años después, frente al pelotón de fusilamiento, el coronel Aureliano Buendía había de recordar aquella tarde remota en que su padre lo llevó a conocer el hielo.

Gabriel Garcia Marquéz
One Hundred Years of Solitude

[Koa]

Lovely one Nemerov!!!

[Isagel]

Thank you Nemerov! For some reason I have never wanted to read One Hundred Years of Solitude. Now I changed my mind. It is now on my to-read list.

[bjortan]

Everyone should read "One hundred years...". One of the most magical reading experiences I've ever had.

[Nemerov]

I'm actually not that big a Marquez fan, but One Hundred ... is amazing.

And if one of you ever wants to compile a 'best last sentence' list ... keep it in mind.

Come to think of it, take the first and the last sentence and I think you've got a perfect story.

[Koa]

Everyone should read "One hundred years...". One of the most magical reading experiences I've ever had.

I second that

Nemerov, we do have a topic about last sentences too, somewhere...check it out :)

[Nemerov]

TELL ME, O MUSE, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide
after he had sacked the famous town of Troy.

It's not a beautiful first sentence, but you asked for Favorite firsts. And with this one, you know you're in for a treat.

[trismegistus]

Vonnegut seems to be a hit. I feel obligated to offer "Listen! Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time."

[baddad]

Vonnegut seems to be a hit. I feel obligated to offer "Listen! Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time."

....2nd that!!

[Spite]

Dont rember the name but it stared: "**** Off."

Plus, lets not forget LS's "the Baudelaire orphans looks out the grimy window at the Finite Forest wondering if their lives would ever get any better."

If you've read the Meserible Mill... you'll get that Joke.

[Tabac]

"There is a lovely road that runs from Ixopo into the hills." This opening line from Cry, the Beloved Country may not sound very intriguing at first glance. However, most people I know who have read the book (and most have read it more than once) find that the words evoke great emotion. I visited South Africa last spring, and the sentence has even more meaning to me now.

[Sitaram]

I once came across a web page that had a trivia quiz: given the
opening line of a novel, tell the title and author.

When I decided to try to write my first book,
http://toosmallforsupernova.org , I gave much thought to the
importance of famous opening lines.

I chose the simple three word sentence "I cannot sleep," which, at the
moment that I actually commenced writing, was a simple fact, for it
was 3 a.m. and I suddenly awoke and could not go back to sleep.
But that three word sentence can have another meaning, namely, that I
must not sleep. And sleep may be a euphemism for death, or it may
connote inaction or silence.

Has anyone mentioned yet that most famous opening line of Tolstoy's
Anna Karenina, "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is
unhappy in its own way?" This is a fabulous opening line,
but one might conceivably write volumes about what it really means,
or whether it is true, and if it is true, how one might
demonstrate its truth.

In the first paragraph of my book, I mention, as an example of an opening line,
the first line of Plato's Republic,
"I went down yesterday to
Piraeus." Tradition has it that Plato rewrote the first page of the
Republic fifty times. The first word in Greek, "katabenein" (I went
down), is claimed by some to be most significant, denoting the
beginning of a great descent. Indeed, the final Book of the Republic is
a mythical descent into the underworld to watch souls choose the
next life into which they shall be reborn, while the Three Fates spin
the fabric of the causal nexus of each life.

Edward Jones won a Pulitzer for his book which opens with a great
first line, “You never get over having been a child.”

Opening and ending lines may sometimes assume enormous
significance in writings whose structure is intended by the author to
connote or symbolize something of significance to the reader. Vallery
wrote an essay about one line from Pascal's Pensees (Meditations)
which he describes as "a perfect poem." My French is poor, and I am
writing all this from memory, but the line is "Le silence eternelle et de
espaces enfinite, m'fraie" ("The eternal silence and the infinite
spaces, frighten me.") Vallery claims that the form of the sentece
imitates the very thing which it tries to convey: namely, there are two
infinite entities, the silence and the space, and the "I" or self ("m'fraie) is
alienated, outside of these two immensities. It is not simply the
infinitude which frightens, but also the alienation.

At St. John's College, in Annapolis, with its four year "Great Books"
program, all students were required to spend several months in their
Sophomore year studying Bach's "St. Matthew's Passion." We learned
that the lowest note in the entire piece was on the word "Todd" (,
"death," my German is not so good either.) Also, there is a chorus
which sings "Donner und Blitzen" (thunder and lightening), at the
moment of the crucifixion, when the veil of the temple is rent in twain,
and there is a terrific hiatus or pause in the midst of the singing,
obviously symbolic of the tearing of the curtain. These are yet other examples of
form imitating content. Aristotle, in his Poetics,
I think, states that it is our human delight in imitating which lies at the heart
of the artistic endeavor.

In the beginning of Homer's Iliad, there is the famous "Catalog of
Ships" wherein Homer enumerates the ships lined up on the beach
outside of the city of Troy. It is significant that there are an ODD
number of ships, rather than an EVEN number, since only ODD
numbers may have a mid-most member, with an equal number of
members balanced on either side. The mid-most ship is that of
Odysseus. The ship moored at the extreme farthest from Troy is that
of swift-footed Achilles. The ship moored closed to Troy is that of
Ajax, an enormous but slow hulking figure who is nicknamed "The
Wall." Ajax is so enormous that the enemy seems simply to bouce off
his chest. But his enormous size makes him slow, and hence, his ship
must be closest to Troy, so that the enemy will encounter Ajax first.
Achilles is the swiftest of all the Achaeans, and can run up to meet
the advancing enemy before anyone else. Odysseus, who is situated
mid-most, is an ideal mean or balance between two extremes.
Odysseus very anatomy bespeaks his balanced nature. His legs are
very short, so he stands shorter than all other warriors, yet his torso is
very long so that, when seated in counsel, he towers above all the
rest, and his words (for he is wily) overwhelm like a snowstorm in the
deep of winter. At the end of Plato's Republic, in the underworld,
when all the souls draw lots to see who will choose first amongst the
lives in which to be reborn, it is Odysseus who draws the last lot. Yet,
each soul chooses something opposite from its former life. A cruel
tyrant chooses the life of a swan. A slave chooses to be reborn as a
tyrant, only to discover that he is fated to eat his own children. Plato
says that it makes no difference whether one chooses first or last, for
each shall choose the life which they have been in karmic fashion
conditioned to choose by their previous experiences. Odysseus, who
chooses last, finds a life neglected by all the others, the life of a
middle class citizen in a free democratic society.

[nothingman87]

"I am an American, Chicago born, Chicago that somber city; and go at things as I have taught myself-first to knock, first admitted; sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes not so innocent."

From The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow

[EAP]

'Last Night I dreamt I went to Manderley again....'

[Scheherazade]

I hereby officially curse this thread! :flare: :cursing smiley:

I read it just before going to bed last night and could not fall asleep to save my life, trying to think what my favorite first sentence would be...

*shakes her fist and mumbles words in an odd language*

I still cannot decide which one mine would be. Everytime I think of one I am going 'Ahhh, yess...' gooey for a minute or two... Till I remember the next book...

OK, I am leaving... Some serious thinking to do.

[Jester]

lets see, first line from Morgan Llwelyn's the hosre goddess was "the spirits walked tonight" that was one of my favorite, it was also the first paragraph

one of my favorites was anne micheals, from fugitive peices "time is a blind guide" after reading this i started up a philosophical conversation with my dad in the middle of the bangladeshi airport in which he stalked off saying he doesn't like to think that way...

my favorite paragraph, chapter in any book is "my mother is a fish" from faulkner's as i lay dieing

and my favorite ending "tis" frank McCourt from angela's ashes

[Qwinto]

"The day broke dull and grey." (from Maugham's "Of Human Bondage")
Actually, I wanted to put here the first sentence of Marquez's masterpiece, but it was already here :)
I like Maugham's style so much, anyway.

[DumbLikeAPoet]

Wow its been a while since I posted here.

As for first lines, "The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed." from the Gunslinger: The Dark Tower Series

Jonus

[Jay]

Just a line to help Scher remembering her fave first line ever :angel:
"Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself." :D

[Isagel]

edited because mentioned spoiler.

NOOO - I haven´t read the last book yet! I have tried not to read anything in the thread "Favorite last lines" out of fear for something like this.

I wonder if this happened because Scheherazade cursed the thread? What did she say in ancient tounge? "Thou shallt look and behold a spoiler? "

[DumbLikeAPoet]

NOOO - I haven´t read the last book yet! I have tried not to read anything in the thread "Favorite last lines" out of fear for something like this.

I wonder if this happened because Scheherazade cursed the thread? What did she say in ancient tounge? "Thou shallt look and behold a spoiler? "

AHHH CRAP... sorry. I'll edit the post so no one else is spoiled.

Jonus

[EAP]

YIKES! I was spoiled the second time around, by the words in quote. :( :( :( :(

[Isagel]

Oh darn. I´ll take the quote away.
Sorry EAP!

[Psyche]

I am very fond of this first sentence:

"Like many another wild and anarchistic wanderer of our shattered times, I spend a lot of time asking myself questions that are officially classed as "nonsensical" by the Cambridge custodians of linguistic analysis."

[Spite]

"Wretched is he to whom the memories of Childhood bring only fear and sadness."

H.P. Lovecraft's "The Outsider"

My all time, over everything, favourite Story...Ever.

[atiguhya padma]

For its boldness and audacity, I like this opening line from Susan Elderkin's Sunset Over Chocolate Mountains:

'When he moved to the mountains of Arizona and set up home amongst the giant saguaros of the Sonoran Desert, Theobald Moon developed the habit of getting up early in the morning, peeing in a glass, and knocking it back in a few quick gulps while it was still warm and fresh.'

[Dyrwen]

I saw imthefoolonthehill post something from Fight Club, but they apparently only posted a favorite line, since the first sentence of FC is:

"Tyler gets me a job as a waiter, after that Tyler's pushing a gun in my mouth and saying, the first step to eternal life is you have to die."

And it happens to be my favorite.. heh. I mean, what a blunt way to start off a book? I don't really remember any lines from books, usually, since I have a hard time remembering actual text from the book. I'll know the story and why I liked it, but I probably couldn't quote much off the top of myhead.

[Surfer]

Some good first lines:


"You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel If On A Winter's Night A Traveller. Relax."

- Italo Calvino, If On A Winter's Night A Traveller.

"A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare to it now."

- Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow

"For whom is the Funhouse fun? Perhaps for lovers. For Ambrose it is a place of fear and confusion."

- John Barth, Lost in the Funhouse

"The Grandmother didnt want to go to Florida."

- Flannery O'Connor, A Good Man Is Hard To Find

"My dear friends, I knew you were faithful."

- Andre Gide, L'Immoraliste

"All of this happened while I was walking around starving in Christiana - that strange city no one escapes from until it has left its mark on him."

- Knut Hamsun, Hunger

"I will tell you something about stories,
[he said]
They arent just entertainment."

- Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony

"Since I cant tell this to anybody, I'm writing it, not just to sort it out for myself, but for someone nosy who'll rummage through my papers one day."

- Josip Novakovich, Salvation and Other Disasters

"It was love at first sight. The first time Yossarian saw the chaplain he fell madly in love with him."

- Joseph Heller, Catch-22

"If you have a cold, you do not need to worry about reinfecting yourself with your lip balm."

- Bill McKibben, The Age Of Missing Information

"Ka-boom!"

- Joshua Clover, Madonna Anno Domini

[Rechka]

There are only two first lines that I can recite from memory: Don Quixote's and García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Don Quixote's I memorized only because I studied hispanic literature and how could you not know that first sentence? The second one, I know because I simply love the book. It is the only book that I have read five times. If I had not read that book, my love for literature would have never been born. So, I did not memorize the line, I know it by heart in both English and Spanish. Oh, and what a last line too! But that's another topic...

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

[Sitaram]

Oh Jeez! Now we all gotta read that book! And what is the last line? (Don't do that to us!)

[Rechka]

Oh Jeez! Now we all gotta read that book! And what is the last line? (Don't do that to us!)

Actually, it's not the last line so much as it is the ending...a perfect circle.

[rodanho]

i like the first sentence in jane austen's pride and prejudice:it' a truth universally acknoledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune,must be in want of a wife.it is really a clever and rather impressive opening sentence,and it is also a concise summary of the whole plot.

[bruno russel]

i like first sentence of THE ART OF LIVING by a chines author, it is,
DISCONTENT IS DIVINE.

[Rachy]

There are two first lines that stand out in my mind. One comes from a book that, oddly enough, I have never read, but it is famous:

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, starts off, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

and, as simple as it is, I do like Herman Melvilles, "Call me Ishmael."


I have to agree with you on this one! I loved A Tale of Two Cities! I reccomend that you read it! I just remember a funny line from "3rd Rock from the Sun" when Dick is told to read more, and he picks up this book and he reads this sentence and says, "Well if he can't make up his mind in the first sentence I'm not going to bother reading it!" Was really funny, but this book is really good, definately one of my favourites and it was all thanks to that first paragraph that I kept on reading!

[Wendigo_49]

I like the first sentence in Samuel Beckett's Malone Dies: I shall soon be quite dead at last in spite of all.

[mono]

Okay, I know, this comes from a poem, but I can never stop loving John Keats' first sentence to Endymion:

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

[Molko]

I like the opening sentence to Anna Karenina: All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way..

I find it so beautiful and simple...

[Scorpionwingz]

No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scru- tinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water.

[Razeus]

"This is what happened."

Stephen King's "Mist" from the collection of short stories "Skeleton Crew"

My other favorite that someone else already mentioned is from Catcher in The Rye. Let's you know right from the start this guy's got problems.

[Nightshade]

:goof: I finally managed to remember and decide two of my faviorate first lines ever
the opening to The Turmoil by Booth Tarkington (1915 and avialable online)

There is a midland city in the heart of fair, open country, a dirty
and wonderful city nesting dingily in the fog of its own smoke.
dont you just love that line??
and The Shuttle by Frances Hodgson Burnett

No man knew when the Shuttle began its slow and
heavy weaving from shore to shore, that it was held
and guided by the great hand of Fate.
also avilable online.

[IrishCanadian]

Lara, dickens does it every time for opening sentences. "Jacob Marley was dead to begin with, dead as a dornail." I'm sure we all know which book this is. But what an eiry and somewhat hilariously morbid opening, i don't know if I should be laughing or creeped out at that. Merry Christmas

[lavendar1]

From Hemingway's "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place:"

It was very late and everyone had left the cafe except an old man who sat in the shadow the leaves of the tree made against the electric light. It was dusty, but at night the dew settled the dust and the old man liked to sit late because he was deaf and now at night it was quiet and he felt the difference.

A master of nuance...

[Nerd]

The first sentence does set the stage for the rest of the book.

(i.e. in Shelly's Frankenstein)

"You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanies the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings."

Of course, taken out of context, this sentence is really about the whole book. However, it is neither the Monster nor Victor Frankenstein himself who says this, but a sailor, who picked up Victor, writing to his sister, talking about his own supposed disaster. Each circle, in the book, if you will, relates the another story, or circle. As you leave the center of the story (a story trapped in a story trapped in a story), the 'right' and 'wrong' thing to do becomes more and more unclear. Morality becomes unclear. But, I suppose, I've strayed a little off of the original topic of a snatching first sentence. There is no use speaking of DeLacy, Victor, and the Monster, when they haven't even been introduced yet. To be fair, even Walton hasn't been introdueced yet, and he is the current speaker! Oh my.

[metaxy99]

"If I am out of my mind, it's alright with me, thought Moses Herzog."

- from Saul Bellow's Herzog

[Dickensian]

"Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show." The opening sentence of Dickens' "David Copperfield". I think that's the perfect first sentence for any "autobiography". And I really enjoy it when I go back to the first sentence of a book after finishing it and its just so fitting that I have to smile and realize that that sentence carried the weight of the entire book.

Another great opening sentence is from Khaled Hosseini's "The Kite Runner":
"I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975."

[Charles Darnay]

"Among other public buildings in a certain town, which for many reasons it will be prudent to refrain from mentioning, and to which I will assign no fictitious name, there is one anciently common to most towns, great or small: to wit, a workhouse; and in this workhouse was born; on a day and date which I need not trouble myself to repeat, inasmuch as it can be of no possible consequence to the reader," - Oliver Twist

[MikeK]

I looked through this whole thread and couldn't believe that my favorite wasn't mentioned. The best opening line in all of literature is from Dostoevsky's "Notes From Underground":

"I am a sick man...I am a wicked man. An unattractive man, I think my liver hurts."
(When I first read that I thought I'd picked up a copy of my unauthorized biography)
I don't know how you can possibly read that first line and then put the book down; well, I didn't.

Some honorable mention goes to Camus' "The Stranger" (which was mentioned before):

"Maman died today, or yesterday maybe, I don't know."

And as far as non-fiction what can possibly be more beautiful than this opening:

"Baseball is a game between two teams of nine players each, under direction of a manager, played on an enclosed field in accordance with these rules, under jurisdiction of one or more umpires."

[Pensive]

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 era of incrudelity, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to the Heaven, we were all going direct the other way - Charles Dickens in A Tale Of Two Cities.

[Virgil]

And as far as non-fiction what can possibly be more beautiful than this opening:

"Baseball is a game between two teams of nine players each, under direction of a manager, played on an enclosed field in accordance with these rules, under jurisdiction of one or more umpires."
Mike - Where is that quote from?

Sorry to hear you have so many things in common with Underground man. :D

[MikeK]

From the official baseball rule book. Rule 1.01

[Unspar]

I was trying desperately to find one that I loved, but it turns out that all the first sentences of all my favorite books are boring or already posted. Except for this one:

"Most pretty girls have pretty ugly feet, and so does Mindy Metalman, Lenore notices, all of a sudden."
--The Broom of the System by David Foster Wallace

[Bastet]

"En un lugar de la Mancha, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme..." (Don Quijote de La Mancha - Cervantes).

[_JadeRain_]

It was seven o'clock of a very warm evening in the Seeonee hills when Father Wolf woke up from his day's rest, scratched himself, yawned, and spread out his paws one after the other to get rid of the sleepy feeling in their tips.

_The Jungle Book_
By Rudyard Kipling

[bluevictim]

The wrath, goddess, sing, of Achilles, the Peleiadian offspring,
The ruinous wrath which inflicted innum'rable woes on th' Achaians,
And hurled forth toward the region of Hades so many robust souls
Of heroes, and made of their bodies convenient plunder for stray dogs
And every species of birds; but the council of Zeus was accomplished
From that same moment, when first those two stood divided in conflict --
Atreus' offspring, ruler of men, and the noble Achilles.

[optimisticnad]

Best first sentence? Without a doubt in '100 years of solitude':

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

Is that not the best? God the imagery! This is a character just about to die and if even now in this day and age we get all excited (well I do!) about snow but this is ice, block of ice, and hes just about to die and...fgkdjhxjdghgut (lost in thought...)

If you haven't already read this book: read it this summer! But keep a pen and paper handy ul get lost with names and whos related to who and whos sleeping with who (!) but its one hell of a read.

[optimisticnad]

Actually, what about Nabokov's 'Lollita', another great read:

'Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins'.

To fully appreciate this novel as the artistic piece it is read an annotated version of it, the allusions, the imagery, plot manipulations, symmetry between the starting and ending...list is endless. And of course the mystery!

[IrishCanadian]

I don't care for this story (or this author really) but the opening is absolutely brillient!

"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he foundhimself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect."

[genghiskhan]

"You're reading this for the wrong reason"
Dan Simmons, "Endymion"
I remembered this just now and I think that it is one of the best I can recall.

I love it.



Oh, and if I am not mistaken, the worst one is : "It was a dark, stormy night"

Anything that starts off "It was" makes me want to cry. Lazy way to start a story.

[genghiskhan]

Or, if you will indulge me three lines:

Mother died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; I can't be sure. The telegram from the Home says: YOUR MOTHER PASSED AWAY. FUNERAL TOMORROW. DEEP SYMPATHY. Which leaves the matter doubtful; it could have been yesterday.

Albert Camus, The Stranger

I am a big fan of The Stranger and that opening is fantastic. :thumbs_up

[PeterL]

I could even try to pick out a favorite, but Optimisticnad and Irish Canadian cited two great first sentences. I think that the story that I wrote that starts with the onomatoepeic word for someone vomitting is a really great beginning. I wish that I could sell the story.

[gothiclenore]

I was going to say Catcher in the Rye, and Tale of Two Cities, but someone else took my answers! :-p Um...actually what about David Copperfield? I must confess to have never read it, but doesn't it start "I was born". Or something like that? If so, I like it.

But please correct me if im wrong, thanks.

[IrishCanadian]

I could even try to pick out a favorite, but Optimisticnad and Irish Canadian cited two great first sentences. I think that the story that I wrote that starts with the onomatoepeic word for someone vomitting is a really great beginning. I wish that I could sell the story.
Cheers mate!
So ... whats the word you used?

[Jarndyce]

100 years is an all-time classic example, but the first line of Love in the Time of Cholera isn't bad, either:

"It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love."

[ShoutGrace]

"I can recall with utter clarity the first great shock of my life."

"The small boys arrived early for the hanging."

"It's your duty as well as mine to prevent such a marriage."

I think first lines that get you into the story are the best. I am discovering after going back to my favorite books that most of their first lines aren't too great actually!

[Daniel A. C.]

"Somebody must have made a false accusation against Joseph K., for he was arrested one morning without having done anything wrong."

- The Trial, Franz Kafka

Very plain, sort of legalistic writing that is used throughout the book, but it sets up the strange sort of narration that characterizes the novel: the sort of uncertainty about K.'s situation mixed with positive statements about K. that seem to be contradicted or undermined elsewhere.

[Woland]

I don't care for this story (or this author really) but the opening is absolutely brillient!

"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he foundhimself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect."

I love this opening line. Love Kafka too.

[Woland]

"Ignorance, error, cupidity and sin
Possess our souls and excercise our flesh;
Habitually we cultivate remorse
As beggars entertain and curse their lice."

A good translation of the first stanza from Au Lecteur, Baudelaire

[jane,Eyre,I,Lov]

"Once upon a time" fro theiron in i was totally hooked and could not put the book down

[rachel]

oh Once upon a time is almost my life's signature, I could not agree more.

I love this one very much:
All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Anna Karenina

[Scheherazade]

'It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love.' - Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

'Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.' - Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

'Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K., he knew he had done nothing wrong but, one morning, he was arrested.' - The Trial by Kafka

'I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.' - Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

[yunnie]

"Ignorance, error, cupidity and sin
Possess our souls and excercise our flesh;
Habitually we cultivate remorse
As beggars entertain and curse their lice."

A good translation of the first stanza from Au Lecteur, Baudelaire
I agree with you Woland.

La sottise, l'erreur, le péché, la lésine,
Occupent nos esprits et travaillent nos corps,
Et nous alimentons nos aimables remords,
Comme les mendiants nourrissent leur vermine.

But concerning Beaudelaire, it's better in French :D

[Cormeister37]

Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera - "It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love."

Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - "They're out there."

[superunknown]

If you'll permit me two sentences:

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far."
- H.P. Lovecraft - "The Call of Cthulhu"
BAM! Hook, line and sinker!

"The Miss Lonelyhearts of the New York Post-Dispatch (Are you in trouble?-Do-you-need-advice?-Write-to-Miss-Lonelyhearts-and-she-will-help-you) sat at his desk and stared at a piece of white cardboard."
Nathanael West - "Miss Lonelyhearts"

"It was 1590 - winter. Austria was far away from the world, and asleep; it was still the Middle Ages in Austria, and promised to remain so forever. Some even set it away back centuries upon centuries and said that by the mental and spiritual clock it was still the Age of Belief in Austria. But they meant it as a compliment, not a slur, and it was so taken, and we were proud of it."
Mark Twain - "The Mysterious Stranger"

"The idea of eternal return is a mysterious one, and Nietzsche has often perplexed other philosophers with it: to think that everything recurs as we once experienced it, and that the recurrence itself recurs ad infinitum! What does this mad myth signify?"
Milan Kundera - "The Unbearable Lightness of Being"

And perhaps the greatest beginning ever:

"When in April the sweet showers fall
And pierce the drought of March to the root, and all
The veins are bathed in liquor of such power
As brings about the engendering of the flower,
When also Zephyrus with his sweet breath
Exhales an air in every grove and heath
Upon the tender shoots, and the young sun
His half-course in the sign of the Ram has run,
And the small fowl are making melody
That sleep away the night with open eye
(So nature pricks them and their heart engages)
Then people long to go on pilgrimages
And plamers long to seek the stranger strands
Of far-off saints, hallowed in sundry lands,
And specially, from every shire's end
In England, down to Canterbury they wend
To seek the holy blissful martyr, quick
To give his help to them when they were sick."
Geoffrey Chaucer
Quite a hefty sentence! ;)

[Broken]

"The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." - Neuromancer by William S. Gibson

Never read the whole story, but that's a line that will stick with me.

[QueenMab]

Well, I think my fist place favourite would be the openning of Lolita, one of the few I've learnt by heart:
"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."

I first read this in a lingüistics book; the next day I went to the library. I love his style.

My second choice would be what I thought was the beginning of Paradise Lost. It is, but only in Spanish... translator's licence, I will type it anyway:

"Sing Heav'nly Muse, that on the secret top
Of Horeb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That Shepherd,[...]"

[blp]

'Never having known a mother, her mother died when Janey was a year old, Janey depended on her father for everything and regarded her father as boyfriend, brother, sister, money, amusement and father.' Kathy Acker Blood and Guts in Highschool

'My father's name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Peter. So I called myself Peter and came to be called Peter.' Kathy Acker Great Expectations

[imthefoolonthehill]

I want to be famous. I want to be so famous that movie stars hang out with me and talk about what a bummer their lives are.

(ok ok so it's two...so sue me)

And Charles Dicken's Great Expectations is a great book....

[VD300]

I'd have to say either
'It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on earth has ever produced the expression "As pretty as an airport."'- The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul by Douglas Adams
or
'Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore--
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"'Tis some visiter," I muttered, 'tapping at my chamber door--
Only this and nothing more."' The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe

[Suzieq47]

OK. I give up. "Who is John Galt?" I'll trade the name of that book for the name of the book with the first sentence:

"It was love at first sight."

I love this game. The classic "First Sentences" are just that: classics. In addition to "All happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way," which I THINK is a single sentence; I'm not sure. (Love that semicolon!), there's "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a gentleman in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." It's not fair to look them up. the fun is in the oh so slight misquoting . . . we aren't the artists who wrote the gems anyway, just the ohso affected readers!

Suzie

[Suzieq47]

I do like Herman Melvilles, "Call me Ishmael."

And then there's "Call me Ishmael, my parents did." What's the book?

Suzie

[TEND]

Probably been said somewhere already, but my favorite;
I am a sick man....I am a spiteful man.
:D Notes From Underground, Fyodor Dostoevsky

[Suzieq47]

That's the first line from Notes? Really. Grreat.

[rot]

“What’s it going to be then, eh?” - A Clockwork Orange.

Actually…

“What’s it going to be the, eh?
There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, Dim
being really dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar making up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening, a flip dark chill winter bastard though dry.”

[Suzieq47]

I've never read A Clockwork Orange, although I've read Burgess. That's just an "OK" first sentence, with all due respect. Again, can't count the second and third . . .

Suzie

[Suzieq47]

VD300: what book is this from: "He looked up and saw a bucket held by a man with no plot significance what so ever, and therefore his name was forgotten and he, or maybe a she (or maybe even an it), will be called 'John'."

Sounds so familiar. Marvelous sentence. But, although I give up, I still want to know.

Suzie

[Dusk]

I've always loved the begining of Poe's 'The Cast of Amontillado':

THE thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge.

[Manfred]

I've always loved the begining of Poe's 'The Cast of Amontillado':

THE thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge.

I love that story! My very favorite of Poe's short tales. Creepy.

[Mary Sue]

My favorite: "Call me Ishmael." (MOBY DICK).

[snowangel]

As the streets that lead from the Strand to the Embankment are very narrow, it is better not to walk down them arm-in-arm.

[Pendragon]

Call Me Ishmael.

(I know, it's crazy to have a favorite first line come from a book I can't stand, but it's simple, and it sticks with you. Perfect! :nod: )

[mono]

The first/last sentence (depending on how one reads it) of a book that could very well drive me wild with thought:

Given! A way a lone a last a loved a long the . . . riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.

Finnegans Wake by James Joyce

[blossom31]

Or, if you will indulge me three lines:

Mother died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; I can't be sure. The telegram from the Home says: YOUR MOTHER PASSED AWAY. FUNERAL TOMORROW. DEEP SYMPATHY. Which leaves the matter doubtful; it could have been yesterday.

Albert Camus, The Stranger


I remember doing that for my french A level...Maman est mort...

Anyway, first line - It is a truth universally acknowledged that a man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. P&P

[Behemoth]

"I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975"
Khaled Hosseini, "The Kite Runner"

[ryan24]

In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. - Douglas Adams, the restaurant at the end of the universe

[Larry99]

The opening sentence you quote is excellent. Have a look at http://openingsentences.com for some other good ones.

[Jean-Baptiste]

Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo...

[carina_gino20]

I love that story! My very favorite of Poe's short tales. Creepy.

The Cask of Amontillado is brilliant.:thumbs_up

I just read H.H. Munro's The Open Window today so...

"My aunt will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel," said a very self-possessed young lady of fifteen; "in the meantime you must try and put up with me."

[mono]

Perhaps with Notes From The Underground, we can make an exception to 'first sentence' with the choppy, blunt, and brief nature of the book. The first several sentences:

I am a sick man, I am an angry man. I am an unattractive man. I think there is something wrong with my liver. But I don't understand the least thing about my illness, and I don't know for certain what part of me is affected. I am not having any treatment fo rit, and never have had, although I have a great respect for medicine and for doctors. I am besides extremely superstitious, if only in having such respect for medicine. I am well educated enough not to be superstitious, but superstitious I am. No, I refuse treatment out of spite. That is something you will probably not understand. Well, I understand it.

[chanson]

"The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino can be nauseating at 3 a.m. James Bond suddenly knew that he was tired." adaptation:
"The animal screams and technicolor gore of a torture chamber -- viewed remmotely over a live internet TV hookup -- can be stimulating at 3 AM. George W. Bush was wide awake, unusally :lol: alert."

[subterranean]

Perhaps with Notes From The Underground, we can make an exception to 'first sentence' with the choppy, blunt, and brief nature of the book. The first several sentences:


Somehow those lines bring my mind to Nietzsche's first lines in Why I am So Clever, which I think show a strong sense of self confidence.



Why do I know more than other people? Why, in general, am I so clever?

[Larry99]

Does anybody know where this opening sentence is from.
I was told it is from How The Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss, but it doesnt seem to check out.

[ShoutGrace]

Does anybody know where this opening sentence is from.
I was told it is from How The Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss, but it doesnt seem to check out.

How can it either seem to check out or not check out? It's a book . . . isn't it either there or not there?

I don't have the book around, but according to a random Internet search, it appears as if the movie version begins with a narrator saying the following words.

"Once, in a snowflake, like the one on your sleeve, there happened a story you must see to believe."

Though I've no idea if that is faithful to the book or not.

[mono]

Does anybody know where this opening sentence is from.
I was told it is from How The Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss, but it doesnt seem to check out.
Like ShoutGrace, I could not find the next in reference to the Dr. Seuss book How The Grinch Stole Christmas, but I found that it came from the narrator's opening voice in the film adaption:

Once, in a snowflake, like the one on your sleeve, there happened a story you must see to believe.

[Larry99]

Thanks for the replies Shout Grace and Mono

[Optamill]

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

[diceman81]

The Turn of the Screw - Henry James

'The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas eve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be, I remember no comment uttered till somebody happened to say that it was the only case he had met in which such a visitation had fallen on a child'

[MDalloway112]

I think the whole first paragraph has to be posted:

"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."

Thrills and chills.

But I'll also second the motions for Calvino's If on a winter's night a Traveller, Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, and Salinger's Catcher in the Rye.

Also, yes, Camus:

« Aujourd'hui, maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas. J'ai reçu un télégramme de l'asile : “Mère décédée. Enterrement demain. Sentiments distingués.” Cela ne veut rien dire. C'était peut-être hier. »

[Egil Skallagrim]

"I can feel the heat closing in, feel them out there making their moves."

From then on it only gets better.

[CynicalRomantic]

there are so many first sentences that influence you to read a book, and then there are first sentences that influence yout to read it again. i have many favourites, many of them are deep and hold profound thought, but the one that leaps to mind without really having to think much is:

Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens

My father's family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.

It is this sentence that never fails to intrigue me, and being a concise, to-the-point beginning, and brings about a beautiful realisation of the human physche. I take it as it is, it's snappy, and never fails to capture my fancy.

[Mrs Dickens]

I have two...

The one in my signature from Pride and Prejudice.

And the opening line in A Tale of Two Cities.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."

[whitetree]

dulas
"l'amant"
I am old .
one day ,in a public place,a man walked to me .he said to me ,I Know you and always remeber you .you are a young lady in that time,and everybody told that you are so pretty. now I just come to tell you that you appears more beauty in this time , compare to your young face ,I love your old rough face better.

not factly

[whitetree]

sorry
the translation is not exact

[whitetree]

I LIKE "One Hundred Years of Solitude" SO MUCH
but the first word is not the best
however
the first man who begins with that is the best

[jcrowley]

I agree with the three postings of Lolita. Nabokov also has a pretty good opening to his biography, Speak Memory: "The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two extremities of darkness" - a lullaby beginning.

[ladymacbeth]

Without a doubt it would have to be Woman in White...

"This is the story of what a Woman's patience can endure, and what a
Man's resolution can achieve."

[Bysshe]

"Granted: I am an inmate of a mental hospital; my keeper is watching me, he never lets me out of his sight; there's a peephole in the door, and my keeper's eye is the shade of brown that can never see through a blue-eyed type like me."

- The Tin Drum

[Aurora Ariel]

Bysshe,

For some reason your quote immediately reminded me of The Bell Jar. I haven’t even read The Tin Drum but I think the part about the “inmate of a mental hospital” made me instantly think of Plath. The opening of her book is actually probably one of my favourites:

“It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.”

- The Bell Jar

It’s really offbeat, and creates a sense of mental instability, intriguing confusion, and brimming darkness, despite the seemingly warm and sweet season.

[subterranean]

Ariel, are we neighbours now? :D

We live on the same street!

I'm still trying to finish Fast Food Nation.

[Bysshe]

Bysshe,

For some reason your quote immediately reminded me of The Bell Jar. I haven’t even read The Tin Drum but I think the part about the “inmate of a mental hospital” made me instantly think of Plath. The opening of her book is actually probably one of my favourites:

“It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.”

- The Bell Jar

It’s really offbeat, and creates a sense of mental instability, intriguing confusion, and brimming darkness, despite the seemingly warm and sweet season.


Yes, I know what you mean. When I read the first sentence of The Tin Drum the book that it reminded me of at first was One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - probably because I'd just been reading it - but thinking about it now, it is quite similar to the beginning of The Bell Jar.

I'm sure you already have a very long reading list, but if you're ever looking for something new to read I'd recommend The Tin Drum. I'm not that far into it, but it's very interesting so far.

Nice to see you on here, by the way. :)

[malwethien]

I'm also a "first sentence" kind of person myself. I rarely remember the last lines of a book but i usually dwell on the first lines. There's just something about opening lines....I read them over and over again before I continue reading the whole thing...

Some of my favorite first lines are:

"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul." (Lolita - V. Nabokov)

"If you really want to hear about it,the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born,and what my lousy childhood was like,and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me,and all that David Copperfield kind of crap.(Catcher in the Rye)

[Aurora Ariel]

Bysshe,

Yes, I can see where you are coming from. I am practically burying myself up to the neck in books and papers already, but if I do get the chance to have a good look at The Tin Drum I'll sure let you know! ;) It does sound quite intriguing.

Sub,

I just wanted to officially welcome you to the neighbourhood! You're currently located at the coolest street, so feel free to drop by my place for a chat or some gorgeously fresh tea whenever you want. :)


Others that came to mind after I posted last time:

"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."

- Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

A very atypical, often cited beginning that certainly made me curious to read more.

''What's it going to be then, eh?''

- A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

This plain and simple, but addictive, opening line is used in part one, two and three of the book. I even recall enthusiastically going around and uttering it to people straight after I originally read the book, now quite some time back.

"Mrs. Dalloway said she would by the flowers herself."

- Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

She is all the more lovely with her flowers.

"I still remember the day my father took me to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books for the first time."

- The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

For some strange reason the opening of Zafon's mammoth, mad, and mysteriously melodramatic gothic-inspired book has struck deep in my mind, though it's always nice to read about a book within a book, and this is definitely not the worst of this genre that I've encountered thus far.

"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 or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."

- A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

This is probably the best opening from a Charles Dickens work.

[ennison]

A good beginning and one which is significant tonally or thematically or for the plot is a kind of grail for many writers. Dickens was almost always excellent at the start of his novels. Some writers shock for the sake of it and that's their high point gone. If I remember rightly 'A Passage to India' starts as follows:
'Except for the Marabar Caves - and they are twenty miles off - the city of Chandrapore presents nothing extraordinary.'
I'd say he got it right there and the rest of the first paragraph continues with the same apparently indifferent travelogue tone while slipping in details that will be significant later to plot and theme. Self-consciously creative writers spend a lot of thought on their beginnings but it's only in retrospective analysis that we sometimes notice the more subtle artistry.

What about these eleven?

'In front of one of the most palatial hotels in the world, a very young man was accustomed to sit on a bench which, when the light fell a certain way, shone like gold.'

'See the child.'

'Captain Everard Gault wounded the boy in the right shoulder on the night of June the twenty-first, nineteen twenty-one.'

'I was set down from the carrier's cart at the age of three; and there with a sense of bewilderment and terror my life in the village began.'

'When I heard my father calling ''Charles!'' from his study I knew that trouble was coming.'

'I had even reached the point of wondering if Geraldine Brevoort's suicide. so long dreaded, might not prove in the event a relief, but like everything else about Geraldine, when it came, it came with a nasty twist'

'There came Death hurtling along the Bouevard in waning sepia light.'

'Even Camilla had enjoyed masquerades, of the sort where the mask may be dropped at that critical moment it presumes itself as reality.'

'The young women of Fada, in Nigeria, are well known for beauty.'

'The reader must not expect to know where I live.'

'A nis ri linn nam breitheamha bha gorta ' s an tir.'

Now granted I'm cheating you a bit with the last one which is very well known in many languages these beginnings are all different and all have something remarkable about them but , like Forster above, what is remarkable about them may not be obvious to the reader until later. Although this is a highly artificial exercise would any of these opening sentences (Bar the last which I'll translate later.) encourage you to read more - say the first page or so?

I was desperately trying to remember the opening sentence of a novel called 'The Tomorrow File' but I couldn't be certain so I didn't use it. If I can remember it I'll send it.

I'm sure a lot of you will know the titles or authors of a lot of the above.

[ennison]

Translation of the last one there goes like this, 'Now in the era of the judges there was hunger in the land'
There always is hunger when people are ruled by men with feet of clay and expect rules and man-made guidlines to save them. That is the sub-text of the opening and the story which illustrates the satisfying of spiritual and physical hunger takes off from there. I'm sure lots of you will recognise the beginning of 'The Book of Ruth.

[Dorian Gray]

The first things that came to mind;

It is a truth universally acknowledged that every single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

Two households. (Both alike in dignity. In fair Verona where we lay our scene. Etc)

[BobbyMacG]

The opening sentance by Truman Capote "In Cold Blood"

[ennison]

Ah Capote - Lee's 'pocket Merlin'. How does it go? 'The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat fields of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call ''out there'' '

[ennison]

It's really the rest of that paragraph that I like.

[Niamh]

'Yes,' said tom bluntly, on opening the front door. 'What d'you want?'

Opening line of Goodnight Mr Tom By Michelle Magorian.

I remember it cause it was so blunt and straight to the point. You where in the story before you even knew it!

Yep i think the first line from Pride and Prejudice is also memerable.

When shall we three meet again, in thunder lightning or in rain? MacBeth

[whyspr]

"In a hole there lived a Hobbit." ;)

[ennison]

Magorian's novel is an excellent one for young teenagers. Wholesome. Time enough for decadence once your intellectual muscles are wiry and strong.

[Niamh]

My favourite sentence from a book is actually not a first sentence but from the end of the third page of the book and has stayed in my mind for about ten years;

Framed in the doorway stood a man resembling an old umbrella forgotten at a picnic.
Its from a comic historical novel written by Robert Hogan and James Douglas called Murder at the Abbey Theatre

It's supposed to be a decription of W.B.Yeats as he enters the theatre. :)

[ennison]

Ah yes Yeats like a broken old umbrella - a good image. When I was wee I thought he had invented his lake Isle but there is such a place.

The first of my eleven above is from the brilliant James Purdy who is most certainly a decadent writer and probably proud to be so.

[Niamh]

I thought it was a bit cheeky posting an Irish Quote- seeing as even i had difficulty translating it. but then again my irish is terrible!

Heres a first paragraph that made me laugh. (Hang her head in shame as she writes)

Whats my name? I don't even bother answering him, just reef open the glove compartment and hand him my licence through the window, roysh, and he gives it the once over and he goes, @this is a provisional licence,' making no effort at all to hide the fact he's a bogger. like he's actually proud of it. I go, ' Your point is?' and the way he looks at me, roysh, i can tell he wants to snap those bracelets on me and haul my arse off to Donnybrook.

Dont laugh its from Ross o'carroll Kelly;The miseducation Years by Paul Howard. :blush:

[ennison]

A bit cheeky? Gerron there's folk from all over posting here and I aint seen no banning on any tongue. Co dhiu - eadar-theangaich mi e. Airson na Phillistich bochd.

On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travellers into the gulf below. The Bridge of San Luis Rey.
I like that precisely chosen 'precipitated'

The boys, as they talked to the girls from Marcia Blaine School, stood on the far side of their bicycles holding the handlebars, which established a protective fence of bicycle between the sexes, and the impression that at any moment the boys were likely to be away. - The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

Now what would these awful feminists read into that opening sentence?

[Niamh]

Hey i was only teasing about being cheeky!

Anyway this was the first line the character i played in the medieval play mankind. i think its class!

I come with my legs under me.

[brainstrain]

This isn't a first sentence, but it is in the first paragraph or so:

"We were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way..."
-A Tale of Two Cities

[ennison]

Gee I knew you were teasing. I aint no humourless atheist my Irish web faery.

[huck_finn]

Hello everyone! I 'm a new member and a first timer. May I just request one thing? Why not make list of these first sentences opposite their titles especially the classic ones? Example: Hamlet - "______________________"

[chasestalling]

this isn't a first sentence technically, but get a load of these apples.

i was the shadow of the waxwing slain
by the false azure of the window pane.

now compare the above to:

brightly lit from above i am sitting in
my circular room, this is i looking up
at a sky made of stucco, at a sixty
watt sun in that sky.

my sources tell me that nabokov wrote pale fire as a tribute to vladislav felitsianov (?) hodesevich. the most difficult thing he's ever composed, nabokov is quoted as saying. the best, in my opinion.

[Niamh]

Gee I knew you were teasing. I aint no humourless atheist my Irish web faery.

I Know.

btw... what did you say? you have proved that i should hang my head in same for not knowing my native language.:blush:

maybe i should go back to the land of my ancestors. 'i shall arise and go...'

[toni]

This is from Charles Dickens' Hard Times.
( can I bend the rules a wee bit? Like a lead paragraph?)
This is my favorite lead so far-


Now what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else would be of service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to the Facts, Sir!

[Pensive]

This is from Charles Dickens' Hard Times.
( can I bend the rules a wee bit? Like a lead paragraph?)
This is my favorite lead so far-
I found it striking as well. :)

There are many sentences in this book which are really powerful.

[EAP]

The boys, as they talked to the girls from Marcia Blaine School, stood on the far side of their bicycles holding the handlebars, which established a protective fence of bicycle between the sexes, and the impression that at any moment the boys were likely to be away.

- The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

'Now what would these awful feminists read into that opening sentence?'

Bait?

[ennison]

Yup I guess it's my contribution to the energy crisis (Crisis? What crisis?) Random incendiary comments to produce warmth!

[alhara]

We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold." Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

[ennison]

Well that bit says - 'Anyway I translated it for the poor Phillistines'

[ennison]

The second one of the eleven is from 'Blood Meridian' An amazing novel. I prefer 'Child of God' though. Only just.

[x894565256]

lol, I was going to put this! But that's fine, I'll settle with Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle's first line instead: Call me Jonah. :D

im going to have to agree with you there...

[ennison]

There is the start of Trevor's 'The Story of Lucy Gault'. Lee's image-packed autobiography 'Cider With Rosie' and novels by Gaddis, Auchincloss, Oates

[Tiresias]

"if i am out of my mind, it's alright with me, thought moses herzog"

saul bellow, herzog

[downing]

''Scarelt O'Hara wasn't beautiful, but men seldon realised this when they were under her charm...''

[JACO PASTORIUS]

Im reading ATLAS SHRUGGED NOW. It's definately a good opening statement because it is essential to the novel as a whole. Ayn Raynd is amazing.

[JACO PASTORIUS]

"Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo..." A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man."

[Larry99]

I am trying to track down the opening sentence of "Butterfly" by James M Cain. van anybody help m?

[livelaughlove]

"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again..." - Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier

Superb!

[Rosalind_May]

"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..."

- A Tale of Two Cities

[Aerendwraca]

The thousand injuries of Fortunado I had borne as best I could; but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed Revenge.

Poe's "Cask of Amontillado"

[dorindapaige]

Clare: It's hard being left behind. I wait for Henry, not knowing where he is, wondering if he's okay. It's hard to be the one who stays.

-The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

[Tenacious]

It's dusk and the moon is full on a cold night three days after the meeting with the general, the towering spires of the monastery spiking through the purple sky, seeming to impale stars, planets and full constellations...

Introduction to Part 3 - Darkness Chilled of a Short Story.

[Daizee]

In your opinion, which is the most captivating first line you've ever read?

Yours, Daizee xx

[Annamariah]

Best first line is of course from Pride and Prejudice, which is my signature :D

Here's another one which I think is quite good:

"A woman can usually get what she wants from a man if she has a well-developed figure. So I've decided to stuff four handkerchiefs into the front of my dress tomorrow; then I shall look really grown up. Actually I am grown up already, but nobody else knows that, and I don't altogether look it."
(Annemarie Selinko - Désiréé)

[kenikki]

"Vaughan died yesterday in his last car-crash."

Crash - J.G. Ballard.

[bookseller]

My favorite first line ever comes from Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston:

"Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others, they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men.

Now women forget all those things they don't want to remember, and remember everything they don't want to forget. The dream is the truth. They act and do things accordingly"


Those are my favorite opening lines ever. What are yours?