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What's the best opening line of a book (fiction or non)?

Alright, back to the topic of this thread.

I've got a fabulous first line from a book for you guys. It's from I, Lucifer by Glen Duncan. It's a bit naughty, but I assume you guys will be able to look past that.

Sink your teeth into this one:

"I, Lucifer, Fallen Angel, Prince of Darkness, Bringer of Light, Ruler of Hell, Lord of the Flies, Father of Lies, Apostate Supreme, Tempter of Mankind, Old Serpent, Prince of This World, Seducer, Accuser, Tormentor, Blasphemer, and without a doubt Best **** in the Seen and Unseen Universe (ask Eve, that minx) have decided - oo-la-la! - to tell all."
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Gets your attention, doesn't it?

Cheers, Martin :D
 
"As geographers, Sosius, crowd into the edges of their maps parts of the world which they do not know about, adding notes in the margin to the effect, that beyond this lies nothing but the sandy deserts full of wild beasts, unapproachable bogs, Scythian ice, or a frozen sea, so in this work of mine, in which I have compared the lives of the greatest men with one another, after passing through those periods which probable reasoning can reach to and real history find a footing in, I might very well say of those that are farther off: "Beyond this there is nothing but prodigies and fictions, the only inhabitants are the poets and inventors of fables;there is no credit, or certainty any farther."

Plutarch, Parallel Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans.

It is an old story
But one that can still be told
About a man who loved
And lost a friend to death
And learned he lacked the power
To bring him back to life.
It is the story of Gilgamesh
And his friend Enkidu.

Gilgamesh.
 
I let a pretty good snort out in a bookstore when I read this opening to Minette Walters' The Ice House:

"Fred Phillips is running."
Anne Cattrell's remark burst upon the silence of that afternoon like a fart at a vicar's tea-party.

:D
 
Hannibal, I just read that line at work and I cracked up to a room full of people who now think I'm crazy. It was worth it though! I get the feeling you'd appreciate Monty Python sketches....

Oh and Martin the line about the beets is absolutely brilliant, reminds me of the fact that there are so many books out there I want to read. The paragraph from I,Lucifer definitely makes me want to read on!

I haven't quite decided what my favourite opener to a book is yet, but watch this space
 
I don't know if it the best line, but it certainly stuck in my mind...

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

The opening line of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.


Another good one is Dickens' Two Cities:

"It was the best of times. It was the worst of times."
 
"It all started with a scream; it was awakening within me, the devil stirred his syrup of lava as he taunted me with a taste of hell."
 
Originally posted by Owen
"It all started with a scream; it was awakening within me, the devil stirred his syrup of lava as he taunted me with a taste of hell."
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Which book is that??:confused:

Hobitten:(
 
I can't believe no one's said Italo Calvino's "If on a winter's night a traveller"

Here's the first few lines of chapter 1:

"You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a winter's night a traveller. Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every thought. Let the world around you fade. Best to close the door; the TV is always on in the next room. Tell the others right away, "No! I don't want to watch TV!" ...
 
Hi :)

I don't know that I can anwswer with THE fav line of all time. Here are a few that stand out in my mind and I think are very good :)

( From memory ) Neuromancer by Willam Gibson.
"The sky was the colour of a T.V set tuned to a dead channel."

100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remmember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.


Salamander by Thomas Wharton
A burning scrap of paper drifts down out of the rain. A magic carpet on fire. It falls with a hiss to the wet stones of the street.
 
Originally posted by Idun
The first sentence of Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol', short, but witty and meaningful. It goes: 'Marley was dead; to begin with.' , as far as I remember. I like it because this statement is quite unexpectable and uncommon as for a beginning of a book. You think: 'Who was this Marley? Why does he appear on the first page, if he definitely won't appear later, unless in a description of former times.'
However, from the book you find out that old Marley's death was very significant for the action, and what's more, he later does appear, surprisingly, in the middle of present events.
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Damn, I was going to say that.

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

A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
 
"We were somewhere around Barstow, at the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold" Hunter S Thompson

Typical of Thompson, just dives headfirst into the insanity
 
I think that that is probably THE best first sentence, but here are a couple more:
"Yesterday afternoon the six-o'clock bus ran over Miss Bobbit." from the story Children on their Birthdays in Capote's "The Grass Harp."

"That night we lay on the floor in the room and I listened to the silk worms eating." from Now I Lay Me in Hemingway's "Men Without Women."
 
not a novel (and i know that i said in my profile that even when im an economics student i dont enjoy reading economics books, and believe me i didnt) but i dont feel like start looking around the house for books but i have at hand keynes' general theory of employment interest and money which i think has a very strong and defiant first paragraft especially if you realize that back when he wrote the book he wasnt consolidated as an economist

it basically says everthing ever say by the "great" economists in the last couple hundred years (even the ones alive on today) about how economy works its bullsh*t, so ill tell you how it works

i quote: I HAVE called this book the General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, placing the emphasis on the prefix general. The object of such a title is to contrast the character of my arguments and conclusions with those of the classical[1] theory of the subject, upon which I was brought up and which dominates the economic thought, both practical and theoretical, of the governing and academic classes of this generation, as it has for a hundred years past. I shall argue that the postulates of the classical theory are applicable to a special case only and not to the general case, the situation which it assumes being a limiting point of the possible positions of equilibrium. Moreover, the characteristics of the special case assumed by the classical theory happen not to be those of the economic society which we actually live, with the result that its teaching is misleading and disastrous if we attempt to apply it to the facts of experience.

(im breaking copyright? i mean the book was written in 1936 :confused: really i dont know, its this kind of posting allowed? if not please let me know and please tell me what i should have done :D )

an introduction like this would look like professional suicide :rolleyes:

ok i promisse one of these days ill get myself to check some books to post some nice intro lines ;)

hope this post its not as boring as it seems
 
How about this for an opening line?

"It was the afternoon of my 81st birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me."

(From "Earthly Powers" by Anthony Burgess)
 
Some of us had been threatening out friend Colby for a long time, because of the way he had been behaving. And now he'd gone too far, so we decided to hang him.


--from "Some of us had been threatening our friend Colby," one of the 40 Stories by Donald Barthelme.

Ok, so technically, it's a short story, not a novel, and it's actually 2 sentences, but it's still COOL.
 
"There was a wall."-Ursula le Guin, 'the Dispossessed'

Why? Because it seems completely and utterly irrelevant, and is hardly the most interesting of objects, but the wall comes to symbolise the entire society of Anarres itself, whilst still being...a wall.
 
"The difference from a person and an angel is easy. Most of an angel is on the inside and most of a person is on the inside." These are the words of six-year-old Anna, sometimes called Mouse Hum, or Joy.

Mister God, this is Anna, by Fynn.

It's his story of meeting Anna, and his experiences with her. It's a lovely book :)

Lynne
 
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