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

"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". Gabriel García Márquez, A Hundred Years of Solitude.

"I often dream about the Dolphin Hotel". Haruki Murakami, Dance Dance Dance.

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

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice.
 
None particularly stand out for me, but I had a browse and while not particularly catchy, the line
"Like many of us, I think, my father spent the measure of his life piecing together a story he would never understand" - Rule Of Four
was quite meaningful.

I apologise, this is a little off tangent, but my favourite starting sentance of anything ever is the first line of the Max Payne computer game. I think it should be law that every piece of literature should start with that line; I have an image of a modern day remake of MacBeth that starts like that :p
 
How about:

"If there is one thing i hate", I said to the beautiful woman on the airplane, "its meeting a beautiful woman on an airplane."
 
Zolipara said:
How about:

"If there is one thing i hate", I said to the beautiful woman on the airplane, "its meeting a beautiful woman on an airplane."
Click to expand...


Sounds GREAT!!! Well? What happens next? airplane bathroom??
what book is that from?


"Death is my beat" - Michale Connelly
 
Favorite Opening Lines

A good opening line can tell you that you are in for something special. Here are a couple of my favorites:

"It was a pleasure to burn."
Fahrenheit 451

"The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed."
The Gunslinger
 
"My father and mother should have stayed in New York where they met and where I was born. Instead, they returned to Ireland when I was four, my brother, Malachy, three, the twins, Oliver and Eugene, barely one, and my sister, Margaret, dead and gone." Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt.

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

"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" Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
 
From Choke by Chuck Palahniuk:
"If you're going to read this, don't bother."

From Misery by Stephen King:
"umber whunnnn
yerrrnnn umber whunnnn
fayunnnn
These sounds: even in the haze."
 
It was a wrong number that started it, the telephone ringing three times in the dead of night, and the voice on the other end asking for someone he was not.

Paul Auster - The New York Trilogy.
 
"It was a pleasure to burn."
Fahrenheit 451

"The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed"
The Gunslinger

In that one you have everything: scene, character, and action.
 
I have a couple:
"In the beginning, there were 36 of them, 36 droplets of life so tiny that Eduardo could see them only under a microscope."
The House of the Scorpion - Nancy Farmer

"Merlin heard them first."
Finishing Becca - Ann Rinaldi
I havent finished this book yet but the beginning just made me wonder who is merlin?? what did he hear?

"The songs of the dead are the lamentations of the living."
Eldest - Christopher Paolini
i knew this was going to be a good book because of Eragon but that first sentence just hooked me!
 
I have seen the opening lines of Lolita and One Hundred Years of Solitude mentioned and agree completely that they're two of the best. I'd add the first sentences of The Great Gatsby and (my translation anyhow) of The House of Spirits.
 
Well, I'm probably forgetting some really good books, but I like this one:

"A storm is rolling in, and that always makes me a little sad and wistful so I got it in my head to set to paper all these things that have got us this far on our way through this heathen land. Its been a sorrowful journey so far and hard and so if we don't get to San Angelo or even as far as Fort Hancock I am saving this little theme in my cigar box for some wandering travelers to find and know whose bones these is."

From These is my Words by Nancy E. Turner

And also, although this is not technically the start of the book, it's at the beginning and too good not to add:

"It wasn't a dark and stormy night. It should have been, but that's the weather for you."

From Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
 
From Michael Crichton's The Andromeda Strain,

"A man with binoculars. That is how it began: a man standing by the side of the road, on a crest overlooking a small Arizona town, on a winter night."
 
Not exactly opening quote...but John Grisham's The Testament has a great opening chapter. It'll get you hooked as soon as you start reading it.
 
Paradice Lost

Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat

John Milton
Paradice Lost
 
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

It just makes me laugh so much, that you'd just assume this in that time...:p
 
Favorite first words

For me, many of the most memorable works both read and written have been attached to a great first set of words. we all know "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times," but with that (for me) also goes "officious little pr*ck" (stephen king, the shining). there's many out there, with varying flavors all indicative of the coming story.

what i was wondering is-- how do you guys approach the beginnng of a work? to you aim for a compelling set of words as i do?

and what are some of your favorite beginnings?
 
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