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

Halo

Halo

New Member
Like it says, what's the best opening line of a book ever, in your opinion, and why? Maybe it's hilarious, maybe it's exciting, maybe it's just downright strange! It's probably impossible to choose just one, but my choice is from something I read fairly recently:

"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."

from "Mortal Engines" by Philip Reeve.

I love this sentence because you read it and just think "What?! A city chasing a town? Cities can't move!" It's intriguing and quite strange, and also tells you that it's set sometime in the future because of the reference to the North Sea. It really sets up the book well, in my opinion.

Anyone else care to contribute? :)
 
"She only stopped screaming when she died. It was then that he started to scream"

From Jeffrey Archer's Kane & Abel

I read this and thought "what the hell is this book going to be about?" It grabbed my attention straight away and I read the whole book in about two days!
 
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.
 
The best opening line for a book I've ever read, I read at least two years ago. That proves already it was great, don't you think?
"We say a million things everyday, but the most important things are the hardest to say."-Stephan King, Fall From
Innocence: The Body
Gripping, isn't it? This turned out to be a really good book. However it was written in the seventies, and it's really noticable!
 
"The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed." ---Stephen King.

Portentous opening line in The Gunslinger, Book One of the tantalizing epic Dark Tower series.
 
It was a dark and stormy night ... "

Actually, the first line in its entirety reads, "It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents--except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."

Classic! :)
 
I like the opening line which you mentioned, Jellyberry. :cool:

By the way, there is a book ending similar in meaning to this one - in Gombrowicz's Ferdydurke.
 
I've just started reading 'Lucky Man', an autobiography of/by Michael J. Fox. I've always liked him, as a performer, starting with 'Family Ties' (in the eighties), up until 'Spin City' (which he left about a year ago) and everything inbetween. He will always remain one of my favourite actors, partly because of his illness, and how he's coping with it.

Anyway, the first sentences from his autobiography go as follows:

I woke up to find the message in my hand. It had me trembling. It wasn't a fax, telegram, memo, or the usual sort of missive bringing disturbing news. In fact, my hand held nothing at all. The trembling was the message.

I just loved that, it genuinely touched me, that one small paragraph.

Cheers, Martin :D
 
"It was a pleasure to burn."

Ray Bradbury - Fahrenheit 451

Now can you read that line without going on to the next? I couldn't =)
 
its hard to think of a good first line but i can think of THE BEST first chapter or two in F. Paul Wilson's "Sibs"

i know its off topic .....sorry
 
How about this one?

'Now why would anyone become a prostitute?' the white guy asked, sipping his iced coffee through a long, skinny straw.

I had to keep reading, to see if the answer was given.

Oh, the quote is from Pat Cadigan's Tea From an Empty Cup
 
oh forget the one i said before i couldnt think of this one

"Shortly before being knocked unconscious and bound to a chair, before being injected with an unknown substance against his will,...." it goes on into a pretty long runon sentance but it was a very good opener and had me hooked from the first page

oh yeah the like is from "By the light of the moon" by Dean Koontz
 
I've got three nice ones. You'll like these. Seriously. Here goes:

"If this typewriter can't do it, then **** it, it can't be done." From Still Life With Woodpecker by Tom Robbins.

Next...

"The beet is the most intense of vegetables. The raddish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the raddish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets are deadly serious." From Jitterbug Perfume by, again, Tom Robbins.

And...

"The magician's underwear has just been found in a cardboard suitcase floating in a stagnant pond on the outskirts of Miami. However significant that discovery may be - and there is the possibility that it could alter the destiny of each and every one of us - it is not the incident with which to begin this report." From Another Roadside Attraction by, you guessed it, Tom Robbins.

Told ya you'd like them.

Cheers, Martin :D
 
"Somewhere else, in a room shadowed by age and death, a man readies himself to look into the future for what may be the last time"-From City of Bones, by Martha Wells
That opening line caught my eye as very interesting, I set the book how for a second... "huh.." but, who can forget the best opening line of any story?
"Once upon a time.."
 
"Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley again"
Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier

It brings back the whole novel to me, just in those few words!

Ed.
 
I've got another one (I find myself actively looking for good opening lines to post in this thread; should this worry me?). Don't worry, it's not from Tom Robbins.

"I had been making the rounds of the Sacrifice Poles the day we heard my brother had escaped. I already knew something was going to happen; the factory told me."
From 'The Wasp Factory' by Iain Banks, and it made me very curious indeed.

Speaking of 'The Wasp Factory', I think there's a mistake in the blurb. I'll underline it:

"Two years after I killed Blyth I murdered my young brother Paul, for quite different reasons than I'd disposed of Blyth, and then a year after that I did for my young cousin Esmerelda , more or less on a whim. That's my score to date. Three. I haven't killed anybody for years and don't intend to ever again. It was just a stage I was going through."

The underlined bit isn't right, is it? I mean, when you put it in the context it's supposed to be in. I think the word 'for' should be omitted. I could be wrong of course, my English syntax isn't perfect. This has actually been bugging me for some time now, so please, somebody tell me whether I'm right or not.

Cheers, (a frustrated) Martin :(

I deny ever editing this post.
 
Good question. I've just read the back of my copy about 20 times and it sort of makes sense (moreso if I tilt my head slightly and squint) but, yes, it does seem a little odd and forced.

As much as I hate to say this mate, I think you're right :)

Mxx
 
Thank you.

You obviously didn't realise it was a 'bring your own beer' deal, or perhaps you forgot the secret knock.

Back to the topic. For some reason I have been wanting to write again lately, after a very very long slump. Therefore this is the opening line(s) to a novel that hasn't been written, or even put down on paper yet...

I realised that "I could kill you with my thumb!" was the wrong thing to say to someone who had a knife held to your throat, but it was really all I could really think of at the time. It didn't help that I said it in a comedy German accent, the tattooed swastika on his arm rippling slightly as he flexed his muscles at my comment.

Mxx
 
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