Ok… I know this is risky, me being a newbie and all… starting a second thread in as many days. But I was inspired by the thread about best last lines of movies. So… what are the best opening lines to books?
The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. – * Restaurant at the End of the Universe *by Douglas Adams
The day had gone by just as days go by. – * Steppenwolf * by Herman Hesse
An hour before sunset, on the evening of a day in the beginning of October, a man traveling on foot entered the little town of D—. – * Les Miserables * by Victor Hugo
There’s a couple to get the ideas going…
–I am Soren Kierkegaard.–
“People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid.”
We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.
“His eyes are as green as a fresh-pickled toad,
His hair is as dark as a blackboard,
I wish he was mine, he’s really divine,
The hero who conquered the Dark Lord.”
“I’m not sure whether he was your A-No.1 over-the-top extreme lord high poo-bah-of-the-assholes type asshole, or he was one of your more average garden-variety assholes, but he obviously was an asshole of some sort.”
Not familiar with this one? Look here, especially if you are an editor.
“They call me Ishmael.” Which Gary Larson did a terrific Far Side cartoon about…Melville is sitting at his desk with hundreds of sheets of paper strewn around reading “They call me Steve,” “They call me Edgar,” “They call me Bob,” etc.
You may be right, I’m working from a my pretty fuzzy memory of the whole thing and didn’t have a copy of the book at hand. And while I don’t think its the actual first line, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” from A Tale of Two Cities is pretty good as well. Which got a great treatment by Woody in a Cheers episode.
“GE 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”
At least that’s how it is in the NIV version. I think different versions may well have your sentence as part of the very first sentence, though.
–I am Soren Kierkegaard.–
“People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid.”
‘When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon.’
“A general explanation of the world and of history must first of all take into account the way our house was situated, in an area once known as “French Point”, on the last slopes at the foot of San Pietro hill, as though at the border between two continents.”
–Italo Calvino, The Road To San Giovanni
Dr. Watson
“The past, at least, is secure.” – Daniel Webster