# Best First Lines of Books **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 5, 2000, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-first-lines-of-books/15927 "2000-04-05T19:38:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![I.M.Kierkegaard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ea5d25/32.png) [@I.M.Kierkegaard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I.M.Kierkegaard)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2000, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-first-lines-of-books/15927/1 "2000-04-05T19:38:00Z")
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? 1. The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. – \* Restaurant at the End of the Universe \*by Douglas Adams 2. The day had gone by just as days go by. – \* Steppenwolf \* by Herman Hesse 3. 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.” ---
**Author:** ![xekul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/838e76/32.png) [@xekul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xekul)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2000, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-first-lines-of-books/15927/2 "2000-04-06T06:41:00Z")
Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. * * * ``You’re just an empty cage girl if you kill the bird.’’ – Tori Amos. ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2000, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-first-lines-of-books/15927/3 "2000-04-06T08:22:00Z")
## 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.” ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2000, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-first-lines-of-books/15927/4 "2000-04-06T12:49:00Z")
“Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Antonio B??? remembered the day his father took him to see the ice.” _One Hundred Years of Solitude_. I don’t recall the last half of the sentence exactly, but the first half is enough. I once recited it in a roomful of writers, and they were awstruck. * * * “What we have here is failure to communicate.” – Strother Martin, anticipating the Internet. [www.sff.net/people/rothman](http://www.sff.net/people/rothman) ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Bean](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_bean/32/1760_2.png) [@Green\_Bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Bean)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2000, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-first-lines-of-books/15927/5 "2000-04-06T13:06:00Z")
“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](http://boards.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum4/HTML/006849.html), especially if you are an editor. ---
**Author:** ![SwimmingRiddles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SwimmingRiddles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SwimmingRiddles)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2000, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-first-lines-of-books/15927/6 "2000-04-06T13:11:00Z")
Just call me Ishmael. I am sooo tempted to put Ishmael on my “possible names for possible future LittleRiddles.” Right next to Wolfgang (Wolfie) for cool points. ---
**Author:** ![plnnr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@plnnr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plnnr)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2000, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-first-lines-of-books/15927/7 "2000-04-06T13:12:00Z")
“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. ---
**Author:** ![Trout\_Mask\_Replica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a88e57/32.png) [@Trout\_Mask\_Replica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trout_Mask_Replica)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2000, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-first-lines-of-books/15927/8 "2000-04-06T13:14:00Z")
‘In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.’ * * * **TMR** _If you believed in yourself, and tore enough holes in your pants, there was always a mist-filled alley right around the corner._ ---
**Author:** ![plnnr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@plnnr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plnnr)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2000, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-first-lines-of-books/15927/9 "2000-04-06T13:19:00Z")
Also, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” A pretty good start even if it is a work of fiction. ---
**Author:** ![SwimmingRiddles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SwimmingRiddles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SwimmingRiddles)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2000, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-first-lines-of-books/15927/10 "2000-04-06T13:40:00Z")
I thought it was “In the beginning, the earth was without form, and void.” Also pretty snappy, though. ---
**Author:** ![plnnr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@plnnr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plnnr)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2000, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-first-lines-of-books/15927/11 "2000-04-06T13:47:00Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![I.M.Kierkegaard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ea5d25/32.png) [@I.M.Kierkegaard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I.M.Kierkegaard)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2000, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-first-lines-of-books/15927/12 "2000-04-06T13:54:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally posted by SwimmingRiddles: > \*\*I thought it was “In the beginning, the earth was without form, and void.” Also pretty snappy, though. \*\* “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.” ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2000, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-first-lines-of-books/15927/13 "2000-04-06T13:57:00Z")
Well this is from memory, so I’m sure I dont have it exactly right, but it’s from **1984** : “The clock in the square struck thirteen.” And SwimmingRiddles- Isn’t the line from **Moby Dick** “Call me Ishmael.” ? Again, I’m going from memory here, so I may be mistaken. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2000, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-first-lines-of-books/15927/14 "2000-04-06T14:02:00Z")
Oh yeah and a slight hijack here: In addition to having one of the greatest **first** lines in literature, **A Tale of Two Cities** has one of the greatest **last** lines: “'Tis a far, far greater thing I do than I have ever done before. 'Tis a far greater rest I go to than I have ever known.” Or something like that. I’m going from memory here. ---
**Author:** ![jcgmoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a9adbd/32.png) [@jcgmoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jcgmoi)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2000, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-first-lines-of-books/15927/15 "2000-04-06T14:10:00Z")
‘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.’ The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Watson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Dr.Watson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Watson)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2000, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-first-lines-of-books/15927/16 "2000-04-06T14:12:00Z")
“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 ---
**Author:** ![kellibelli](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e480ec/32.png) [@kellibelli](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kellibelli)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2000, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-first-lines-of-books/15927/17 "2000-04-06T14:18:00Z")
“As I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had but two things on my mind, Paul Newman and a ride home.” The Outsiders, by S.E. Hinton. ---
**Author:** ![Gilligan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Gilligan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gilligan)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2000, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-first-lines-of-books/15927/18 "2000-04-06T15:31:00Z")
“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a giant insect.” Kafka _Metamorphosis_ ---
**Author:** ![cygnus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e0b2c6/32.png) [@cygnus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cygnus)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2000, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-first-lines-of-books/15927/19 "2000-04-06T16:04:00Z")
“There once was a saviour, born in the holy land of Indiana, raised in the mystical hills east of Fort Wayne.” Richard Bach - Illusions \*\* Kellibelli - haven’t thought of that opening in a long time, but what a great line (and book). * * * But I don’t want to pay the penalty. I just want to go home. ---
**Author:** ![Chrome\_Toaster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ebca7d/32.png) [@Chrome\_Toaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chrome_Toaster)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2000, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-first-lines-of-books/15927/20 "2000-04-06T20:25:00Z")
The magician’s underwear has just been found in a cardboard suitcase floating in a stagnant pond on the outskirts of Miami. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-first-lines-of-books/15927.md?page=2)