# Best opening lines/coda, novel? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 7, 2001, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-lines-coda-novel/53484 "2001-02-07T11:35:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2001, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-lines-coda-novel/53484/21 "2001-02-09T03:01:43Z")
“[It was a dark and stormy night](http://www.Bulwer-Lytton.com/)” 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Shara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/54ee81/32.png) [@Shara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shara)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2001, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-lines-coda-novel/53484/22 "2001-02-09T03:49:19Z")
I was so taken by this topic that I wrote one book on it … **Moderator’s Note** Using the SDMB to advertise the sale of your book is prohibited. Your post was pure spam, and congruent with the user agreement, it has been deleted. Do NOT do this again. **Added comment** Sorry for the brusque tone of this, **Shara**. Another mod pointed out to me that “you’re you”, i.e. a genuine, serious poster who spammed inadvertantly. I knew of you but just didn’t get my brain in gear fast enough to put the name to the person. FWIW, advertising isn’t permitted on the boards, but your slip wasn’t a biggie. What we really object to are people who register _just_ to sell stuff. Anyway, no harm and no foul. Veb TVeblen Moderator, IMHO [Edited by TVeblen on 02-10-2001 at 03:24 PM] ---
**Author:** ![Some\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Some\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Some_Guy)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2001, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-lines-coda-novel/53484/23 "2001-02-09T15:51:20Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by ianzin_ > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Some Guy \* > \*\*\* He was 170 days dying and not yet dead…_ > \*\* Oh, **all** right. It’s from _The Stars My Destination_ (aka _Tiger, Tiger!_) by Alfred Bester. And I still say shame on you if you don’t know that already 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2001, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-lines-coda-novel/53484/24 "2001-02-09T16:05:26Z")
One from a book from my youth, _The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader_ (hope I’m remembering it right): “His name was Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.” ---
**Author:** ![OxyMoron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e9a140/32.png) [@OxyMoron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OxyMoron)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2001, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-lines-coda-novel/53484/25 "2001-02-09T17:09:38Z")
“There once was a boy named Milo who didn’t know what to do with himself - and not just sometimes, but always.” Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth. What kid hasn’t felt that? ---
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2001, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-lines-coda-novel/53484/26 "2001-02-09T19:34:48Z")
Moby Dick “You may call me Ishmael…” Tale of Two Cities “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It was…” Bible “In the beginning, there was…” ---
**Author:** ![Cyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a88e4f/32.png) [@Cyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cyn)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2001, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-lines-coda-novel/53484/27 "2001-02-10T04:22:21Z")
Gone With The Wind, Margaret Mitchell Opening line----Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful… Closing line----Tomorrow is another day ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2001, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-lines-coda-novel/53484/28 "2001-02-10T05:20:06Z")
Ooo, good topic. I love any opportunity to show off how well-read I am. “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.” From The Hobbit (dur) by JRR Tolkien. “I was born in the city of Bombay… once upon a time. No, that won’t do, there’s no getting around the date: I was born in Doctor Narlikar’s Nursing Home on August 15th, 1947. And the time? The time matters too. Well, then: at night. No, it’s important to be more… On the stroke of midnight, as a matter of fact. Clock-hands joined palms in respectful greeting as I came. Oh, spell it out: at the precise instant of India’s arrival at independence, I tumbled forth into the world.” From Midnight’s Children, by Salman Rushdie. “The irreducible strangeness of the universe was first made manifest to Anthony Van Horne on his fiftieth birthday, when a despondent angel named Raphael, a being with luminous white wings and a halo that blinked on and off like a neon quoit, appeared and told him of the days to come.” From Towing Jehovah, by James Morrow. On a related note, my all time favorite back-of-the-book blurb: “Conrad Metcalf has problems. He has a monkey on his back, a rabbit in his waiting room, and a trigger-happy kangaroo on his tail. (Maybe evolution therapy is not such a good idea.)” From Gun, with Occasional Music, by Jonathan Lethem. ---
**Author:** ![VarlosZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d78d45/32.png) [@VarlosZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VarlosZ)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2001, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-lines-coda-novel/53484/29 "2001-02-10T16:49:44Z")
And just to state the stupifyingly obvious for those who may be wondering, **Lamar Mundane** ’s selction is from Hunter S. Thompson’s _Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas_. Though it’s been several years since I read it, **King Rat** ’s selction is, I’m pretty sure, from _King Rat_ . . . Clavell (sp?)? Christ, I’m going senile in my early 20’s. . . And **ianzin** , loved those quotes. The Kesey selection threatens to supplant my previous pick from Fitzgerald, which I’ve always had certain minor reservations about. It’s execution is perfect, but it does spell out the theme a bit explicitly for my tastes. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2001, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-lines-coda-novel/53484/30 "2001-02-11T03:08:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Gunslinger \* > \*\*“Call me Ismael”–Moby Dick > > “The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed.”–The Gunslinger \*\* I’m not so surprised about the latter, as I am about the former…😛 Mine: _Last night I dreamed I went to Manderly._ -Rebecca The opening to The Restaurant at the End of the Universe…you know it, come on. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Homer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/df788c/32.png) [@Homer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Homer)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2001, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-lines-coda-novel/53484/31 "2001-02-11T03:10:52Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lamar Mundane \* > \*\*“We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert > when the drugs began to take hold . . . And suddenly there > was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of > what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and > diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles > an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was > screaming: ‘Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?’” > Don’t think I need to say where that came from. > > For the record, this gets really old after about 50 pages or so. \*\* You are F’n kidding me. Incredible, hilarious book. Guess you’ve had to do a share of drugs to ‘get’ it, though. FTR, this was my choice. –Tim ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2001, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-lines-coda-novel/53484/32 "2001-02-11T03:27:22Z")
Damn it CYN, I was nearly to the end of this thread and thought I was going to get in the first post about Gone With The Wind! ---
**Author:** ![TVeblen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4bbf92/32.png) [@TVeblen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVeblen)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2001, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-lines-coda-novel/53484/33 "2001-02-11T08:53:53Z")
Sorry to interrupt, but this is bothering me and I want to try to make it right… Earlier on I excised out a post by **Shara** because she described her book on this topic, w/ links toward where it could be found. Technically I did the right thing by deleting the post and warning…but I didn’t do it _well_. Fortunately **TubaDiva** caught the broader context. **Shara** is far from the usual drive-by spammer. She made a happy, enthusiastic, innocent newcomer’s mistake in _form_, not intent. This is slippery stuff indeed, but fair’s fair. Veb ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2001, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-lines-coda-novel/53484/34 "2001-02-11T18:36:13Z")
**Veb** - I don’t understand. We’ve had other writers mention their books here. ?? As for the OP, my favorite opening is the “whatever walked there, walked alone” paragraph from Shirley Jackson’s “Haunting of Hill House.” ---
**Author:** ![Spider\_Woman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Spider\_Woman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spider_Woman)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2001, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-lines-coda-novel/53484/35 "2001-02-12T00:20:20Z")
**Shara** posted here at my suggestion because I sent her the link, knowing that she had written a book on the subject (I am the proud owner of two copies of Getting Hooked). I did not explain the policy about advertising, but think it is rather cool that another author posts here at the SDMB and thought she could mention that. Again, my apologies for any problems I inadvertantly may have caused. ---
**Author:** ![Shara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/54ee81/32.png) [@Shara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shara)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2001, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-lines-coda-novel/53484/36 "2001-02-12T01:17:31Z")
Thanks for understanding. I thought with the topic right on, I’d be able to post. Here are some openers from what will appear in my next book. In it the authors give original material about their openers. There are some of their openers that they discuss: (Guess I’m in a mystery mood.) Mark Sumner “Count Dracula’s on line two and he’s pissed.” \*\* Barbara Paul Sylvia Markey was holding her cat’s head in her hands. Just the head. Sylvia was swaying on her feet; I didn’t feel any too steady myself. A whispered “Jesus Christ” floated from behind me. I snatched Ian Cavanaugh’s make-up towel away from him and wrapped up the cat’s head, handed the mess to Leo Gunn, the stage manager. \*\* Jennifer Blake Regina Dalton snapped awake the instant the coffin lid closed. Darkness pressed around her like a smothering blanket. Not a sliver of light penetrated. The dense air smelled of old dust and ancient velvet. The side walls seemed to contract, so she was supremely aware of her left shoulder wedged against padded wood while her right nestled beneath unyielding solid flesh and bone. Warm flesh and bone. \*\* Poul Anderson “’Look—there—rising over the Hand of God. Is it?’ ‘Yes, I think so. Our ship.’” \*\* Dana Stabenow The bad news was the blood in her hair. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2001, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-lines-coda-novel/53484/37 "2001-02-12T04:09:14Z")
One day Trurl the constructor put together a machine that could make anything beginning with the letter “n”. - _The Cyberiad_, Stanislaw Lem Boatswain! - _The Tempest,_ William Shakespeare ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2001, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-lines-coda-novel/53484/38 "2001-02-12T04:43:17Z")
Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote The droghte of March hath perced to the roote And bathed every veyne in swich licour, Of which vertu engendred is the flour; Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth Inspired hath in every holt and heeth The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne, And smale foweles maken melodye, That slepen al the nyght with open eye- (So priketh hem Nature in hir corages); Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes; And specially from every shires ende Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende, The hooly blisful martir for the seke That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seeke. -Geoffrey Chaucer, _The Canterbury Tales_ Hwaet! We Gar-Dena, in gear-dagum, peod-cyninga, prym gefrunon: hu tha aepelingas ellen femedon. (Listen! We, the Spear-Danes, have heard of the renown of great kings in days of yore, and how those princes displayed their valour.) -_Beowulf_ (Apropos of nothing, when I used to work in a library, I came across a book, evidently by an extremely anal-retentive author, entitled _The Old English Verse Epic Beginning “Hwaet! We Gar-Dena In Gear-Dagum” And Commonly Known As Beowulf_. (“Beowulf” was, of course, in huge letters.) ---
**Author:** ![celestina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/258eb7/32.png) [@celestina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/celestina)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2001, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-lines-coda-novel/53484/39 "2001-02-12T16:32:39Z")
“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a fortune is in need of a wife.” –_Pride and Prejudice_ by Jane Austen ---
**Author:** ![celestina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/258eb7/32.png) [@celestina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/celestina)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2001, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-lines-coda-novel/53484/40 "2001-02-12T16:46:03Z")
“And whatever your labors and aspirations in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.” –_Desiderata_ by Max Ehrmann [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-lines-coda-novel/53484.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-opening-lines-coda-novel/53484.md?page=3)