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]
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 
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.”
“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?
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…”
Gone With The Wind, Margaret Mitchell
Opening line----Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful…
Closing line----Tomorrow is another day
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.
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.
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.
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
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!
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
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.”
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.
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.
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
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.)
“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
“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