# Favorite First Lines **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 7, 2008, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-first-lines/466882 "2008-10-07T18:48:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![singular1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ba9def/32.png) [@singular1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/singular1)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-first-lines/466882/41 "2008-10-08T11:37:32Z")
> [@Mahna\_Mahna](#): > > To each their own. I assume you’re not much for Tom Robbins either, in that case (given that the two authors have a similar way with words). Well _I_ appreciated it. As a fan of Tom Robbins and Douglas Adams, I’ll be checking out Tibor Fischer. Thanks for the tip!🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Lunar\_Saltlick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/977dab/32.png) [@Lunar\_Saltlick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lunar_Saltlick)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-first-lines/466882/42 "2008-10-08T11:55:32Z")
“When the phone rang, Parker was in the garage, killing a man.” _Firebreak_ (Donald Westlake, writing as Richard Stark) ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-first-lines/466882/43 "2008-10-08T12:00:27Z")
> [@](#): > > There was a wall. _The Dispossessed_, by Ursula LeGuin. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Crotalus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crotalus/32/41_2.png) [@Crotalus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crotalus)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-first-lines/466882/44 "2008-10-08T12:10:34Z")
I mentioned two of my favorites in a previous thread about my neighbor Don Pollock. Here they are again. From Darker Than Amber, by John D. MacDonald: > [@](#): > > We were about to give up and call it a night when somebody dropped the girl off the bridge. From the short story Dynamite Hole, by Donald Ray Pollock: > [@](#): > > I was coming down off the Mitchell Flats with three arrowheads in my pocket and a dead copperhead hung around my neck like an old woman’s scarf when I caught a boy named Truman Mackey fucking his own little sister in the Dynamite Hole. ---
**Author:** ![Turek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/turek/32/18782_2.png) [@Turek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Turek)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-first-lines/466882/45 "2008-10-08T12:20:10Z")
> [@A\_shameful\_cracka](#): > > “In five years, the penis will be obsolete,” said the salesman. 🙂 I’ve got that book sitting right next to me. One of my favorites. And a 4th or 5th vote for “The Man in Black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed.” ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-first-lines/466882/46 "2008-10-08T12:49:54Z")
> [@Ranchoth](#): > > “Marley was dead, to begin with.” Another of my favorites! ---
**Author:** ![Redfrost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9fc29f/32.png) [@Redfrost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Redfrost)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-first-lines/466882/47 "2008-10-08T12:52:57Z")
“People are always asking me if I know Tyler Durden.” (from the movie Fight Club, the book has a different opening line, which I don’t remember. Guess it wasn’t very good then, huh?) **Ol’Gaffer** you posted the one I first thought of when I read the OP. I’m referring the HST quote from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. ---
**Author:** ![Rocketeer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocketeer/32/4437_2.png) [@Rocketeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rocketeer)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-first-lines/466882/48 "2008-10-08T14:31:46Z")
“He was one hundred and seventy days dying and not yet dead.” _The Stars My Destination_, Alfred Bester ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-first-lines/466882/49 "2008-10-08T14:35:22Z")
> [@Olentzero](#): > > Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Arm of the Great Spiral Galaxy lies a small, unregarded yellow sun. > > -_Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_, Douglas Adams Oh, yes. It’s funny, the Gunslinger line everybody likes turns me off almost instantly…it’s the gunslinger word I believe. ---
**Author:** ![Skara\_Brae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f0a364/32.png) [@Skara\_Brae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skara_Brae)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-first-lines/466882/50 "2008-10-08T14:44:19Z")
> [@](#): > > All this happened, more or less. Slaughterhouse Five. ---
**Author:** ![Weaver\_of\_Nightmares](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/73ab20/32.png) [@Weaver\_of\_Nightmares](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weaver_of_Nightmares)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-first-lines/466882/51 "2008-10-08T14:50:48Z")
> [@A\_shameful\_cracka](#): > > “In five years, the penis will be obsolete,” said the salesman. What book is this from? ---
**Author:** ![sohvan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/96bed5/32.png) [@sohvan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sohvan)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-first-lines/466882/52 "2008-10-08T14:59:00Z")
> [@](#): > > His followers called him Mahasamatman and said he was a god. He preferred to drop the Maha- and the -atman, however, and called himself Sam." Lord of Light, by Roger Zelazy ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-first-lines/466882/53 "2008-10-08T15:12:15Z")
> [@Weaver\_of\_Nightmares](#): > > What book is this from? Google sez it’s John Varley’s _Steel Beach_. ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-first-lines/466882/54 "2008-10-08T15:17:22Z")
I’ll leave off the book or movie so those who recognize it can chime in - Sam Vimes sighed when he heard the scream, but he finished shaving before he did anything about it. Amerigo Bonasera sat in New York Criminal Court Number 3 and waited for justice. I believe in America. You would think such a day would tremble to begin. Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K., because one morning, without having done anything wrong, he was arrested. It’s still on, and we’re going. ---
**Author:** ![davidw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c4cdca/32.png) [@davidw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidw)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-first-lines/466882/55 "2008-10-08T15:40:01Z")
Paul Beatty, **The White Boy Shuffle** : > [@](#): > > Unlike the typical bluesy earthy folksy denim-overalls noble-in-the-face-of-cracker-racism aw shucks Pulitzer-Prize-winning protagonist mojo magic black man, I am not the seventh son of a seventh son of a seventh son. Gregory David Roberts, **Shantaram** : > [@](#): > > It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-first-lines/466882/56 "2008-10-08T16:15:53Z")
“Saigon . . . What am I still doing in Saigon?” ---
**Author:** ![Casey1505](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dc4da7/32.png) [@Casey1505](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Casey1505)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-first-lines/466882/57 "2008-10-08T16:31:44Z")
“When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home.” ---
**Author:** ![Scribble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scribble/32/3317_2.png) [@Scribble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scribble)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-first-lines/466882/58 "2008-10-08T16:33:01Z")
“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” That’s from _The Go-Between_, a book I can’t say I liked very much. The first line is wonderful, though. ---
**Author:** ![kivrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e56c9b/32.png) [@kivrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kivrin)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-first-lines/466882/59 "2008-10-08T16:41:30Z")
“My lifelong involvement with Mrs. Dempster began at 5:58 o’clock p.m. on the 27th of December, 1908, at which time I was ten years and seven months old.” ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-first-lines/466882/60 "2008-10-08T17:34:58Z")
> [@kivrin](#): > > “My lifelong involvement with Mrs. Dempster …” Thanks for posting this - I’ve been meaning to re-read that excellent book for some while. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-first-lines/466882.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-first-lines/466882.md?page=4)