# Favorite opening lines in fiction. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 9, 2005, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-opening-lines-in-fiction/303070 "2005-05-09T15:52:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mr.Goob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c77e96/32.png) [@Mr.Goob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Goob)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2005, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-opening-lines-in-fiction/303070/21 "2005-05-09T19:53:44Z")
It was a dark and stormy night I was always hoping Snoopy would finish that book. ---
**Author:** ![nivlac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/3bc359/32.png) [@nivlac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nivlac)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2005, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-opening-lines-in-fiction/303070/22 "2005-05-09T19:59:26Z")
_It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all doing direct the other way, …_, Charles Dickens, **A Tale of Two Cities**. ---
**Author:** ![Corii](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/aeb1de/32.png) [@Corii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corii)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2005, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-opening-lines-in-fiction/303070/23 "2005-05-09T20:06:00Z")
> [@tanstaafl](#): > > 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. He never claimed to be a god. But then, he never claimed not to be a god. > Roger Zelazny - _Lord of Light_ I have to third this one. It grabbed me and sucked me right in. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2005, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-opening-lines-in-fiction/303070/24 "2005-05-09T20:12:03Z")
> [@Mr. Goob](#): > > It was a dark and stormy night > > I was always hoping Snoopy would finish that book. Many others have gotten that far, too. [The Bulwer-Lytton Competition](http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/) is the appropriate link for this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Bird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Little\_Bird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Bird)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2005, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-opening-lines-in-fiction/303070/25 "2005-05-09T20:47:51Z")
_The Time Traveller (for so it will be convenient to speak of him) was expounding a recondite matter to us._ – **The Time Machine** _No-one would have believed in the early years of the twenty-first century, that our world was being watched by intelligences greater than our own._ – **The War of the Worlds** Why yes, I am an HG Wells whore, why do you ask? _Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun._ –Go on then, guess! 😛 ---
**Author:** ![yellowval](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/919ad9/32.png) [@yellowval](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yellowval)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2005, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-opening-lines-in-fiction/303070/26 "2005-05-09T20:56:39Z")
“Marley was dead: to begin with.” – Charles Dickens, **A Christmas Carol** ---
**Author:** ![Ol\_Gaffer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Ol\_Gaffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ol_Gaffer)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2005, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-opening-lines-in-fiction/303070/27 "2005-05-09T20:59:14Z")
> [@The Sausage Creature](#): > > I came in here to say those exact two. 🙂 Well then, I salute your excellent taste (pun intended). ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2005, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-opening-lines-in-fiction/303070/28 "2005-05-09T21:04:31Z")
“In five years the penis will be obsolete,” said the salesman. John Varley, Steel Beach ---
**Author:** ![BiblioCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ed8c4c/32.png) [@BiblioCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BiblioCat)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2005, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-opening-lines-in-fiction/303070/29 "2005-05-09T21:07:34Z")
> [@Mr. Goob](#): > > It was a dark and stormy night > > I was always hoping Snoopy would finish that book. It’s also the first line of _A Wrinkle In Time_. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2005, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-opening-lines-in-fiction/303070/30 "2005-05-09T21:12:21Z")
The first line of practically any of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels. ---
**Author:** ![Antigen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/848f3c/32.png) [@Antigen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antigen)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2005, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-opening-lines-in-fiction/303070/31 "2005-05-09T21:25:34Z")
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. (Jane Austen, _Pride and Prejudice_) I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice - not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother’s death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany. (John Irving, _A Prayer for Owen Meany_) ---
**Author:** ![Cub\_Mistress](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea666f/32.png) [@Cub\_Mistress](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cub_Mistress)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2005, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-opening-lines-in-fiction/303070/32 "2005-05-09T22:12:37Z")
“In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing” Norman Maclean in _A River Runs Through It_ . That line sent chills up my spine and I was hooked. (no, no pun intended but I’ll let it stand.) **Antigen** , I second the opening line of _A Prayer for Owen Meany_. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2005, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-opening-lines-in-fiction/303070/33 "2005-05-09T22:16:02Z")
Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2005, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-opening-lines-in-fiction/303070/34 "2005-05-09T22:33:20Z")
“It was love at first sight. The moment Yossarian saw the Chaplain he fell in love with him.” – _Catch-22,_ Joseph Heller “What’s it going to be then, eh?” – _A Clockwork Orange,_ Anthony Burgess ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2005, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-opening-lines-in-fiction/303070/35 "2005-05-09T22:38:33Z")
The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children’s games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up. – G. K. Chesterton , _The Naopleon of Notting Hill_ ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2005, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-opening-lines-in-fiction/303070/36 "2005-05-09T22:40:30Z")
"Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantelpiece and his hypodermic syringe from its neat morocco case. " The Sign Of Four. ---
**Author:** ![fishbicycle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aeb1de/32.png) [@fishbicycle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fishbicycle)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2005, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-opening-lines-in-fiction/303070/37 "2005-05-09T22:41:30Z")
“I was bored, I believe, when the nasties were still booming us Led by Madolf Heatlump (who only had one) Anyway, they didn’t get me.” - John Lennon, “In His Own Write” ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2005, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-opening-lines-in-fiction/303070/38 "2005-05-09T22:50:10Z")
“Riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodious vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.” Finnegans Wake by James Joyce. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2005, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-opening-lines-in-fiction/303070/39 "2005-05-10T01:34:39Z")
“What’s it going to be then, eh?” There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie and Dim, Dim being really dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar making up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening, a flip dark chill winter bastard though dry. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2005, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-opening-lines-in-fiction/303070/40 "2005-05-10T01:44:30Z")
Oops, I missed **BrainGlutton** ’s earlier post. Sorry, BG. anyhoo: “Call me Ishmael” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-opening-lines-in-fiction/303070.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-opening-lines-in-fiction/303070.md?page=3)