You beat me to it. One of the best novels ever.
The first line of Robert Heinlein’s Double Star has always struck me as a classic for setting up a whole world, and the character, as well:
Sin City
the first line of the book Ellen Foster.
Entertaining thread! A few I can think of:
Like a few other posters, Arrested Development just about had me from hello. Lucille and Michael’s initial exchange was hilarious.
“Look what the homosexuals have done to me.”
“Can’t you just comb it out and re-set it?”
After hearing an interview with John Krasinski on the radio, I decided to finally check out The Office. The first episode I saw was The Injury, when Michael accidentally burned his foot on his George Foreman grill. The scene with Michael, Jim, and Dwight in the van on the way to the hospital was one of the funniest things I’ve seen on TV in a long long time, and within two weeks I had downloaded the whole season from iTunes to catch up. *“You can’t fire me I don’t work in this van!” *
And to toss one musical selection in, how about Winter by Tori Amos. I had been familiar with her stuff for a while, but didn’t really get into her until A Sorta Fairy Tale came along. But I became an instant die-hard fan when I heard Winter.
When you gonna make up your mind?
When you gonna love you as much as I do?
When you gonna make up your mind?
Cause things are gonna change so fast
All the white horses have gone ahead
I tell you that I’ll always want you near
You say that things change my dear
Now that I have a daughter it makes me cry like a baby when I hear it, but it’s still one of my favorite songs.
I’d forgotten that line; it reminds me why Heinlein was more than just another science fiction writer. And another thing thatwas so powerful about that single line is that it allows you to create a complete mental picture of what such a character would look like and how he would act.
I was feeeling a little meh about the first Liz Phair album Exile In Guyville until I got to the last song, “Strange Loop”. In the second refrain:
“I always wanted you/But I only wanted more than I knew”
Then, when got to the end of her second, Whip-Smart, in “May Queen”:
“Got any what?/Disease, hashish, a mind?”
I really identified with the spirit of the first example, and dug the attitude (that I heard, at least) in her voice in the second.
Mission of Burma:
*That’s when I reach for my revolver
That’s when it all gets blown away *
m standin at the crossroads
Tryin to read the signs
To tell me which way I should
Go to find the answer
And all the time I know
Let your love and let it grow.
Let It Grow by Clapton
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Gallaxy got me early on with this line (from memory so forgive me I know it is a bit off)
I had been a casual fan of Bob Dylan for a while, but when I heard this line from It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue I was hooked. It’s still one of my favorite songs.
Same with Pink Floyd’s song Wish You Were Here
I remember saying something like"I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive…" 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.
The line that got me hooked on the show and reinspired me to buy the DVDs all over again when I saw a few episodes this weekend in Philly?
“Mr. McGee, don’t make me angry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”
The First is one of the best episodes of that show.
The first episode of “24” I ever tried was the premiere of Season 2. And it had what’s still one of Jack’s best lines ever – and I knew I would love the series.
“I’m gonna need a hacksaw.”
(Context, for non-24 fans: He’d just shot a guy in witness protection, a criminal due to testify against another baddie. Reason – to quickly re-establish himself undercover with this baddie. Reason for hacksaw? He needed to take the guy’s head to the baddie to prove he’d killed the witness).
I can’t even pick with Arrested Development, but the line that got me might have been “And so Tobias boarded a van full of homosexuals.”
That’s a wonderful passage and I feel pretty much the same way about it. I always quote the following bit when we do “best lyrics” threads, and even though I already liked Tori at this point, it still floors me:
Give me life
Give me pain
Give me my self again
From Buffy first season ep, “The Pack”, the first time I saw the show.
Giles: Xander’s taken to teasing the less fortunate?
Buffy: Uh-huh.
Giles: And, there’s been a noticeable change in both clothing and demeanor?
Buffy: Yes.
Giles: And, well, otherwise all his spare time is spent lounging about with imbeciles.
Buffy: It’s bad, isn’t it.
Giles: It’s devastating. He’s turned into a sixteen-year-old boy. ‘Course, you’ll have to kill him.
My favorite book while I was growing up was The Westing Game, by Ellen Raskin. I must’ve read it 50 or 60 times. I was hooked from the first line…
He said it’s all in your head,
I said so’s everything, but he didn’t get it . . .
Fiona Apple, written pre Matrix even.
“Teppic had learned how not to move stealthily. Millions of years of being eaten by creatures that know how to move stealthily has made humanity very good at spotting stealthy movement. Nor was it enough to make no noise, because little moving patches of silence always aroused suspicion. The trick was to glide through the night with a quiet reassurance, just like the air did.”
–Pyramids, Terry Pratchett
About half the book Small Gods by the same author consists of great lines.
The first lines of most William Gibson stories or books. He writes some of the best openers.
“I ache for the touch of your lips, dear
But much more for the touch of your whips, dear”
– Masochism Tango, Tom Lehrer
“The man in black fled across the desert and the Gunslinger followed.”
– The Gunslinger, Stephen King
The first page of Barry Ween, boy genius #2. It made me laugh so hard that my stomach hurt and immediately made me want to find the others.
“It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent and the hunched, courters’-and-rabbits’ wood limping invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea.”
– Under Milk Wood, Dylan Thomas
“I’d rather die
Than give you control”
– Head Like a Hole, Nine Inch Nails
“Father William saved her from the streets
She drank the lifeblood from the savior’s feet
She’s Sister Mary now, eyes as cold as ice
He takes her once a week
On the alter like a sacrifice”
– Spreading the Disease, Queensryche
“Drive another nail in
Got enough guilt to start
My own religion”
– Crucify, Tori Amos
Lots of other favorites, like Lord of Light have already been mentioned.
I’m a huge Leonard Cohen fan so it’s pretty tough to choose the lines that really hooked me, but from Last Year’s Man: