Best Openers Ever

damselnat

I've always believed the opening line of a book is one of the most important, and there's nothing like a good corker of an opening to get you into a book. So I was wondering what people's favourite opening lines would be?
For me, the first sentence of Michael Cox's The Meaning of Night is a classic -

"After killing the red-haired man I took myself off to Quinn's for an oyster supper"

......so many questions already...!

mcgovern

damselnat wrote: »

I've always believed the opening line of a book is one of the most important, and there's nothing like a good corker of an opening to get you into a book. So I was wondering what people's favourite opening lines would be?
For me, the first sentence of Michael Cox's The Meaning of Night is a classic -

"After killing the red-haired man I took myself off to Quinn's for an oyster supper"

......so many questions already...!

There is already a thread for this somewhere in here.

The Mad Hatter

I could have sworn this was done already...but a site search and a Google revealed nothing...

Alan Moore wrote:

Rorschach's journal. October 12th 1985. Dog Carcass in alley this morning. Tire tread on burst stomach. This city is afraid of me. I have seen its true face.'

You're left wondering what kind of world you've just stepped into.

Also, given the season,

Charles Dickens wrote:

Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt about that.

Dades

It was slightly different...

Best opening paragraphs

foolsgold

"The past is like a foreign country, they do things differently there" - The Go Between

Wasn't overly impressed with book, but opening line always stuck with me

Photi

It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times.

Red Hand

I know that this isn't technically on topic, but in many of Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse novels, there is a short quotation or factoid before each new chapter.

One that sticks in my mind, is:

"Keep your eyes wide open before marriage and half closed thereafter"-Benjeman Franklin.


And then that particular chapter deals with a couple whose marriage is on the rocks. Great technique and really piques your interest.:)

LD 50

"We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs
began to take hold."- Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

jaffa20

It has to be the famous opening line to Pride and Prejudice:

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife"

Photi

Aujourd'hui maman est morte. Ou peut-etre hier, je ne sais pas.

starn

My name is Ishmal

The Mad Hatter

starn wrote: »

My name is Ishmal

Isn't it 'Call me Ishmael'?

starn

crap

metrovelvet

It was inevitable. The scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love. - Love in the Time of Cholera

note: bitter almonds smell like cyanide.

jaffa20

Photi wrote: »

Aujourd'hui maman est morte. Ou peut-etre hier, je ne sais pas.

L'etranger de Camus?

Quel oeuvre fantastique!!

Fr Clint Power

"Since the days of Adam, there has been hardly a mischief done in this world but a woman has been at the bottom of it."
- William Makepeace Thackeray, Barry Lyndon

zenmonk

I knew a Father Clint Power once!

padraig_f

“It was the day my grandmother exploded.”

The Crow Road, Iain Banks

Richard Roma

"When the phone rang I was in the kitchen, boiling a potful of spaghetti and whistling along with an FM broadcast of the overture to Rossini's The Thieving Magpie which has to be the perfect music for cooking pasta" Murakami - Wind-Up Bird Chronicles

Kafka had some good opening lines too

The Mad Hatter

Richard Roma wrote: »

"When the phone rang I was in the kitchen, boiling a potful of spaghetti and whistling along with an FM broadcast of the overture to Rossini's The Thieving Magpie which has to be the perfect music for cooking pasta" Murakami - Wind-Up Bird Chronicles

I love that book, but I can't say that opening was particularly special for me...

emeraldstar

jaffa20 wrote: »

L'etranger de Camus?

Quel oeuvre fantastique!!

Mais non, je le deteste!

We were made do it in college.

Hermy

"Where now? Who now? When now?" Beckett - The Unnamable

GiftofGab

"We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold"

Fear and Loathing in Las Vagas, Hunter S. Thompson.

Great opening, straight to the point

ArmCandyBaby

GiftofGab wrote: »

"We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold"

Fear and Loathing in Las Vagas, Hunter S. Thompson.

Great opening, straight to the point

Delighted to see that it appears twice in this short thread, this is what I thought of straight away when I saw the title. Not so much the opening line as the first page and a half. Though unfortunately it may have sent my expectation too high. Just tear out this double-sided page and throw the rest of the book away...

RonMexico

ArmCandyBaby wrote: »

Delighted to see that it appears twice in this short thread, this is what I thought of straight away when I saw the title. Not so much the opening line as the first page and a half. Though unfortunately it may have sent my expectation too high. Just tear out this double-sided page and throw the rest of the book away...

Blasphemy !:eek:

The opening to Hells Angels is class too.


"California, Labour Day weekend...early, with ocean fog still in the streets, outlaw motorcyclists wearing chains, shades and greasy Levis roll out from damp garages, all-night diners and cast-off one night pads in Frisco, Hollywood, Berdoo and East Oakland, heading for the Monterey peninsula, north of Big Sur ... The Menace is loose again, the Hell's Angels, the hundred-carat headline, running fast and loud on the early morning freeway, low in the saddle, nobody smiles, jamming crazy through traffic and ninety miles an hour down the centre stripe, missing by inches ... like Genghis Khan on an iron horse, a monster steed with fiery anus, flat out through the eye of a beer can and up your daughter's leg with no quarter asked and none given; show the squares some class, give 'em a whiff of those kicks they'll never know ... Ah , these righteous dudes, they love to screw it on ... Little Jesus, the Gimp, Blind Bob, Gut, Buzzard, Zorro, Hambone, Clean Cut, Tiny, Terry The Tramp, Frenchy, Mouldy Marvin, Mother Miles, Dirty Ed, Chuck the Duck, Fat Freddy, Filthy Phil, Charger Charley the Child Molester, Crazy Cross, Puff, Magoo, Animal and at least a hundred more ... tense for the action, long hair in the wind, beards and bandanas flapping, earrings, armpits, chain whips, swastikas and stripped-down Harleys flashing chrome as traffic on 101 moves over, nervous, to let the formation pass like a burst of dirty thunder ..."

Six of One

"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." Shantaram, Gregory David Roberts.

I also love Catch 22's, "It was love at first site. The first time Yossarian saw the chaplain he fell madly in love with him." In fact I think I'll re-read that!

A Million Little Pieces' opening sprung to mind as having quite the dramatic opening but had a look and it's a whole paragraph really.

orangecake

'Last night I dreamt I went to Manderlay again...'
Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

In fact the whole first chapter detailing the dream. Sets the tone incredibly. The wild, neglected garden is so foreboding.

padraig_f

"Meyrueis, Lozere, June 26, 1977. Hot and overcast. I take my gear out of the car and put my bike together. Tourists and locals are watching from sidewalk cafés. Non-racers. The emptiness of those lives shocks me."

The Rider, Tim Krabbé

Shalamov

Albert Camus - The Outsider.

"Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don't know."

Valmont

^ The frenchies already mentioned this one in French. Great book but the opening was ok in my opinion.

Definitely +1 to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

For me it has to be:

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul.

Vladimir Nabokov - Lolita

silvine

Loses something in the translation but

"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect."

- Kafka, The Metamorphosis

Valmont

I bought metamorphosis believing it was a figurative transformation in that he just became bug-like in his day to day life so you can imagine my surprise on reading the first line of that book:D

godspal

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.

“Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”

The patronizing mindset of Nick Caraway has been set in The Great Gatsby, from the get-go, an amazing opening.

longshanks

as opening lines go;

Three men at McAlester State Penitentiary had larger penises than Lamar Pye, but all were black and therefore, by Lamar's own figuring, hardly human at all.

was fairly attention grabbing. its from dirty white boys by stephen hunter. an above average cops n robbers thriller type affair.

also

I was 50 years old and hadn't been to bed with a woman for four years.

from bukowski's women

Ave Sodalis

"Life sucks. Then you die"- Breaking Dawn (jacobs part):D;)

john77

Paul Auster writes good opening lines:

"It was a wrong number that started it, the telephone ringing three times in the dead of night, and the voice on the other end asking for someone he was not." - City of Glass

"Six days ago, a man blew himself up by the side of a road in northern Wisconsin." - Leviathan

Tawfee

john77 wrote: »

"It was a wrong number that started it, the telephone ringing three times in the dead of night, and the voice on the other end asking for someone he was not." - City of Glass

That's one of my favourites too, also like John McGahern's "As he weakened, Moran became afraid of his daughters" - Amongst Women

Mr. Presentable

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

Valmont

Tawfee wrote: »

"As he weakened, Moran became afraid of his daughters" - Amongst Women

Thanks, I just had a flashback to the leaving cert, eugh:pac:

padraig_f

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

- Genesis

turgon

padraig_f wrote: »

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

I suppose its good in that it gives a not-so-subtle hint of the utter speculation to come.

Sorry I couldn't resist

Sean Templar

Rek was drunk.(shortest opening sentence?.)

Legend by david gemmell

Locamon

john77 wrote: »

Paul Auster writes good opening lines:

"It was a wrong number that started it, the telephone ringing three times in the dead of night, and the voice on the other end asking for someone he was not." - City of Glass

"Six days ago, a man blew himself up by the side of a road in northern Wisconsin." - Leviathan

Yep and the great intro to The Brooklyn Follies.

'I was looking for a quiet place to die.'

but I also like
'It was hot as hell in Martirio, but the papers on the porch are icy with the news.' DBC Pierre opens Vernon God Little.

theCzar

I came on here to bitch about the Dark Tower series by Stephen King, but the opening line to the Gunslinger was great. I'm remembering rather than quoting so may not have it verbatim.

The man in black fled across the desert and the gunlinger followed"

Downhill from there

The Mad Hatter

Neil Gaiman is very good at openings. The example that springs to mind is

"There was a hand in the dark, and it held a knife."

From The Graveyard Book.

Wester

"In Haddam, summer floats over tree-softened streets like a sweet lotion balm from a careless, languorous God, and the world falls in tune with its own mysterious anthems" - Richard Ford, Independence Day.

GO_Bear

"I Was there" said Titus Cassar his wavering voice barely reaching the back of the chamber " I was there the day Horus turned his face from the emperor"

Galaxy in Flames
Ben Counter
The Horus Heresy


Dunno why but i am really enjoying the Warhammer 40k books at the moment , ^.^

LostinKildare

"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina

pauline fayne

padraig_f wrote: »

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

- Genesis

i thought it was 'In the beginning God created the word '.
--you live and learn

pauline fayne

'The sun shone , having no alternative , on the nothing new .'

Samuel Beckett 'Murphy'

p to the e

"Burn this book"
Mister B. Gone by Clive Barker