Best opening lines of a book.

Hadabetter
Hadabetter Posts: 942 Member
in Chit-Chat
Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

"Anna Karenina", Leo Tolstoy
«1345

Replies

  • RunDoozer
    RunDoozer Posts: 1,699 Member
    Call me Ishmael. -Moby Di.ck
  • iulia_maddie
    iulia_maddie Posts: 2,780 Member
    A very well known one:
    "Call me Ishmael"
    Moby-**** by Herman Melville.
  • DamnImASexyBitch
    DamnImASexyBitch Posts: 740 Member
    "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 going direct the other wayin short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only." ~ Charles ****ens Tale Of Two Cities
  • ACepero79
    ACepero79 Posts: 711 Member
    "The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed." - The Gunslinger, The Dark Tower 1
  • allisonsdaddy
    allisonsdaddy Posts: 64
    It was a dark and stormy night.

    How could that ever, ever, ever be improved upon?
  • maab_connor
    maab_connor Posts: 3,927 Member
    There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.
  • thedreamhazer
    thedreamhazer Posts: 1,156 Member
    Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting.
  • Fit_NYC_
    Fit_NYC_ Posts: 1,389 Member
    "The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed." - The Gunslinger, The Dark Tower 1

    Well done!
    Beat me to it!
  • aliciagetshealthy
    aliciagetshealthy Posts: 946 Member
    Who is John Galt?
  • paintedlady77
    paintedlady77 Posts: 154 Member
    Once upon a time...
  • ElyseL1
    ElyseL1 Posts: 504 Member
    It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.


    Love P&P :heart:
  • MissJanet55
    MissJanet55 Posts: 457 Member
    "Our father died in childbirth."

    - from a short story by Jane Rule.
  • Yanicka1
    Yanicka1 Posts: 4,564 Member
    Once when I was six years old I saw a magnificent picture in a book, called True Stories from Nature, about the primeval forest. It was a picture of a boa constrictor in the act of swallowing an animal.

    Le petit prince.
  • stumblinthrulife
    stumblinthrulife Posts: 2,558 Member
    "This book contains certain passages that some readers might find deeply disturbing. Due to the questionable sanity of the author and the convoluted nature of the plot, it is advised that it be read at a single sitting and then hidden away on a high shelf."

    - Nostradamus Ate My Hamster, Robert Rankin
  • Jo5ie
    Jo5ie Posts: 33 Member
    "I was born 10th May 1966. I died the same day."

    Tim Brannigan - Where are you really from?
  • DontStopB_Leakin
    DontStopB_Leakin Posts: 3,863 Member
    Whatever the opening lines to the Twilight books are.


    Literature gold.
  • BACONJOKESRSOFUNNY
    BACONJOKESRSOFUNNY Posts: 666 Member
    "I never thought that I'd be writing a letter to Penthouse Forum, but this was too amazing not to share. I showed up to clean the rich heiress' swimming pool, when..."
  • HurricaneElaine
    HurricaneElaine Posts: 984 Member
    It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

    George Orwell, 1984
  • AllTehBeers
    AllTehBeers Posts: 5,030 Member
    Once when I was six years old I saw a magnificent picture in a book, called True Stories from Nature, about the primeval forest. It was a picture of a boa constrictor in the act of swallowing an animal.

    Le petit prince.

    :heart: this.
  • cmcollins001
    cmcollins001 Posts: 3,472 Member
    .
  • ShreddedTweet
    ShreddedTweet Posts: 1,326 Member
    'Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice...'

    100 Years of Solitude...
  • BurtHuttz
    BurtHuttz Posts: 3,653 Member
    "I scowl with frustration at myself in the mirror. Damn my hair – it just won’t behave, and damn Katherine Kavanagh for being ill and subjecting me to this ordeal. I should be studying for my final exams, which are next week, yet here I am trying to brush my hair into submission."
  • california_peach
    california_peach Posts: 1,809 Member
    'Last night I dreamt I went to Maderley again.'

    Rebecca by Daphen Du Marier
  • BurtHuttz
    BurtHuttz Posts: 3,653 Member
    "Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea."
  • 76tech
    76tech Posts: 1,455 Member
    "It was a pleasure to burn."
    Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.

    "We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold."
    Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
  • Capt_Apollo
    Capt_Apollo Posts: 9,026 Member
    "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.
  • sarah_ep
    sarah_ep Posts: 580 Member
    “Garp’s mother, Jenny Fields, was arrested in Boston in 1942 for wounding a man in a movie theatre.”
  • Thomasm198
    Thomasm198 Posts: 3,189 Member
    "You think you know about pain?"

    The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum
  • MoreBean13
    MoreBean13 Posts: 8,701 Member
    Who is John Galt?
    YES.
  • MidwestAngel
    MidwestAngel Posts: 1,897 Member
    In the beginning...

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