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Best opening lines of books EVER

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Best opening lines of books EVER

Postby Aletheia Dolorosa » Fri May 25, 2007 8:26 am

This refers only to non-HDM books, obviously.

Mine is from I Capture the Castle:

'I write this sitting in the kitchen sink'.

It's a perfect first line because it makes you go 'huh?'
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Postby Aurone » Sat May 26, 2007 9:54 pm

While I've yet to find the time to read the actual book, I think one of the greates opening lines is Moby Dick's "Call me Ishmale."
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Postby furbaby » Sun May 27, 2007 2:17 am

A haunting and immortal opening line:

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again - Rebecca

And some of Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine's novels have irresistible openings. I will return with some...
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Postby Aletheia Dolorosa » Sun May 27, 2007 8:37 am

While I've yet to find the time to read the actual book, I think one of the greates opening lines is Moby Dick's "Call me Ishmale."
You should read it. But be prepared for long passages on whales, whaling and whalers that seem to go nowhere. I got it for my 21st birthday, and struggled through it during a trip to Europe, but it was worth it.
Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again - Rebecca
An excellent book. It's one of my sister's favourites, and scared her so much that when she was reading it, she couldn't read it at night.
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Postby Somewhat » Sun May 27, 2007 12:45 pm

"They say that the prospect of being hanged in the morning concentrates a man's mind wonderfully; unfortunately, what the mind inevitably concentrates on is that it is in a body that, in the morning, is going to be hanged."
-Going Postal, Terry Pratchett

It's the first line and the first paragraph, too. It certainly isn't the very best but I do like it a lot.
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Postby Jaya » Mon May 28, 2007 12:30 am

A haunting and immortal opening line:

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again - Rebecca
One of my favourites too 8) Rebecca is an awesome book.

On the topic of Discworld, one of my favourite Pratchett openings is:

The rumour spread through the city like wildfire (which had quite often spread through Ankh-Morpork since its citizen's had learned the words 'fire insurance'). - The Truth
"To him whose elastic and vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning."
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Postby cassingtonscholar » Mon May 28, 2007 3:05 am

Mine is from I Capture the Castle:

'I write this sitting in the kitchen sink'.
Ugg! I hated that book.


Anyways, my favorite opening line is the classic one from A Tale of Two Cities. Please do me the honor of reading the whole way through it because this is going to take me forever to type out. Here goes:

"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 way--in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good of for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."

Great book, if anyone hasn't read it.
“‘Tagoona, if I held you by your heels from a third-story window, you would have a problem.’ Tagoona considered this long and carefully. Then he said, ‘I do not think so. If you saved me, all would be well. If you dropped me, nothing would matter. It is you who would have the problem.’”--Margaret Craven, I Heard the Owl Call My Name

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Postby Somewhat » Mon May 28, 2007 6:46 am

Mine is from I Capture the Castle:

'I write this sitting in the kitchen sink'.
Ugg! I hated that book.


Anyways, my favorite opening line is the classic one from A Tale of Two Cities. Please do me the honor of reading the whole way through it because this is going to take me forever to type out. Here goes:

"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 way--in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good of for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."

Great book, if anyone hasn't read it.
It makes Dickens sound bipolar. :D
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Postby Aletheia Dolorosa » Mon May 28, 2007 11:36 am

I like your taste in books, even if you don't like mine. When I was younger, my mother read A Tale of Two Cities aloud to me and my sister. For about the last 5 chapters, we were all sobbing uncontrollably.
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Postby AUST » Mon May 28, 2007 11:42 am

The opening from 1984... Wodnerful.
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Postby Aletheia Dolorosa » Mon May 28, 2007 11:48 am

Quote it again for me, I'm not remembering. *winces in shame*
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Postby Ultracommando93 » Mon May 28, 2007 12:31 pm

Quote it again for me, I'm not remembering. *winces in shame*
1984? "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirtee. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly thorugh the glass doors of Victory mansions, though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of grtty dust from entering along with him". It goes on to describe the rather nasty apartment block.
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Postby furbaby » Mon May 28, 2007 6:02 pm

Here’s a few Ruth Rendell/ Barbara Vine openers. She has a great knack for hooking you right from the start, or as Aletheia put it, making you go “huh?”

The clothes of the dead won’t wear long. They fret for the person who owned them. (The Brimstone Wedding)

A great many things that other people did all the time she had never done. (King Solomon’s Carpet)

They have sent me here because of what happened on the pylon. (Grasshopper)

Eunice Parchman killed the Coverdale family because she could not read or write. (A Judgement In Stone)

On the morning Vera died I woke up very early ….. In these circumstances alone one knows when someone is going to die. All other deaths can be predicted, conjectured, even anticipated with some certainty, but not to the hour, the minute, with no room for hope. (A Dark-Adapted Eye)

Cheated a bit with the last one by leaving out a few sentences from the first paragraph, but as an opening it has that “must read on” quality.
Do any of us, except in our dreams, truly expect to be reunited with our hearts’ deepest loves, even when they leave us only for minutes, and on the most mundane of errands? No, not at all. Each time they go from our sight we in our secret hearts count them as dead. Having been given so much, we reason, how could we expect not to be brought as low as Lucifer for the staggering presumption of our love?
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Postby jordan college girl » Tue May 29, 2007 12:50 am

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." - Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

My most favoritest book of all time. :D
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Postby Aletheia Dolorosa » Tue May 29, 2007 1:06 am

[quote="Ultracommando93]"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirtee.[/quote]

Of course, how could I forget?
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Postby rats_rox » Tue May 29, 2007 11:25 am

As Matt watched the rain through the window, the rain watched him back --- Justin Richards, The Chaos Code

I like it, it's random. :)
Morrible: Yes, yes, of course! Oh, You must be Miss Nessarose, the governor's daughter. What a tragically beautiful face you have! *Sees Elphaba, snorts*...And you must be.

Elphaba: I'm the other daughter. Elphaba. I'm beautifully tragic.

*****

Elphaba: So, no matter how shallow and self-absorbed you pretend to be...

Fiyero: Excuse me, there's no pretense here. I happen to be genuinely self-absorbed and deeply shallow.
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Postby Ultracommando93 » Tue May 29, 2007 11:40 am

Redemption Ark by Alastair Reynolds: "The dead ship was a thing of obscene beauty". That's random for you.
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Postby highandrandom » Tue May 29, 2007 3:59 pm

"Far out in the uncharted quarters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded sun."

The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Oh - and as a side-note, I adore 'I Capture the Castle', though I've never really been able to understand why, it's not exactly typical of the books that I fall in love with.
"Very occassionally, if you really pay attention, life doesn't suck" - Joss Whedon.
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Postby Tristan » Tue May 29, 2007 5:00 pm

Hmm, my favorite single opening line is from One Hundred Years of Solitude:
"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."
Favorite opening *section*, though, I'd say is Lolita's:
"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.

She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.

Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, a certain initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns."
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Postby Blossom » Tue May 29, 2007 6:16 pm

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." - Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

My most favoritest book of all time. :D
Deffinately a great opening line :D
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