What is your favourite first line?

Question

Of a book, film, poem, song, anything?

And what is your favourite last?

Answer 1

Once upon a time

The End

Answer 2

It would have to be

"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderlay again"

Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca. The line draws you into the book immediately. It taught me that the first line of a book is the most important one.

Second would have to be

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 - in 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.

One magnificent sentence written by Charles Dickens to start A Tale of Two Cities

Third would be

Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

The first line of that wonderful speech by Richard III.

And let us not forget the wonderful first sentence of TS Eliot's The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock, the finest piece of poetry on earth.


LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question …
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

Favorite last line? When I type THE END at the end of a manuscript.

Pax - C.

Answer 3

such distinctive from Clint Eastwood, so it rather is a annoying selection. probably grimy Harry, yet no longer the single which first includes strategies ("nicely do ya, punk?") besides the fact that if it is likewise great. probably while he's speaking with the Police chief concerning the for sure critically injured guy on television he allegedly beat (Scorpio), and he says "absolutely everyone you are able to tell i did no longer try this." Captain says "Why?" Harry says "because of the fact he seems too damned sturdy!" maximum memorable cinema trip a toss up between Empire strikes lower back in 1980 and Terminator 2: Judgement Day in 1991. Empire replace into first time I observed a PG movie with the help of myself in the cinema without mom and father and it replace into great. audience replace into riveted and thoroughly silent different than for some key moments while there replace into spontaneous applause or perhaps a standing ovation or 2. T2 i replace into working the summer season remoted from maximum media and had no longer considered a single trailer or different commercial so went in thoroughly chilly different than for a poster of Arnie on a hog brandishing a shotgun.

Answer 4

Song; "now here you go again, you say you want your freedom" - it's from Fleetwood Mac's Dreams. I don't know why, but whenever someone asks me to sing a song for them - even though I want to sing a different song - I always end up starting with that line.

Last line - since I read books but do not have a photographic memory for words - would also be from a song. "Bliss seems not just for the ones who kneel - luckily" (at least that is what Bono seems to sing. Sounds better than whats on the internet.) U2 - City of Blinding lights.

Answer 5

First line has to be the opening of Jane Eyre.
Last line - that's difficult - either Aubade by Philip Larkin, or the very last line of The Black Prince by Iris Murdoch. (Or the last line of a Leonard Cohen poem, but can't remember what it's called - but the last line is 'Oh Steve, do you remember me?'). When I have sent this to you I will suddenly remember a lot more! Always the way. (PS: The opening line to The Outsider by Albert Camus). Will write again.

Answer 6

It little profits that an idle king, By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.


Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in the old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are,
One equal-temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield

Ulysses, by Alfred Lord Tennison.

Tread softly because you tread upon my dreams.

William Butler Yeats.

Answer 7

"Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so." - from Dream Song 14 by John Berryman (poem)

"His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead." - from The Dead by James Joyce (short story)

Answer 8

First line:
One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin.
(From Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka)


Last line(s):
I am the Executioner. Murder someone in my town, and I’m the one that you get to see. Once.
(From Guilty Pleasures by Laurell K. Hamilton)

Answer 9

Some time ago, never mind how long exactly, having little money in my pocket and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I decided to sail around a little and see the watery part of the world.

And I alone am survived to tell the tale.

First and last lines from Moby Dick.

As Colonel Aurelio Buendia faced the firing squad he remembered back to the day his father took him to see the ice.

First line from One Hundred Years of Solitude.

OK, it is not exact but I am working from memory.

Answer 10

1st line: "It was a pleasure to burn"

-Fahrehiet 451, Ray Bradbury

last line: "After I've put away my equipment and scrubbed down the steel tables, I go straight home. My family is there. They're waiting for me."

-The River Styx Runs Upstream (short story), Dan Simmons

Answer 11

"Call me Smitty."---from The Great American Novel by Philip Roth; an obvious reference to the opening line of Moby Dick, (which is "Call me Ishmael.", as was correctly pointed out by cherrypi...).

"Tis a far, far better thing that I have done..."---from "A Tale of Two Cities".