What's your favorite first line of a book?
I'll start with mine:
"So what's it going to be then, eh?"
2007-06-27 14:26:18 · 20 answers · asked by Anonymous in Arts & Humanities ➔ Books & Authors
My quote is from A Clockwork Orange
2007-06-27 15:22:42 · update #1
"Mother died today."
Camus, "The Stranger"
2007-06-27 15:05:55 · answer #1 · answered by Amber 1 · 2⤊ 0⤋
I don't have a favorite first line. I do have a favorite page 1.
Harry Harrison's page one of The Stainless Steel Rat.
2007-06-28 23:20:11 · answer #2 · answered by eek 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
"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."
(One Hundred years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
Makes you want to read on, doesn't it?
1984 has a great opening line, too - sets you up for the rest of the book.
On the other hand, not many opening lines are duller than that of Hamlet: "Who's there?"
2007-06-27 22:04:48 · answer #3 · answered by greyguy 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting. From William Faulkner The Sound and the Fury
2007-06-28 01:39:01 · answer #4 · answered by Artful 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Nothing moved but the wind and only a few last lingering drops of rain, only a blowing of water off the ruined wall.
(The first line from Louis L"Amour;s, the Walking Drum)
2007-06-27 21:46:56 · answer #5 · answered by burn out 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.
-Pride and Prejudice
2007-06-27 22:01:05 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 0⤋
"Then there was the bad weather."
A Moveable Feast--Ernest Hemingway
(What a way to start a story! It's so simple, but just drags you in immediately. I love you, Ernest!)
2007-06-28 04:15:37 · answer #7 · answered by missyshell05 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
"The sky over the port was the color of television tuned to a dead channel."
William Gibson's "Neuromancer," the first cyberpunk novel . . . launches you right into the world he creates.
2007-06-28 23:01:49 · answer #8 · answered by Boar's Heart 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
i loved the first lines of 'uglies' by scott westerfeld
and the first lines of '1984' by George Orwell
2007-06-27 21:34:15 · answer #9 · answered by Psychedelic Worm 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I have two:
"Man", said Terl, "Is an endagered species"
-- Batlefield Earth
"Call Me Ishmael"
-- Moby Dick and Ishmael
2007-06-27 22:26:33 · answer #10 · answered by Shai Shammai 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Okay,
I thought everybody's favorite was, "It was the best of times...."
from A Tale of Two Cities...
2007-06-27 21:37:01 · answer #11 · answered by greengo 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋