Literature's Best Opening Lines (1 Viewer)

[Joe Bryant]

Also please share the source or author and book on these.

You probably think everyone knows the source. But not everyone does.

This group will be a great bunch to gather these.

 

[Joe Bryant]

“The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.”

The Gunslinger: Dark Tower
Stephen King

I was going to post that one.

That single line is how you would describe those 7 books if your goal was to describe 7 long books in the shortest sentence possible.

For sure. It’s nearly impossible to read that line and not be all in on what happens next.

Exactly. And that's part of what had me thinking with this.

Great writing pulls you in. The first sentence makes you want to read the second sentence. That takes talent to do that without clickbaity tactics.

 

[Northern Voice]

So.

In the beginning, there was nothing. Just the water.

Coyote was there, but Coyote was asleep. That Coyote was asleep and that Coyote was dreaming. When that Coyote dreams, anything can happen.

I can tell you that.

So, that Coyote is dreaming and pretty soon, one of those dreams gets loose and runs around. Makes a lot of noise.

Hooray, says that silly Dream, Coyote dream. I’m in charge of the world. And then that dream sees all that water.

What is that from?

Green Grass Running Water by Thomas King. It's a native take on a creation story with the coyote as a trickster character. Really cool book.

 

[kupcho1]

"Year of Glad

I am seated in an office, surrounded by heads and bodies" - Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace

The Year of Glad is the memorable part for me, because it was 1997 before everything had a corporate sponsor, and here was Wallace foreseeing the day where even time and the calendar was subsidized.

Sniped!


2nd choice:
"A screaming comes across the sky."
Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon

 

[kupcho1]

What are your favorites?

And please note the book or source they're from.

I posted mine before reading your link and was happy to see I wasn't repeating one.
Also, they only had 12 not 13 best opening lines, unless for some reason Camus gets 3 lines.
And don't get me started on Salinger's run-on sentence.

Lastly, I look forward to receiving your top 70 books list. Due date is still March 23rd.

 

[Dr. Octopus]

If you type "first lines" into Google Gravity's Rainbow is one of the searches.

"A screaming comes across the sky"

It is a book I've never read, yet whose first line I can recite in my head for some reason.

It's worth reading.

 

[Gally]

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.

J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

I did my 11th grade term paper on Catcher in the Rye and I had no idea where this quote was from. I guess it didn't stick (although I got an A)

 

[Anarchy99]

"It was the best of times; it was the worst of times."
- Charles Dickens from A Tale of Two Cities

 

[beer 30]

"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit."
-J.R.R. Tolkien from The Hobbit

That book launched me on a lifetime pursuit of science fantasy in my readings. My 7th grade English teacher made us read it for class.

 

[SWC]

i told him that I was going to paris he said youll have a good time in paris i said yes I think I will take that to the bank brohans

 

[Stoneworker]

"Who is John Galt?"

- Ayn Rand from Atlas Shrugged

 

[jhib]

"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit."

And this Tolkien one's not bad, either:

“When Mr Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.”

 

[jhib]

"It Was a Dark and Stormy Night."

By Snoopy, of course.

 

[Sand]

“The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.”

The Gunslinger: Dark Tower
Stephen King

I was going to post that one.

That single line is how you would describe those 7 books if your goal was to describe 7 long books in the shortest sentence possible.

For sure. It’s nearly impossible to read that line and not be all in on what happens next.

Exactly. And that's part of what had me thinking with this.

Great writing pulls you in. The first sentence makes you want to read the second sentence. That takes talent to do that without clickbaity tactics.

Given how hard it is (for me, at least) to write introductions and conclusions (don't even get me started on abstracts) it must feel like winning an Olympic medal to craft a great first sentence.

For all that Stephen King has done he'll always be known for that first line. That's pretty cool.

 

[Manster]

"The solution to any problem—work, love, money, whatever—is to go fishing, and the worse the problem, the longer the trip should be."

-John Gierach
Standing in a River Waving a Stick

My favorite author. He passed away in 2024. It saddens me that we will get no more new material from him.

 

[simey]

"The best con man in the Midwest is only ten years old."

- John D. Fitzgerald from The Great Brain

 

[-fish-]

"The beet is the most intense of vegetables."

Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume

 

[Ilov80s]

You better not never tell nobody but God.

The Color Purple

 

[Zow]

The terror, which would not end for another twenty-eight years- if it ever did end- began, so far as I know or can tell, with a boat made from a sheet of newspaper floating down a gutter swollen with rain.

Came in here to post this one.

 

[Zow]

'What's it going to be then, eh?' That was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie and Dim, Dim being really dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar making up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening, a flip dark chill winter ******* though dry.

- A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

*Technically two lines so sorry if cheating a bit. But it's my second favorite next to the one Tim cited.

 

[Ilov80s]

A story has no beginning or end; arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.

The End of the Affair

 

[BassNBrew]

Also please share the source or author and book on these.

You probably think everyone knows the source. But not everyone does.

This group will be a great bunch to gather these.

Source ABC / Johnny Pearson

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

www.youtube.com

 

[Joe Bryant]

"The small boys came early to the hanging."

Ken Follett - Pillars of the Earth

The book is fantastic. But it's also huge, and picking it up, you wonder how long it'll take to get through it. This sentence sets the tone and it's off and running.

One of my favorite reads this year.

 

[Leroy Hoard]

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."

1984 by George Orwell (1949)

 

[Sand]

"The small boys came early to the hanging."

Ken Follett - Pillars of the Earth

The book is fantastic. But it's also huge, and picking it up, you wonder how long it'll take to get through it. This sentence sets the tone and it's off and running.

One of my favorite reads this year.

The second one was just as good.

 

[Joe Bryant]

"The small boys came early to the hanging."

Ken Follett - Pillars of the Earth

The book is fantastic. But it's also huge, and picking it up, you wonder how long it'll take to get through it. This sentence sets the tone and it's off and running.

One of my favorite reads this year.

The second one was just as good.

Agreed.

 

[cheeseypoof]

"It is cold at 6:40 in the morning of a March day in Paris, and seems even colder when a man is about to be executed by firing squad."

The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth One of my favorite books ever. I've read it multiple times.

 

[Ilov80s]

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream.

The Haunting of Hill House

 

[RandyDB]

"In the week before their departure to Arrakis, when all the final scurrying about had reached a nearly unbearable frenzy, an old crone came to visit the mother of the boy, Paul"

DUNE
Frank Herbert

 

[kupcho1]

I like words.

Me too!

Get your top 70 book lists in by midnight tomorrow March 30th!

 

[limey]

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.

William Gibson, Neuromancer

 

[Mr. Mojo]

Ove is fifty-nine. He drives a Saab. He's the kind of man who points at people he doesn't like the look of, as if they were burglars and his forefinger a policeman's flashlight. He stands at the counter of a shop where owners of Japanese cars come to purchase white cables.

Frederik Backman, A Man Called Ove

 

[kupcho1]

Ove is fifty-nine. He drives a Saab. He's the kind of man who points at people he doesn't like the look of, as if they were burglars and his forefinger a policeman's flashlight. He stands at the counter of a shop where owners of Japanese cars come to purchase white cables.

Frederik Backman, A Man Called Ove

I've never heard of this book, but consider me intrigued.

 

[Mr. Mojo]

Ove is fifty-nine. He drives a Saab. He's the kind of man who points at people he doesn't like the look of, as if they were burglars and his forefinger a policeman's flashlight. He stands at the counter of a shop where owners of Japanese cars come to purchase white cables.

Frederik Backman, A Man Called Ove

I've never heard of this book, but consider me intrigued.

Tom Hanks starred in one version of the film (A Man Called Otto).
But read the book first, it's a great blend of humor, sadness and warmth.

 

[rockaction]

It's worth reading.

Maybe it'll click the next time.

 

[Moonlight]

Always been partial to “I Am Born” from Dickens’ David Copperfield.

 

[foxco]

"Nothing ever begins."
-Clive Barker, "Weaveworld."

"He speaks in your voice, American, and there's a shine in his eye that's halfway hopeful."
-Don DeLillo, "Underworld."

"Almost everyone thought the man and boy were father and son."
Stephen King, "'Salem's Lot."

 

[Frostillicus]

Amerigo Bonasera sat in New York Criminal Court Number 3 and waited for justice; vengeance on the men who had so cruelly hurt his daughter, who had tried to dishonor her.

The Godfather, Mario Puzo

 

[Kiddnets]

"The great fish moved silently through the night water, propelled by short sweeps of its crescent tail"

What is that from?

Jaws

love the novel and the movie - very different in places

 

[tjford]

Slightly gray area here as I believe that the radio series came before the novel:

"The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

 

[Grace Under Pressure]

Taking a bit of license here, but The Outsiders Musical has a great opening line as the beginning of the song "Tulsa 67", which opens the show:

"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"

ETA: This is also the first line in the book lol.

 

[Ministry of Pain]

"In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth"
Genesis 1:1
King James Version

 

[eighsse2]

I like words too, but I hate art. So literature, being the intersection of those, is a little conflicting to my interests, but overall isn't my thing. Maybe the entry for "a" in the dictionary would be my answer to this question?

 

[El Floppo]

"In the country of Westphalia, in the castle of the most noble Baron of Thunder-ten-tronch, lived a youth whom Nature had endowed with a most sweet disposition. His face was the true index of his mind"

Candide, Voltaire

 

[Dr. Octopus]

, but I hate art.

Like every medium of art: music, novels, movies, paintings/sculpture, television, comedy, theater....?

 

[eighsse2]

, but I hate art.

Like every medium of art: music, novels, movies, paintings/sculpture, television, comedy, theater....?

It was a bit of an exaggerated or blanket statement. A better term would be "artsy fartsy stuff". Sure, there are media that I enjoy, mostly comedy shows, and some music.