BS: Books - Best Opening Lines Ever

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best Opening Lines Ever
From: SINSULL
Date: 07 Apr 11 - 08:29 AM

"Who is John Galt?" Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best Opening Lines Ever
From: fat B****rd
Date: 07 Apr 11 - 07:53 AM

A chapter in David Nobbs' 'The Fall And Rise of Reginald of Reginald Perrin' starts "Here are the gum-boots you ordered, Madame"

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best Opening Lines Ever
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Apr 11 - 07:46 AM

Got to be:
"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. He was lying on his hard, as it were armor-plated, back and when he lifted his head a little he could see his domelike brown belly divided into stiff arched segments on top of which the bed quilt could hardly keep in position and was about to slide off completely. His numerous legs, which were pitifully thin compared to the rest of his bulk, waved helplessly before his eyes."
The Metamorphosis (long short story),
Franz Kafka

Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best Opening Lines Ever
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 07 Apr 11 - 06:44 AM

I was going to say the same for the reason that it opens up the whole of the Bible so simply 'In the Beginning, God created'

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best Opening Lines Ever
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 07 Apr 11 - 06:11 AM

In the Beginning, God created...

{atheist, me, as most will know: but know quality when I read it}

~m~

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best Opening Lines Ever
From: bobad
Date: 07 Apr 11 - 05:45 AM

At an age when most young Scotsmen were lifting skirts, plowing furrows, and planting seed, Mungo Park was displaying his bare buttocks to al-haj' Ali Ibn Fatoudi, Emir of Ludamar.....George III was dabbing the walls of Windsor Castle with his own spittle, the Notables were botching things in France, Goya was deaf, DeQuincey a depraved preadolescent. George Bryan 'Beau' Brummell was smoothing down his first starched collar, young Ludwig van Beethoven, beetle-browed and twenty-four, was wowing them in Vienna with his Piano Concerto no.2, and Ned Rise was drinking Strip-Me-Naked with Nan Punt and Sally Sebum at the Pig & Pox Tavern in Maiden Lane.

"Water Music" - T.Coraghessan Boyle

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best Opening Lines Ever
From: Jim McLean
Date: 07 Apr 11 - 05:34 AM

"Mr Ben Nevis, you're as old as the hills" ... BoB Halfin.

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best Opening Lines Ever
From: GUEST,Portland Billy
Date: 07 Apr 11 - 05:23 AM

"It was the day my grandmother exploded."

The Crow Road, Iain Banks.

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best Opening Lines Ever
From: GUEST,CrazyEddie
Date: 07 Apr 11 - 04:54 AM

The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door.


I believe it was used as an opening line in a ctreative writing course. Most people used it to start a hoeeor/ scifi stort (the monsters have come for him at last).
But in at least one story, the knock was made by the last WOMAN on earth.

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best Opening Lines Ever
From: Will Fly
Date: 07 Apr 11 - 04:53 AM

"It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me." — Anthony Burgess, Earthly Powers

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best Opening Lines Ever
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 07 Apr 11 - 04:45 AM

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 —


A tale of two cities, Charles Dickens.

I've never got around to reading the book, but as an opening half paragraph it sums up a universe...

With an opening like that you can go home happy.

Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: BS: Books - Best Opening Lines Ever
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 07 Apr 11 - 03:40 AM

"last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again".
'Rebecca' - superb.

Subject: BS: Books - Best Opening Lines Ever
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 07 Apr 11 - 03:20 AM

So, which is your favourite one?