There are lots of threads out there about a favourte quote from a book, or something like that, so I thought, why not a favourite opening line?

I think the opening line of the book can tell you a little about the story. You can have long winded but very cleverly written ones like:

"The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become Legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third age by some, an Age yet to come,an Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist.The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning."
From Robert Jordan's (RIP) Wheel of Time.

Or it can be short, sharp, and sweet, such as 'It was a pleasure to burn.' from Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451.

Personally my favourite is

"The Man in Black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed."
From The Gunslinger, by Stephen King.

Something just ticked in me when I read that, and it made me want to keep on reading, and I did

So share with us you favourite lines

Well, over the years it has not changed from
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a fortune, must be in want of a wife..."(Jane Austen"Pride and Prejudice) ,but my second favourite might be
"With a single drop of ink for a mirror,the Egyptian sorcerer undertakes to reveal to any chance comer,far reaching visions of the past" (George Eliot"Adam Bede,")
Or , more recently
: 'Two years ago my mother died,my father fell in love with a glamorous blond Ukrainan divorcee. He was eighty four and she was thirty six. She exploded into our lives like a fluffy pink grenade, churning up the the murky water, bringing to the surface a sludge of sloughed off memories, giving the family ghosts a kick up the backside." (Marina Lewycka " a Short History of Tractors in Ukranian "
Don't they all make you want to read on?

"The Earth twitched like a dead thing." I have no I idea what the book was but the opening line stays with me.

Gats, the book is so funny. I hope you love it like I did.

"A bright penetrating chime struck into two hundred minds, broke two hundred bubbles of trance." (Son of Tree by Jack Vance)

Quote:

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It was an ordinary day, a Friday, twenty minutes till lunchtime, five hours till quitting time and the weekend, ten months till vacation, thirty-seven years till retirement. Then the phone rang.

---

-from Jack Finney's Time And Again,
which I go to over and over again for something rich and comforting -like digging in the refrigerator for the makings of a BLT or some left over cheese cake.

"There was a Master come unto the earth, born in the holy land of Indiana, raised in the mystical hills east of Fort Wayne."

From "Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah" by Richard Bach. It's a short book, but there is so much in it. I obviously love it, as my 'signature' taken from it has remained for some time now. I think I have given over 100 copies of this to friends over the years.

Hey Hey a Jack Vance fan, good for you, he's a legend.

In an earlier post I cited among my favorite openers those of Stephen Crane ("The Open Boat"), L.P. Hartley ("The Go-Between") and James M. Cain ("The Postman Always Rings Twice"). I know another fascinating opener:

"The man with ten minutes to live was laughing" Frederick Forstyth, "The Fist of God"

Now there's a classic "hook" for you!

tjoeb};>

"This is where the dragons went". Terry Pratchett, "Guards, Guards". Hmm, thanks The_lioness33, I think I feel a quiz coming on!

"Marley was dead, to begin with." Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol.

Just submitted - and you are duly credited with the idea! ;-)

"Where you're supposed to be is some big West Hills wedding reception in a big manor house with flower arrangements and stuffed mushrooms all over the house. This is called scene setting: where everybody is, who's alive, who's dead. This is Evie Cottrell's big wedding reception moment. Evie is standing halfway down the big staircase in the manor house foyer, naked inside what's left of her wedding dress, still holding the rifle." ~ Chuck Palahniuk "Invisible Monsters"

"Assault and Matrimony" by James Anderson:

"It was on a Wednesday that Sylvia Gascoigne-Chalmers decided to murder her husband. What she didn't know was that on Tuesday her husband, Edgar, had decided to murder her..."

It's quite an amusing book, though not my favourite and hardly a classic, but these are probably my favourite opening lines.

I like Snoopy's opening line, "It was a dark and stormy night..." So what if he could never get the rest of his big novel written. What an original opening! LOL

Don't forget the classic, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." From A TALE OF TWO CITIES.

Martha, the beagle cribbed the line from Edward Bulwer-Lytton's "Paul Clifford" (1830). The late Madeleine L'Engel also used it for her "A Wrinkle in Time".

If you steal from one author, that's plagiarism. If you steal from many, that's research. Wilson Mizner

tjoeb};>

Oh my tjoebigham, I would never have guessed my favorite dog could do such a thing. I thought the great Red Baron was so honorable. I am crushed - truly crushed! Snoopy, how could you, how could you??

My favorite opening line comes from a child's book.

"He was a child of faerie folk, A child of sky and air, and she was a child of hummankind, of earth and toil and care." - Child Of Faerie, Child Of Earth by Jane Yolen.

I'm not alone in feeling that the opening line of "1984" is one of the all time great literary attention-grabbers:

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

In addition, though I know some people find the book outrageous, here's one opening paragraph that instantly riveted me:

"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."

I just remembered two great opening lines. They are both from Alice Sebold novels.

The first one from The Lovely Bones is "My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973."

The other is from The Almost Moon "When all is said and done, killing my mother came easily."

Those are both very haunting openings and are both wonderful books. They would both have to be on my recommended reading list.

"From my grandfather Verus I learned good morals and the government of my temper." The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius

And of course "Once upon a time..."

Some personal favourite opening lines of min, enjoy! They are not really in order of favorite to least.

Annie Dillard-authoress, "Death of A Moth: Transfiguration In A Candle Flame". Opening line, "So."

Robert James Waller-Author, "Bridges of Madison County". Opening line, "There are songs that come free from the blue-eyed grass, from the dust of a thousand country roads."

Richard Bach-author, "The Bridge Across Forever". Opening line, "We think, sometimes, there is not a dragon left."

Albert Einstein-author, "Relativity The Special and the General Theory". Opening line, "In your school days most of you who read this book made acquaintance with the noble building of Euclid's geometry, and you remember-perhaps with more respect than love-the magnificent structure, on the lofty staircase of which you were chased about for uncounted hours by conscientious teachers."

Franz Kafka-author, "The Trial". opening line, "Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having truly done anything wrong, he was arrested."

My favorite opening has always been this classic from Raymond Chandler's "Red Wind":

"There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge."