Most memorable first lines

[adz3]

"The Opera Ghost really existed"

-Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera

 

I just love this line

[nursenblack]

I always think of "Ruth remembered drowning" from Drowning Ruth by Christina Schwarz.

[Karsa Orlong]

A few of my faves:

 

"Now these ashes have grown cold, we open the old book." - Steven Erikson, Gardens of The Moon

 

"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 boy, Paul." - Frank Herbert, Dune

 

"'Tonight we're going to show you eight silent ways to kill a man.'" - Joe Haldeman, The Forever War

 

"Then, it was as though everything was stripped away: sensation, memory, self, even the notion of existence that underlies reality - all seemed to have vanished utterly, their passing marked only by the realisation that they had disappeared, before that too ceased to have meaning, and for an indefinite, infinite instant, there was only the awareness of something; something that possessed no mind, no purpose and no thought, except the knowledge that it was." - Iain M. Banks, Feersum Endjinn

 

"America was never innocent." - James Ellroy, American Tabloid

 

 

although the one that always sticks in my mind is:

 

"Jack Torrance thought: Officious little prick." - Stephen King, The Shining

[Echo]

"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." -Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

 

"It begins, as most things begin, with a song." -Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman

 

"Eyes mark the shape of the city." -After Dark by Haruki Murakami

 

"It was a dark and stormy night." -A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

 

"The summer she as fifteen, Melanie discovered she was made of flesh and blood." -The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter

 

"When the phone rang I was in the kitchen, boiling a potful of spaghetti and whistling along with an FM broadcast of the overture to Rossini's The Thieving Magpie, which has to be the perfect music for cooking pasta." -The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami

[Pixie]

"I was looking for a quiet place to die." - The Brooklyn Follies by Paul Auster

 

"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul." Lolita by Vladimir Nabakov

 

"It was a pleasure to burn." Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

[ian]

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. - The Hitch-Hiker's guide to the Galaxy.

[Guest Sifredi8760]

My favourite first line was from a book by Sam Bourne... I don't remember exactly the line but it was something about the end of the world.

[smilerbabeuk]

This is a cool first line from "Back When We Were Grownups".

 

Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered that she had turned into the wrong person.

 

I have never heard of this book, but this line makes me want to read it!

[Vladd]

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.

- Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

 

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

- George Orwell, 1984

 

The year 1866 was signalized by a remarkable incident, a mysterious and inexplicable phenomenon, which doubtless no one has yet forgotten.

- Jules Verne, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

[Elin]

the city is broiling in an early summer heat wave, and for the third day in a row Victoria buys a salad from the Korean market around the corner and has lunch at her desk. from summer sisters by Judy Blume.

[Beccles]

"Who would have believed in the late 19th century that human affairs were being watched from space"

[Janet]

"Who would have believed in the late 19th century that human affairs were being watched from space"

I really want to read this! I know the musical version so well as it's one of our 'long car journey' CDs!

[ladymacbeth]

"Dr Iannis had enjoyed a satisfactory day in which none of his patient had died or got any worse."

 

Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis De Bernieres

 

This is a great one for doctors. Slightly ruined by the fact my mind stops for a millisecond trying to work out how to pronounce Iannis.

[Ktrn]

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

- Neuromancer, William Gibson.

Not my favorite (I don't really have one), but the first one I remembered.