Opening Lines

[Shaguar]

I am quite an intolerant reader, especially of fiction. A book has to get me really quickly. With this in mind I was wondering what opening lines from books have stayed in your mind. A couple of my favourites are

It was the best of times it was the worst of times.

Marley was dead, dead as a doornail

[lady cop]

I am quite an intolerant reader, especially of fiction. A book has to get me really quickly. With this in mind I was wondering what opening lines from books have stayed in your mind. A couple of my favourites are

It was the best of times it was the worst of times.

Marley was dead, dead as a doornail
i am with you on those, and of course anything dickens...but what was it about carl hiaasen that grabbed you? since neither of us read much fiction.......... :read:

[SharonDee]

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

(Or something.)

[Celsus]

My favourite opening line(s) still remains the same:
In the beginning there was a river. The river became a road and the road branched out to the whole world. And because the road was once a river it was always hungry.

Ben Okri, The Famished Road
Joel

[beyelzu]

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

(Or something.)
that's it word for word.

and yes it is one of the best opening lines ever \


from the gunslinger for those of you who dont read stephen king

[Crumb]

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

[Barefoot Bree]

Lucas Priest, Sergeant Major, United States Army Temporal Corps, was trying to figure out how to stop a charging bull elephant with nothing but a Roman short sword. Scipio had given the order to advance and Lucas wondered if the legion commander really believed that Rome's famed phalanx formations would intimidate a berserker like Hannibal. Senindg foot soldiers against his pachyderms was not unlike attempting to stop a Panzer column with tricycles.
Not exactly lyrical, but it definitely grabs you and sucks you into the story. And if anybody else here can tell me what it's from, I'll eat my hat without ketchup.

[beyelzu]

Ivanhoe Gambit
by simon hawke
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0441377637/202-1384371-1450226
thank you google

[beyelzu]

"Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun."
hitch hikers guide to the galaxy?

[Barefoot Bree]

Pfttttttttt! I should have specified no googling. Anybody else out there actually READ it?

[beyelzu]

Pfttttttttt! I should have specified no googling. Anybody else out there actually READ it?
I assume that that noise you made came from a hat being chewed on?


and no I havent read it, is it worth the read?

the idea of time corps is pretty cool if well done.

[Barefoot Bree]

Pfttttttttt! I should have specified no googling. Anybody else out there actually READ it?
I assume that that noise you made came from a hat being chewed on?


and no I havent read it, is it worth the read?

the idea of time corps is pretty cool if well done.
No, it was the hat being spat back out - hats taste nasty without ketchup. Or at least steak sauce.

The Ivanhoe Gambit is actually the first book of a series of 12 - don't gasp, they are all short-ish paperbacks, about 200-250 pages. I'm not sure how well the writing would stack up, but I adore the premise they are written on. Not only does Mr Hawke present the most coherent, logical theory for time travel anomalies (the famous grandfather paradox, etc), but he uses historical novels as though they were actual history. Ivanhoe, Robin Hood, the Scarlet Pimpernel, the Prisoner of Zenda, 2000 Leagues Under the Sea - and those are just the first few books! He also uses some actual historical happenings, as well - there's a young Winston Churchill, and Caesar and Cleopatra, as well.

Eh, somebody stop me. I could go on and on.... Yes, they are worth a read.

[Crumb]

hitch hikers guide to the galaxy?

Exactamundo!

and thanks BBree I will check out Mr. Hawke's works, I am a sucker for a time travel story.

[Ensign Steve]

"I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice--not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany."

[JoeP]

The correct answer is "none", because almost nothing stays in my mind and first lines are no exception. But here are a couple picked from books that I suspected might have great first lines, and in fact do:

"Many 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."

"Wars came early to Shanghai, overtaking each other like the tides that raced up the Yangtze and returned to this gaudy city all the coffins cast adrift from the funeral piers of the Chinese Bund."

[viscousmemories]

ooo... I didn't think of cheating. Good lookin' out, Joe. From a random good book on my shelf (Americana, by Don Delillo):

"Then we came to the end of another dull and lurid year."

[Gurdur]

....It was the best of times it was the worst of times.

This would probably be that one about the French Revolution. Charles Dickens, A Tale Of Two Cities ?

[Gurdur]

"I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice--not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany."
Easy.
A Prayer For Owen Meany

no, I have not googled at all.

[Crumb]

Was this supposed to be some kinda quiz?