Patrick Beverley

No, it's not. "Call me..." is different from "My name's..." because it introduces uncertainty: is he phrasing it like that because it's the name he's going by, rather than his real name? It introduces doubt into the narrative right at the start.

By the way, if The Canterbury Tales can be called a novel, then here's a nice long opening sentence:

Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halve cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye
(So priketh hem nature in hir corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende
Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.

Battlemage

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

Nothing more needs said.

RebelGoddess

"My father had a face that could stop a clock."

-The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

What I love about it is how this sentance, when read alone, could turn the whole novel upside down. The sentance that follows it is awesome too though, and definitely adds to the absolute greatness of this opening line:

"I don't mean that he was ugly or anything, it was simply a term used by the Chrono Guard to describe an individual with the abilty to reduce time to an ultra-slow trickle."

Racheal

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Writers' block doesn't exist. It's actually called work avoidance procrastination.
-Jasper Fforde

safara duff

"When you learn how to die, you learn how to live."
- Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom

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lilacstarflower

Completely agree - I think it is the most powerful of all her opening sentences. Pride and Prejudice is the only one of her works that does not jump straight into a character but gives the reader a philosophy to ponder over.

I doubt it will ever be beaten

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topper

"The building was on fire and it wasn't my fault."
Jim Butcher, Harry Dresden Files. (I think it was Blood Rites, but don't quote me on that)

That is the only opening line I've ever been able to remember.

Remedy

"The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new." Samuel Beckett, Murphy

"Every summer Lin Kong returned to Goose Village to divorce his wife, Shuyu." Ha Jin, Waiting

"I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974." Jeffery Eugenides, Middlesex

"The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up." G.K. Chesterton, The Napoleon of Notting Hill

"Granted: I am an inmate of a mental hospital; my keeper is watching me, he never lets me out of his sight; there's a peephole in the door, and my keeper's eye is the shade of brown that can never see through a blue-eyed type like me." Ralph Manheim, The Tin Drum

"He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad." Raphael Sabatini, Scaramouche

NightOwl

Okay, so a couple of them are more than one sentence, but they're all good 'openers'...

‘I am ninety. Or ninety three. One or the other.’ Water for Elephants – Sara Gruen

‘It was Napoleon who had such a passion for chicken that he kept his chefs working round the clock.’ The Passion – Jeanette Winterson

‘This is a story about a man named Eddie and it begins at the end, with Eddie dying in the sun.’ The Five People You Meet in Heaven – Mitch Alborn

‘What’s it going to be then, eh?’
There 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 bastard though dry.
A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess

‘All children, except one, grow up.’ Peter Pan - J.M. Barrie

‘I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.’ I Capture the Castle - Dodie Smith

‘Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents.’ Little Women - Louisa May Alcott

'They're out there.
Black boys in white suits up before me to commit sex acts in the hall and get it mopped up before I can catch them.' One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey

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Nighttime is really the best time to work. All the ideas are there to be yours because everyone else is asleep.
Catherine O'Hara

VinrAlfakyn

"Now there was little Tuk; as a matter of fact his name was not Tuk at all, but before he could speak properly he called himself Tuk. He meant it for Carl, so it is just as well we should know that." -Little Tuk, Hans Christian Andersen

"It is very extraordinary, but when my feelings are most fervent, and at their best, my tongue and my hands alike seem tied." -What the Moon Saw, Hans Christian Andersen

"Before Fleet-street had reached its present importance, and when George the Third was young, and the two figures who used to strike the chimes at Old St Dunstan's church were in all their glory - being a great impediment to errand-boys on their progress, and a matter of gaping curiosity to country people - there stood close to the sacred edifice a small barber's shop, which was kept by a man of the name of Sweeney Todd." -Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, or, The String of Pearls, credit given to Edward P. Hingston, George Macfarren, Thomas Peckett Prest, James Malcolm Rymer, and Albert Richard Smith

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

"Tyler gets me a job as a waiter, after that Tyler's pushing a gun in my mouth and saying, the first step to eternal life is you have to die. For a long time though, Tyler and I were best friends. People are always asking, did I know about Tyler Durden. The barrel of the gun pressed against the back of my throat, Tyler says, 'We won't really die.' " -Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk

" 'Begin at the beginning' is the phrase. I cannot do that. I begin at the end - the conclusion of my life on earth. I present it to you as it happened - and what happened afterward." -What Dreams May Come, Richard Matheson

" 'There are dragons in the twins' vegetable garden.' " -A Wind in the Door, Madeleine L'Engle

"Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were." -Gone With the Wind, Margaret Mitchell

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it's a long long road, it's a big big world
we are wise wise women, we are giggling girls
we both carry a smile to show when we're pleased
both carry a switchblade in our sleeves
- Ani DiFranco, from "If He Tries Anything"
also in "Somplace To Be Flying" by Charles de Lint

Vanest

You beat me to it! I also love, from the same author:

"It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love." - Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez.

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Vanest
---
Now all my days
Are filled with tears
Wish I could go back
And change these years

I'm going through changes
I'm going through changes

Vanest

You are not alone! I love this too! Along the same lines (at least I think so, although no one else sees the similarities...) is the line from The Tunnel by Ernesto Sábato:

"Suffice it to say that I am Juan Pablo Castel, the painter who killed María Iribarne; I suppose that the trial is still in everyone’s memory, so I need no further introduction".

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Vanest
---
Now all my days
Are filled with tears
Wish I could go back
And change these years

I'm going through changes
I'm going through changes

Malone

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Chirios

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'There's a few things I want to ask him. Philosophical questions. like, "How does it feel to be dangled out a window by a rope tied around your balls...?"' - The Lies of Locke Lamora

SevenWritez

The Hobbit sucks. It's been said.

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As long as some suffer, the river flows forever
As long as there is pain, the river flows forever
As strong as a smile can be, the river will flow forever
As long as you are with me, we'll ride the river together

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GodofLiterature

Why not read it, and then, form your own opinion?

I personally enjoyed the Hobbit, but hated all the trilogies.