Dancer Preston

I was just reading The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2006 which has a section called: "Best American First Sentences of Novels of 2005." And I was wondering, what do you think is the best opening line you've ever read in a novel?

My favorite--and the only one I can quote--is from Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice:

"It is a universally acknowledged truth, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."

I loves it!

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"Such is the human race, often it does seem a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat." Mark Twain.

"I don't know much about clothes, but my hair looks fierce!" Amanda Lepore

"I am...the artist currently known as starving." Fiona Zedde (Novelist)

strangedaze

'Call me Ishmael.'

- Moby Dick, Herman Melville

'When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.'

- The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka

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'First I lick the mucilage - it's kind of sexy. I put the little metal diddle through the hole.'

- Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

Kane

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

The Gunslinger, Stephen King

Aera

"Even before the events in the supermarket, Jim Ironheart should have known trouble was coming."
-Cold Fire, Dean Koontz

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I am not to be taken seriously. Especially in matters of editing.
~Aera~

umbramaker

I've got two.

"'He's a Mad Scientist and I'm his Beautiful Daughter.'"
-The Number of the Beast, Robert A. Heinlein

This one's actually two sentences, but it's good, anyway.

"The story so far: In the beginning, the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
-The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Douglass Adams

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"Their next game is in Atlanta."
"Georgia?"
"...No, Atlanta, Tennessee."

quarterscot

"We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold."
- Fear and Loathing In Los Vegas, Hunter S Thompson

"My mother is a virgin. (Trust me.)"
- Emotionally Wierd, Kate Atkinson

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Andrew
http://whyisthishere.co.uk

riversource

"Hello, ship," Jake Holman said under his breath. - The Sand Pebbles by Richard Mckenna

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strangedaze

i dig the douglas adams / hst quotes. nice.

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'First I lick the mucilage - it's kind of sexy. I put the little metal diddle through the hole.'

- Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

Loulou

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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www.thewriterseye.com
A website with great and refined taste....

Shawn

"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.

"She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita."

Nabokov is always most beautiful.

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If I'm online, be nice, I'm escaping.

Jaspers

"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

Anarkos

"The sky was the colour of television tuned to a dead channel"
- William Gibson, Neuromancer

"It was a bright, cold day of April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."
- George Orwell, 1984



"I can count my overdoses on one hand:"
- Craig Clevenger, The Contortionist's Handbook

"If you're going to read this, don't bother."
- Chuck Palahniuk, Choke

"The bells of St Mark's were ringing changes up on the mountain when Bud skated over to the mod parlour to get upgrade his skull gun."
- Neal Stephenson, The Diamond Age

"I was in my room, reading a book"
- Iain Banks, Whit

"It was the day my grandmother exploded"
- Iain Banks, The Crow Road

"Two days ago I decided to kill myself. [...Last night, I changed my mind and decided to stay alive. Everything that follows is...just try to explain]"
- Iain Banks, Espedair Street

And Iain Banks' 'The Business' has the funniest first three pages. About teeth. And the best opening dialogue, from his vicious and brilliant 'Use of Weapons':

"Tell me, what is happiness?"
"Happiness? Happiness is to wake up on a bright spring morning, after an exhausting first night spent with a beautiful ... passionate ... multi-murderess."
"...Shit, is that all?"

And the very worst:
"Meteorites fell through the night sky like a gentle sleet of icefire, their sharp scintillations slashing ebony overload streaks across the image Gregor Mandel's photon amp was feeding into his optical nerves."
- Peter F Hamilton, Mindstar Rising

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My latest work: Bags - The Hooker - Going Rogue - Flashing Out - The Problem with Being a Grifter
I always appreciate fair criticism, and will endeavor to reciprocate.

DesolateValkyrie

"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 by Margaret Mitchell

~Si~

"It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on earth has ever produced the expression "As pretty as an airport."
Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul; By Douglas Adams.

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"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it is too dark to read."
"Women are to be obscene, not heard."
~ Groucho Marx

Straylight

It was starting to end, after what seemed most of eternity to me. [I attempted to wriggle my toes, succeeded. I was sprawled there in a hospital bed and my legs were done up in plaster casts, but they were still mine.]
-Roger Zelazny, Nine Princes in Amber.

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"Every man builds his world in his own image. He has the power to choose, but no power to escape the necessity of choice."
-Ayn Rand

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