Best first sentences

[oswann]

Through the bloody September twilight, aftermath of sixty-two rainless days, it had gone like fire in dry grass-the rumour, the story, whatever it was.

- Dry September by William Faulkner



Anyone else have any first sentences that they love that have got the juices flowing from the outset?


Os.

[arkady]

I see that someone else remembers the mid-sixties television adaptation of The Green Hornet.

[katiemac]

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of my tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.


Okay, so it's the first paragraph - but still great!

[oswann]

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of my tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.


Okay, so it's the first paragraph - but still great!




Great as it is, I resisted the urge to put more than one sentence. Try for that one sentence that gets ya everytime you read it.



Os.

[oswann]

I see that someone else remembers the mid-sixties television adaptation of The Green Hornet.



Shhh.



Os.

[johnnycannuk]

We were somewhere on the edge of the desert, near Barstow, when the drugs kicked in.

- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"


Call me Ishmeal.

- Herman Melville "Moby Dick"

Two of the classics.

Mike

[SJB]

Neat topic! Some of my favourites...

"Dombey sat in the corner of the darkened room in the great arm-chair by the bedside, and Son lay tucked up warm in a little basket bedstead, carefully disposed on a low settee immediately in front of the fire and close to it, as if his constitution were analogous to that of a muffin, and it was essential to toast him brown while he was very new." - C Dickens, Dombey & Son

"In the days when the spinning-wheels hummed busily in the farmhouses—and even great ladies, clothed in silk and thread-lace, had their toy spinning-wheels of polished oak—there might be seen in districts far away among the lanes, or deep in the bosom of the hills, certain pallid undersized men, who by the side of the brawny country-folk looked like the remnants of a disinherited race." - G Eliot, Silas Marner

"In summer all right-minded boys built huts in the furze-hill behind the College--little lairs whittled out of the heart of the prickly bushes, full of stumps, odd root-ends, and spikes, but, since they were strictly forbidden, palaces of delight." - R Kipling, Stalky & Co

"When Farmer Oak smiled, the corners of his mouth spread till they were within an unimportant distance of his ears, his eyes were reduced to chinks, and diverging wrinkles appeared round them, extending upon his countenance like the rays in a rudimentary sketch of the rising sun." - T Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd

"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." - L Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

And, of course...

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in
possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." - J Austen, Pride and Prejudice

All oldies but goodies. :) (Resisting the urge to add fifty more, here.)

[willietheshakes]

We were somewhere on the edge of the desert, near Barstow, when the drugs kicked in.

- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"
Mike

I agree with you, Mike, but that's not actually the line...
"We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold."

I don't want to come off as pedantic or anything, but the line as Thompson wrote it is stronger ("began to take hold" is more evocative, imo, than "kicked in"), and I thought this board would be an appropriate place to give the writer -- and his words -- his full due...

[Maryn]

The last camel died at noon.

What camel? Why did it die? Where are we--and will we get out of here, or die, too?

I defy anybody to not get hooked on that first line of The Key to Rebecca.

Maryn, who once read it to her kids

[johnnycannuk]

I agree with you, Mike, but that's not actually the line...
"We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold."

I don't want to come off as pedantic or anything, but the line as Thompson wrote it is stronger ("began to take hold" is more evocative, imo, than "kicked in"), and I thought this board would be an appropriate place to give the writer -- and his words -- his full due...

I will defer to you as you likely have a copy of the book on hand. I was doing it from memory...not a good memory, but I may have been "playing along" when I read it last ;)

Thanks for the correction.

Mike

[Mark Anderson]

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

[reph]

"The coupe with the fishhooks welded to the fender shouldered up over the curb like the nose of a nightmare."

Fritz Leiber, "Coming Attraction." From memory, probably imperfectly recalled.

[Ketzel]

Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm, as the Tarleton twins were.

[Julie Worth]

“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.” —Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

[allion]

I'm doing this from memory, so it may not be right:

"In a hole in the ground lived a hobbit." - that Tolkien guy

Karen

[Julie Worth]

I'm doing this from memory, so it may not be right:

"In a hole in the ground lived a hobbit." - that Tolkien guy

Karen

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

[KTC]

"A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head."

A Confederacy of Dunces
by: John Kennedy Toole



Mrs. Philippa Maria Donahue only wandered into Kensington Market to buy herself a fish, but standing there, right there on Baldwin Street, staring at a shark's entrails, she nearly fainted, not from the smell, which was considerable, nor from the unusual colours and textures spilling out."

Courage My Love
by: Sarah Dearing

[KTC]

I like this thread!

"It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York."

The Bell Jar
by: Sylvia Plath


"The first real writer I ever knew was a man who did all of his work under the name of August Van Zorn."

The Wonder Boys
By: Michael Chabon

[Julie Worth]

“I stand at the window of this great house in the south of France as night falls, the night which is leading me to the most terrible morning of my life.” —James Baldwin, Giovanni's Room

Seems to me that the night which should be the night that, shouldn’t it?

[Sassenach]

'Which one of you bitches is my mother?'

novel by Shirley Conran--title eludes me at the moment.

[Mistook]

"It was a dark, and stormy night."

-Snoopy

[Jamesaritchie]

I can't say I really have a favorite first sentence. None come to mind, at least. I do, however, have a favorite page one, and it's from Moby Dick. I don't think I've ever read a better written opening. No matter how many times I read it, it just gets better and better.


Call me Ishmael. Some years ago −− never mind how long precisely −− having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off −− then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.

[maestrowork]

Pain. More Pain.

[johnnycannuk]

Mrs. Philippa Maria Donahue only wandered into Kensington Market to buy herself a fish, but standing there, right there on Baldwin Street, staring at a shark's entrails, she nearly fainted, not from the smell, which was considerable, nor from the unusual colours and textures spilling out."

Courage My Love
by: Sarah Dearing

Hmmm, Baldwin Street, Kennsington Market and Courage My Love...man I miss Toronto.

Mike, the former Annex dweller...

[Galoot]

The best first sentence will be in a book written by some galoot, on the shelves by 2007 at the latest. Count on it.

[sgtsdaughter]

"and it's a story that might bore you but you don't have to listen, she told me, because she always knew it was going to be like that, and it was, she thinks, her first year,or, actually a weekend, really a Friday, in September, at Camden, and this was three or four years ago, and she got so drunk that she ended up in bed and lost her virginity (late, she was eighteen) in Lorna Slavin's room . . . "

Bret Easton Ellis, The Rules of Attraction


THREE WEEKS after Granny Blakeslee died, Grandpa came to our house for his early morning snort of whiskey, as usual, and said to me, Will Tweedy? Go find youre moma, and then run up to yore Aunt Loma's and tell I said git on down here."

Olive Ann Burns, Cold Sassy Tree

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

Ricahrd Bach, Illusions

[Vomaxx]

"One afternoon late in October of the year 1697, Euclide Auclair, the philosopher apothecary of Quebec, stood on the top of Cap Diamant gazing down at the broad, empty river far beneath him."

Willa Cather, Shadows on the Rock

[rtilryarms]

I see that someone else remembers the mid-sixties television adaptation of The Green Hornet.

http://www.katoman.com/bruce%20lee%20rare%20photos/bruce%20lee%20rare%20photos/hornet1.jpg

[rtilryarms]

http://www.katoman.com/bruce%20lee%20rare%20photos/bruce%20lee%20rare%20photos/hornet1.jpg

nice hat

[WVWriterGirl]

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

Yay to the Stephen King nod! My favorite too!

WVWG

[Mistook]

Pain. More Pain.


:roll:

[Steve 211]

For those who don't get it, the "pain" above is from Atlanta Nights, which you only have to search on this site to find links to the entire hemorrhage-inducing text.


Kudos for the Melville, Plath, Hunter S. Thompson, and Richard Bach. And great topic - one can learn a lot just pulling books from the shelf.

Here's a few of my favorites...

The seller of lightning rods arrived just ahead of the storm.
- Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes

You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter.
- Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn

They didn't say anything about this in the books, I thought, as the snow blew in through the gaping doorway and settled on my naked back.
- James Herriot, All Creatures Great and Small

Squire Trelawney, Dr. Livesy, and the rest of these gentlemen having asked me to write down the whole particulars about Treasure Island, from the beginning to the end, keeping nothing back but the bearings of the island, and that only because there is still treasure not yet lifted, I take up my pen in the year of grace 17--, and go back to the time when my father kept the "Admiral Benbow" inn, and the brown old seaman, with the sabre cut, first took up lodging under our roof.
- Stevenson, Treasure Island

[Steve 211]

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

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.
- JD Salinger, Catcher in the Rye

[Galoot]

My name is Robinette Broadhead, in spite of which I am male.

Gateway, by Frederik Pohl

[Anatole Ghio]

Somebody already beat me to Tolstoy and Melville, so I will put this one in:

A screaming comes across the sky.

It's Thomas Pynchon from Gravity's Rainbow.

[KTC]

Hmmm, Baldwin Street, Kennsington Market and Courage My Love...man I miss Toronto.

Mike, the former Annex dweller...

Have you read Courage My Love? The whole thing takes place in Kensington Market. It will bring you back! I love Toronto too!

[Steve 211]

By eighth grade, Jesus Christ had been bone meal and rumors for most of 1,974 years, but we were only thirteen.

- The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys, Chris Fuhrman

[Galoot]

By eighth grade, Jesus Christ had been bone meal and rumors for most of 1,974 years, but we were only thirteen.
+adds The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys to his reading list+

[Steve 211]

Hey Galoot - it was actually your post - My name is Robinette Broadhead, in spite of which I am male. - that reminded me of it. Here's the opening paragraph.

By eighth grade, Jesus Christ had been bone meal and rumors for most of 1,974 years, but we were only thirteen. We were daredevils, gangsters. I had a girl's name, Francis, and a hernia.

The author died of cancer at age 31, and there was a movie made of the book with Jodie Foster, but I don't recall it getting good reviews.

[Galoot]

The author died of cancer at age 31, and there was a movie made of the book with Jodie Foster, but I don't recall it getting good reviews.I saw it, but I don't remember much about it other than my frustration over Jodie not once slipping out of her nun's habit for a quick shower.

I should have guessed it was a book. The movie seemed to have a lot of depth for something not very memorable, which ought to have been a clue it was the Hollywood-tip of a novel-iceberg.

[mdin]

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

I could never get into those books, but I used to have this sentence taped to the wall by my computer monitor. It is easily the best first sentence I have ever read. Simple. Brilliant.

[Susan Gable]

"Obviously, without question, she'd lost her mind."

By Nora Roberts, Jewels of the Sun.

Second sentence to further hook a reader - "Being a psychologist, she ought to know."

Love that!

Here's another Nora zinger of a first-line: "Being dead didn't make Jack Mercy less of a son of a b****." Montana Sky

So, how did Nora get to be the Godess of romance/women's fiction? She works damn hard and she's good! :)

Susan G.

[katiemac]

"Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board." - Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston.

[Jamesaritchie]

"Obviously, without question, she'd lost her mind."

By Nora Roberts, Jewels of the Sun.

Second sentence to further hook a reader - "Being a psychologist, she ought to know."

Love that!

Here's another Nora zinger of a first-line: "Being dead didn't make Jack Mercy less of a son of a b****." Montana Sky

So, how did Nora get to be the Godess of romance/women's fiction? She works damn hard and she's good! :)

Susan G.

Yeah, but I wish she weren't so prolific. Trying to keep up with her novels can be maddening.

[Jamesaritchie]

For those who don't get it, the "pain" above is from Atlanta Nights, which you only have to search on this site to find links to the entire hemorrhage-inducing text.


Kudos for the Melville, Plath, Hunter S. Thompson, and Richard Bach. And great topic - one can learn a lot just pulling books from the shelf.

Here's a few of my favorites...

The seller of lightning rods arrived just ahead of the storm.
- Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes

You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter.
- Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn

They didn't say anything about this in the books, I thought, as the snow blew in through the gaping doorway and settled on my naked back.
- James Herriot, All Creatures Great and Small

Squire Trelawney, Dr. Livesy, and the rest of these gentlemen having asked me to write down the whole particulars about Treasure Island, from the beginning to the end, keeping nothing back but the bearings of the island, and that only because there is still treasure not yet lifted, I take up my pen in the year of grace 17--, and go back to the time when my father kept the "Admiral Benbow" inn, and the brown old seaman, with the sabre cut, first took up lodging under our roof.
- Stevenson, Treasure Island







Man, you just listed some of my all-time favorite books. I love all of them.

[Kallahan]

"Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galazy liews a small unregarded yellow sun."

Not really my favorite, but that was already mentioned, The Gunslinger by Stephen King.

[PattiTheWicked]

The last camel died at noon.

What camel? Why did it die? Where are we--and will we get out of here, or die, too?

I defy anybody to not get hooked on that first line of The Key to Rebecca.



That IS a good one... but of course, so is "Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderley again...."

[paprikapink]

"Where's Papa going with that ax?" said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.

Oh, you know where that's from.

-pkpk

[paprikapink]

Okay, I'll tellya: E.B. White, "Charlotte's Web"

-pkpk

[Anatole Ghio]

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

A Tale of Two Cities -- Charles Dickens

[SeanDSchaffer]

His mother's hand felt cold, clutching his.

A. E. van Vogt, Slan

[Steve 211]

That Charlotte's Web one is indeed one of the greatest. Somewhere in one of my writing books I have the first three drafts of that line, but can't quite place it.

When I tried to find them online, I got a page of First Lines by W authors, with a chilling first selection.

http://www.giga-usa.com/gigaweb1/quotes2/qutopbooksfirstlinesx088.htm

[oswann]

Welcome all first liners! Nice reaction to the thread. I started the thing because I had just taken some drastic measures to my WIP after noticing that the start of the story that I was manicuring with a nail file needed to say hello to Mr. Chainsaw.

I had so impressed myself with the prosaic opening that I was blind to the fact that it wasn't really the start of the book. The beginning has now transformed itself from the soggy dog barking, that it was to hopefully a different animal, less soggy and able to sing.

Anyway,




I am always drawn back to places where I have lived, the houses and their neighborhoods.
- Breakfast at Tiffany's, Truman Capote.



Os.

[alaskamatt17]

My father is dying.
-Robert J. Sawyer's End of an Era

[CaitlinK18]

There was a desert wind blowing that night.

From Red Wind by Raymond Chandler.

[Ketzel]

One of my favorites for the sheer music of it. (From memory, but I'm pretty sure it's right...):

"Once upon a time, in a gloomy castle on a lonely hill, where there were thirteen clocks that did not go, there lived a cold, aggressive Duke and his niece, the Princess Saralinda."

The Thirteen Clocks by James Thurber

[kevacho]

"It was a pleasure to burn."

Ray Bradbury, the master
Farenheit 451

Kevin
www.kevacho.com (http://www.kevacho.com)

[scullars]

Nuns go by as quiet as lust, and drunken men and sober eyes sing in the lobby of the Greek hotel. Rosemary Villanucci, our next-door friend who lives above her father's cafe, sits in a 1939 Buick eating bread and butter. She rolls down the window to tell my sister Frieda and me that we can't come in. We stare at her, wanting her bread, but more than that wanting to poke the arrogance out of her eyes and smash the pride of ownership that curls her chewing mouth.

The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison

[paprikapink]

"A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head."

A Confederacy of Dunces
by: John Kennedy Toole


This book has been on my "I"ll get to you soon" stack for weeks. Noticed it anew last night. I'd read this post earlier in the day. I picked the book up to see the actual sentence for myself, in person, as it were, and could not put it down.

What a good thread this is.

-pkpk

[SJB]

My father is dying.
-Robert J. Sawyer's End of an Era

Nifty! Reminiscent of the unforgettable opening to Camus's L'étranger.

"Aujourd'hui, maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas."

Mum died today. Or perhaps yesterday, I don't know.

[alaskamatt17]

I'd highly recommend End of an Era to everyone on here. If you don't think sci-fi is your cup of tea--especially time-travel sci-fi--please allow this book to change your mind. It is truly wonderful, and very deserving of the 2001 reprint it received by Tor.

[Barb Annino]

"As I stepped out into the bright sunlight I had two things on my mind- Paul Newman and a ride home."

written by S.E. Hinton at sixteen.

[Zolah]

Not my favourite book (though it is very good) but definitely my favourite first line:

It was nine o'clock at night and Tremaine was trying to find a way to kill herself that would bring in a verdict of natural causes in court, when someone banged on the door.

Martha Wells 'The Wizard Hunters'.

Who could resist reading more? Not me.

[jstanley01]

...when I woke up face down on the sidewalk.
Anonymous

[ZaZ]

The job was doomed when I started nailing the help.