Best first sentences

oswann · Apr 1, 2005

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 · Apr 1, 2005

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

katiemac · Apr 1, 2005

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 · Apr 1, 2005

katiemac said:
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 · Apr 1, 2005

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

Shhh.

Os.

johnnycannuk · Apr 1, 2005

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 · Apr 1, 2005

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

"I[size=-1]n[/size] 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...

"[size=-1]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.)
[/size]

willietheshakes · Apr 1, 2005

johnnycannuk said:
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 · Apr 1, 2005

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 · Apr 1, 2005

willietheshakes said:
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 · Apr 1, 2005

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

reph · Apr 1, 2005

"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 · Apr 1, 2005

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

Julie Worth · Apr 1, 2005

“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 · Apr 1, 2005

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 · Apr 1, 2005

allion said:
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 · Apr 1, 2005

"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 · Apr 1, 2005

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 · Apr 1, 2005

“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 · Apr 1, 2005

'Which one of you bitches is my mother?'

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

Mistook · Apr 1, 2005

"It was a dark, and stormy night."

-Snoopy

Jamesaritchie · Apr 1, 2005

First sentence

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 · Apr 1, 2005

Pain. More Pain.

johnnycannuk · Apr 1, 2005

I think I've been to that fish shop

KTC said:
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 · Apr 1, 2005

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

Best first sentences

Grumpy

Five by Five

Grumpy

Grumpy

No, I'm little people now

Lhude sing cuccu!

Gentleman. Scholar. Bastard.

Not Any More

No, I'm little people now

Fig of authority

Leaving on the 2:19

What? I have a title?

Character assassin

What? I have a title?

Stand in the Place Where You Live

Stand in the Place Where You Live

What? I have a title?

5 W's & an H

Neverending WIP

Fear the Death Ray

No, I'm little people now

I am a pretty pretty flower