And I wonder

What is your most favourite opening line ever? (Specifically, in fiction)


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31 responses to “And I wonder”

  1. BPM IV Avatar
    BPM IV

    1. “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” – it opens my most favoritest book EVAR!

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

    1. cenobyte Avatar

      1) That is definitely in my top ten.
      2) Great opening line. I love books that start with a hard slap in the face. Books that say, “I’m not going to be gentle, but you’re going to like it nonetheless”.

  2. Wonko the Sane Avatar
    Wonko the Sane

    “So there I was: 20,000 feet over Tokyo, flat on my back.”

    1. cenobyte Avatar

      It surprises me not at all that this is so bloody familiar but I cannot place it, and also that you would be the one to come up with the stumper.

  3. YNWP Avatar
    YNWP

    “It wasn’t a very likely place for disappearances, at least at first glance.”

    Also:

    “This is my favourite book in all the world, though I have never read it.”

    Also:

    “In a hole in the ground lived a hobbit.”

    1. cenobyte Avatar

      I hate books with kissing scenes.

  4. Coyote Avatar

    My vote is with number two of the Black Pope. That is my favorite opening line. Next is nonfiction.
    “Canada is a metis civilization.”

  5. Stark Raving Dad Avatar
    Stark Raving Dad

    Seconding “In a hole in the ground lived a hobbit”… hell, had it on my apartment door for a while when Randy noted that my new tiny little pad was, indeed, a hobbit hole.

    But my favorite still has to be:

    “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.”

    Probably for all the commas. :)

    1. cenobyte Avatar

      OH DEAR GOD THE COMMAS.

      That, Stark Raving Dad, is also one of my top 10 favourite opening lines. It’s just one of those things that makes you want to stumble forward through pages with this total boob.

  6. Smarty Pants Avatar
    Smarty Pants

    BPM’s 2 is my favourite.
    But in a close second place is “We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.”

    Perhaps I have a thing for deserts?

    1. cenobyte Avatar

      That one is in my top five. The line about the bull dyke in the casino has me in tears every time I read it.

  7. Ernst Bitterman Avatar
    Ernst Bitterman

    “No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water.”

    1. cenobyte Avatar

      Ah. The Tom Cruise-free version. I think I have the poster for the book somewhere in my stash of cool things…

      1. Ernst Bitterman Avatar
        Ernst Bitterman

        I got to see a the Cruistravaganza free in Russian-sourced and cyrillic-subtitled internet version, and I found that if one lopped off the bit prior to the actual appearance of the Martians (it being a terrible bunch of contrived, “I’m a common man, look how common, c’mon, I’m Joe Sixpack!”), and stopped watching about the time Time Robbins shows up (not a dig at him, but he’s a useful landmark), it’s not a bad show. Utterly friggin’ ruined by the inclusion of those smelly book-ends, though. Alas for the period-set small-budget item released in the same year, which suffers painfully from a lack of budget, actors, and direction.

        1. cenobyte Avatar

          Well, I refuse to watch anything with that putz in it, no matter how good the source material.

  8. Jennnnn Avatar
    Jennnnn

    “It was just past midday, not long before the third summons to prayer, that Ammar ibn Khairan passed through the Gate of the Bells and entered the palace of Al-Fontina in Silvenes to kill the last of the khalifs of Al-Rassan.”

    1. cenobyte Avatar

      There’s such good rhythm there, isn’t there?

  9. turk182 Avatar
    turk182

    gantz

  10. melistress Avatar

    God was a little black-haired bastard named Timmy with wet sheet skin, bleeding gums, and fists full of iron oxide pebbles which he flung in James’s face, each sting becoming a freckle.

    – Book of Beasts by Bernice Friesen

    1. cenobyte Avatar

      I LOVE that opening line. The rest of that paragraph is awesome too.

      1. melistress Avatar

        The line hits you the same way James’s is hit. A hell of a cool way to open a book. And yes, I didn’t know when to quit typing but you said “opening line” so I stopped at the first sentence.

        1. turk182 Avatar
          turk182

          girls are weak

  11. Electric Maenad Avatar
    Electric Maenad

    “I have frequently wondered if the majority of mankind ever pause to reflect upon the occasionally titanic significance of dreams, and of the obscure world to which they belong.”

    1. cenobyte Avatar

      Ah. My most favouritest fellow in most desperate need of an editor. Not in this opening, of course. But just in general.

  12. Cori May Avatar
    Cori May

    I realize this will probably get me flamed, but it is nonetheless my favourite:

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

    1. cenobyte Avatar

      Why would it get you flamed? It’s not like it’s “My mother drove me to the airport with the windows rolled down”.

      Nah. If one reads your opening line with a certain degree of sarcasm, it puts an *entirely different spin* on the entire book. There’s absolutely nothing that can be done for the one I quoted above, though. That’s just a really bad opening line to a really bad book.

      1. turk182 Avatar
        turk182

        i hate you so much

      2. melistress Avatar

        I actually read sarcasm into it. Was it not supposed to be?

  13. […] the other day, Cenobyte asked what the best opening line in fiction […]

  14. turk182 Avatar
    turk182

    am i weak?

  15. turk182 Avatar
    turk182

    i really hate you so much

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