Great opening lines

s1m0n · Post by **s1m0n** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 12:50 am

Roger Zelazny, The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of his Mouth

I'm a baitman. No one is born a baitman, except in French novel where everyone is. In fact, I thint's the title, We are all bait, Pfft!

A master stylist in the days of his glory. I just reread This Immortal. Man, Zelazny could write, back before he turned pro. I'd kill to have half his command of voice and tone .

Tyler · Post by **Tyler** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 7:14 am

Great topic! Here's some of my more memorable opening lines.

Once upon a time there was a Martian named Valentine Michael Smith.- Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein

I'll make my report as if I told a story, for I was taught as a child on my homeworld that Truth is a matter of the imagination-Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula Le Guin

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 scru- tinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water-The War of the Worlds - H.G. Wells

There was a wall-The Dispossessed - Ursula Le Guin

Not so long ago, a monster came to the small town of Castle Rock, Maine.-Cujo - Stephen King

Nobody was really surprised when it happened, not really, not on the subconscious level where savage things grow. -Carrie - Stephen King

You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings-Frankenstein - Mary Shelley

N'yone with more interest ought to check out the American Book Review's 100 Best First Lines from Novels

Congratulations · Post by **Congratulations** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 7:50 am

"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous bug." - Depending on your translation, The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka

"Yes, I have tricks in my pocket, I have things up my sleeve." - The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams

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

"There was once a boy named Milo who didn't know what to do with himself--not just sometimes, but always." - The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster

carrie · Post by **carrie** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 8:28 am

Of Man's First Disobedience, and the Fruit
Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste
Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,
Sing Heav'nly Muse... --John Milton, Paradise Lost

The Earl of October drove into my life in a pale-blue Holden which had seen better days. --Dick Francis, For Kicks

And, okay, this next one is a last line, but what a good one it is.

But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs. --George Eliot, Middlemarch

Carol

Post by **Nanohedron** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 9:43 am

"Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum,
þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon."

Music.

jsluder · Post by **jsluder** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 10:03 am

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

-- Lewis Carrol, Jabberwocky

gonzo914 · Post by **gonzo914** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 11:16 am

" “Never,” wrote Reginald to his most darling friend, “be a pioneer. It's the Early Christian that gets the fattest lion.” -- H.H. Munro ("Saki"), "Reginald's Choir Treat (Although it doesn't have a damn thing to do with the story.)

chas · Post by **chas** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 11:18 am

Zelazny simply had the best command of the English language of any writer in SF. There's never been someone in the same league as he. One of his books starts off with a talking wombat (Doorways in the Sand?).

One of my all-time favorite lines in a book is actually the second sentence in Penrod by Booth Tarkington. The first two sentences:

"Penrod sat morosely upon the back fence and gazed with envy at Duke, his wistful dog.

A bitter soul dominated the various curved and angular surfaces known by a careless world as the face of Penrod Schofield."

mukade · Post by **mukade** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 11:19 am

'国境の長いトンネルを抜けると雪国であつた。夜の底が白くなつた。'

'At the end of the long border tunnel was the snow country. The depth of night turned white.' (Very literal translation)

- Snow Country, Yasunari Kawabata

'I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour
But heaven knows I'm miserable now

I was looking for a job, and then I found a job
And heaven knows I'm miserable now'

- Stephen Patrick Morrissey

Mukade

Flyingcursor · Post by **Flyingcursor** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 12:47 pm

This book has one - and only one - goal: to make you the most productive Word 2003 user on the block, no matter what kind of documents you create.
- Using Microsoft Office Word 2003. Bill Camarda

Call me Ishmael. - (guess)

flanum · Post by **flanum** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 12:48 pm

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth.." Genesis 1:1

Ha I beat somebody to that one!

jsluder · Post by **jsluder** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 1:01 pm

flanum wrote:"In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth.." Genesis 1:1

Ha I beat somebody to that one!

Ah yes, the oldest reference to baseball: "In the big inning..."

rebl_rn · Post by **rebl_rn** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 1:07 pm

I confess I didn't come up with all of these by myself; this was the subject on a blog I visit. But I think these are great opening lines.

Penny Jackson knew that it was probably wrong to be so excited to see her ex-husband come crawling back, but she was willing to live with the character flaw. — DELICIOUS by Susan Mallery

“I need a hundred and fifty polar bears.” — DECK THE HALLS by Heather MacAllister

Charlotte was one week short of seventeen when her life changed, falling into two halves like a shiny child's ball: before and after— POTENT PLEASURES by Eloisa James (who, by the way, is Robert Bly's daughter).

Sometimes, when the wind was just right, she could hear the blues. -In the Midnight Rain, by Ruth Wind

At 7:58 AM on a wet Monday morning, twenty-seven hours after giving up cigarettes and a green-eyed disc jockey, I was not in a mood to socialize.-
Caught Dead In Philadelphia by Gillian Roberts.

And probably my all-time favorite:

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

oleorezinator · Post by **oleorezinator** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 1:30 pm

"it was a dark and stormy night'.......snoopy

gonzo914 · Post by **gonzo914** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 1:39 pm

"They had but one last remaining night together, so they embraced each other as tightly as that two-flavor entwined string cheese that is orange and yellowish-white, the orange probably being a bland Cheddar and the white . . . Mozzarella, although it could possibly be Provolone or just plain American, as it really doesn't taste distinctly dissimilar from the orange, yet they would have you believe it does by coloring it differently." --Mariann Simms, winner of the 2003 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest

And the Grand Panjandrum's Special Prize for that year (and also my personal favorite) -- "Colin grabbed the switchgear and slammed the spritely Vauxhall Vixen into a lower gear as he screamed through the roundabout heading toward the familiar pink rowhouse in Puking-On-The-Wold, his mind filled with the image of his comely Olive, dressed in some lacy underthing, waiting on the couch with only a smile and a cucumber sandwich, hoping that his lunch hour would provide sufficient time for both a naughty little romp and a digestive biscuit."