First lines that you like

On the subject of first lines, this article by John C Wright offers some thoughts about the "hook technique" from Heinlein novels, and showcases two examples.

'I am old now and have not much to fear from the anger of the gods. I have no husband or child, nor hardly a friend, through whom they can hurt me.'

edited 10th Apr '13 7:13:55 PM by Benluke

When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold. My fingers stretch out, seeking Prim's warmth but finding only the rough canvas over the mattress.

One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that he had been changed into an enormous insect.

"Call me Ishmael."

On the whole we're a murderous race- Harry Dresden, Dead Beat

"I, Lucifer, Fallen Angel, Prince of Darkness, Bringer of Light, Ruler of Hell, Lord of the Flies, Father of Lies, Apostate Supreme, Tempter of Mankind, Old Serpent, Prince of This World, Seducer, Accuser, Tormentor, Blasphemer, and without doubt Best Fuck in the Seen and Unseen Universe (ask Eve, that minx) have decided – oo-lala! – to tell all." - I, Lucifer

"When junkies came into his cafe to nod and mutter and make cloths of themselves on his tables, The Man knew he was looking upon death itself." - Death Belongs to the Dead, his Father told him, and Sadness to the Sad.

I can't believe that no one has mentioned this so far, so I just had to add it:

"This is my favourite book in all the world, though I have never read it." ~ The Princess Bride, William Goldman

Also:

"Nothing in this book is true." ~ Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut

From Three Parts Dead:

"When the Hidden Schools threw Tara Abernathy out, she fell a thousand feet through wisps of cloud and woke to find herself alive, broken and bleeding, besides the Crack in the World."

Also from The Big Sleep:

"It was about eleven o’clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn’t care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars."

It's discussed more in depth here, but among other things, it stands out how the First-Person Smartass narrator makes a point of noting that he's clean-shaven and sober- with the implication that he considers this something of an accomplishment because it often isn't the case.

edited 28th Oct '13 10:45:48 AM by Hodor

from a kid's book called Nightmare Mountain: " Dear Mom, someone's trying to kill me."

Fro Dragon Slippers: "It was my aunt who decided to give me to the Dragon"

Proper story's supposed to start at the beginning. Ain't so simple with this one.


Hey, nobody said it was only for books.

To be fair, this is the Literature section. :P

.

...This thread sadly though reminds me of how I only own a few books, all of which essentially start with the same thing. (The Wheel of Time series) >_>

Well not including the prologues anyway, but they're generally not that interesting in just their first line.

"My friend Hergal had killed himself again." — Don't Bite the Sun

And since someone here already had done Väinö Linna (great writer!), here's one from Strindberg that qualifies by its sheer rhythm:

"Han kom som ett yrväder en aprilafton och hade ett höganäskrus i en svångrem om halsen." — Hemsöborna

Translation?

"When a man you know to be of sound mind tells you his recently deceased mother has just tried to climb in his bedroom window and eat him, you only have two basic options. You can smell his breath, take his pulse and check his pupils to see if he's ingested anything nasty, or you can believe him. Ringil had already tried the first course of action with Bashka the Schoolmaster and to no avail, so he put down his pint with an elaborate sigh and went to get his broadsword.

'Not this again,' he was heard to mutter as he pushed through into the residents' bar" - The Steel Remains by Richard Morgan.

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

edited 18th Nov '13 10:40:59 PM by KlarkKentThe3rd

I love the Dark Tower series.

"Elmer Gantry was drunk."

"Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting."

"A screaming comes across the sky."

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

"On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travelers into the gulf below."

“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”

Although as Neil Gaiman points out, the meaning of that line has changed completely since 1984.

@zombielovescore: That second one sounds real interesting.

"Here is the boy, drowning." - More Than This by Patrick Ness

"The monster showed up after midnight. As they do." - A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

"On a certain day in June, 19—, a young man was making his way on foot northward from the great City to a town or place called Edgewood, that he had been told of but had never visited. His name was Smoky Barnable, and he was going to Edgewood to get married; the fact that he walked and didn't ride was one of the conditions placed on his coming there at all."

"The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be."

"In the year 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine at the University of London, and proceeded to Netley to go through the course prescribed for surgeons in the army. Having completed my studies there, I was duly attached to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers as assistant surgeon."

"Sophie had waited all her life to be kidnaped"

Well, this is the only one I could remember off the top of my head so it must be the only one that made an impression on me:

I have a dark and dreadful secret. I write poetry.
Stephen Fry, The Ode Less Travelled.

edited 15th Jan '14 3:37:51 PM by Bede

"There was once a boy named Milo who didn't know what to do with himself — not just sometimes, but always. When he was in school he longed to be out, and when he was out he longed to be in. On the way he thought about coming home, and coming home he thought about going. Wherever he was he wished he were somewhere else, and when he got there he wondered why he'd bothered. Nothing really interested him — least of all the things that should have."

There's only one book that I remember the entire opening sequence for, which I guess means it must be good - Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett.

''This is where the dragons went.

They lie ...

Not dead. Not asleep. Not waiting, because waiting implies expectation. Perhaps the word we're looking for here is ...

... dormant.

And although the space they occupy isn't like normal space, nevertheless they are packed in tightly. Not a cubic inch there but is filled by a talon, a claw, a scale, the tip of a tail, and the effect is like one of those trick drawings and your eyeballs eventually realize that the space between each dragon is in fact another dragon.

It could put you in mind of a can of sardines, if you thought sardines were huge and scaly and proud and arrogant.

And presumably, somewhere, there's the key.''

edited 3rd Sep '16 3:09:39 PM by Elisabel