Top 10 first lines in fiction

The Guardian ^ | 4-5-2023 | Liz Nugent

[gundog]

Or Peterman’s foray into autobiographical fiction....

[Vaduz]

Sometimes a first line is not always necessary

1984

[AF_Blue]

TANSTAAFL

[Larry Lucido]

Might as well include the famous author, Kramer.

[pbear8]

+1

[gundog]

”Elaine’s writing a “Murphy Brown”?!

[SaveFerris]

I said “Easy, big fella!”

[SaveFerris]

So there I was, holding a marble rye at the end of a fishing rod

[SaveFerris]

“There was this guy I faced-down, at the pool, one day. He called himself ‘Corn Pop’”

[Billthedrill]

I was covered in blood but it wasn't my blood so it was OK. Laurell Hamilton, Obsidian Butterfly

They sent A slamhound on Turner's trail in New Delhi, slotted it to his pheromones and the color of his hair. William Gibson, Count Zero. It continues:

It caught up with him on a street called Chandni Chauk and came scrambling for his rented BMW through a forest of bare brown legs and pedicab tires. Its core was a kilogram of recrystallized hexogene and flaked TNT.

And then my all time favorite:

The lovely woman child Kaa was mercilessly chained to the cruel post of the warrior chief Beast, with his barbarous tribe now stacking wood at her nubile feet, when the strong, clear voice of the poetic and heroic Handsomas roared, "Flick your Bic, crisp that chick, and you'll feel my steel through your last meal. Steve Garman, 1984 winner of the Bulwer Lytton contest. The novel was, alas, never written.

[SaveFerris]

The very pants I was returning!!

[Blogatron]

Best first line - "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."

Best last line - “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”

[17th Miss Regt]

“It was a blonde and Stormy night.”

[Rifleman]

“If I had cared to live, I would have died.”

[gundog]

Cats draped all over the place in Key West, when I was there Many are probably descended from Hemingway’s cats.

[Albion Wilde]

“I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice—not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany. —John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany, (fiction), 1989

[Albion Wilde]

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.

You beat me to it. And how about this?

“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. ” —Daphne duMaurier, Rebecca, 1938

[Albion Wilde]

“Amerigo Bonasera sat in New York Criminal Court Number 3 and waited for justice; vengeance on the men who had so cruelly hurt his daughter, who had tried to dishonor her.” —Mario Puzo, The Godfather, 1969

[Gaffer]

Yes. Used it many a time. But in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress it was “TINSTAAFL” There is no such thing as a free lunch.

But like you, I like TANSTAAFL better..... :0)

[Albion Wilde]

Dickens was incredible, probably the best writer ever.

Uh, that would still be Shakespeare. Shakespeare's work was far up there, akin to spiritual parables about human nature. But Dickens' stories and characters were quite memorable. The two wrote for different markets -- playwright vs novelist.