[Saije]

I clicked on this article expecting to see "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" (A Tale of Two Cities) or "Call me Ishmael (Moby Dick), LOL, and instead I find I don't really know any of the books on this list.

I think the only first line that made me interested in (possibly) reading the book was this one:

9. I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb

"On the afternoon of October 12, 1990, my twin brother Thomas entered the Three Rivers, Connecticut Public Library, retreated to one of the rear study carrels, and prayed to God the sacrifice he was about to commit would be deemed acceptable."

[GrandJediMasterYoda]

‘He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. ‘

[Dr. Sivana]

How could they possibly leave out a great opening line from a great piece of literature? “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” -- Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

That opening line tells us something about the story, and something about the narrator, and is amusing all on its own. It is not my favorite book, but it is a killer opening line.

[WeaslesRippedMyFlesh]

“The train went on up the track out of sight, around one of the hills of burnt timber.”

[eyedigress]

“The sea was angry that day”

[LVS1]

MARLEY was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge’s name was good upon ‘Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

[ArtDodger]

I remember an interview with Louis L’amour and he was asked to come with an attention-grabbing first line off the cuff.
He said, ‘He was the last man on the last space station orbiting around the charred cinder that had been Earth, wondering what he would do next, when there was a knock on the door.’

[Larry Lucido]

It was a dark and stormy night.

Right up there with best of times, worst of times.

[DannyTN]

[eyedigress]

"Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun."

[Clemenza]

“The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.” - VS Naipaul, opening line of “A Bend in the River.”

[jocon307]

Thanks for this post, I didn’t see any of my fave opening lines either, but it was a nice break from politics, etc. etc.

That book sounded interesting to me too, I clicked the link, which takes you to Wikipedia btw not a sales site. Sounded dreadful really, but not uninteresting. It’s not going on the to be read list at this time tho’.

[citizen]

Mickey Spillane “The guy was dead as hell.” Vengenance is Mine (1950)

[Kartographer]

I a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit.

[Ciaphas Cain]

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

[D_Idaho]

“Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Four shots ripped into my groin and I was off on the greatest adventure of my life…”

[Pelham]

“Call me Ishmael”

[Fiji Hill]

How about this one?

"The Jebel Es Zubleh is a mountain fifty miles and more in length and so narrow that its tracery on the map gives it a likeness to a caterpillar crawling from the south to the north."

From Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ by Lew Wallace (New York: Harper, 1880).

[hardspunned]

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.“

[eyedigress]

I would have been convicted with a run-on sentence in 11th grade AP.

"Buck did not read the newspapers, or he would have known that trouble was brewing, not alone for himself, but for every tide-water dog, strong of muscle and with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound to San Diego."

[DejaJude]

“There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it”.