Best opening line of a book

[SpaceMonkey]

The thread aboout opening scenes from movies got me thinking about books and their greatest ever opening lines. Personally I can't go past the opening of the Motley Crue biography "The Dirt" by Neil Strauss:

"Her name was Bullwinkle. We called her that because she had a face like a moose. But Tommy, even though he could get any girl he wanted on the Sunset Strip, would not break up with her. He loved her and wanted to marry her, he kept telling us, because she could spray her cum across the room."

[smilla]

"It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured."

[smilla]

"I told the kids to be quiet while I left the room and went to get my rifle"

[SPOKEYDOKEY]

'once upon a time...'

[paulV]

"It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured."

Shantaram
Fucking great book

[bornslippy1984]

"ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE is scrawled in blood red lettering on the side of the Chemical Bank near the corner of Eleventh and First and is in print large enough to be seen from the backseat of the cab as it lurches forward in the traffic leaving Wall Street..."

American Psycho.

[daydreamer77]

Outsiders ftw... love the book so much

"As I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie theatre, I had two things on my mind....."

[squak]

"Helen woke up in the middle of the night wearing someone else's breasts. Not her own insignificant, almost nonexistent bumps, but huge pendulous, full ones."

Barbara Hodgson, The Sensualist

[Oblivia]

hmmm,
We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold."
FTW

If ya wanna reminisce this comes next:


....I remember saying something like “I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive...” And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming: “Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?”

[Milky Crate Kid]

"He always shot up by TV light..."

American Tabloid by James Ellroy. Sets the tone perfectly for the rest of the book, so simple and matter of fact... :)

MCK

[smilla]

About a Boy by Nick Hornby

"So, have you split up now?"

"Are you being funny?"

People quite often thought Marcus was being funny when he wasn't. He couldn't understand it. Asking his mum whether she'd split up with Roger was a perfectly sensible question, he thought: they'd had a big row, then they'd gone off into the kitchen to talk quietly, and after a little while they'd come out looking serious, and Roger had come over to him, shaken his hand and wished him luck at his new school, and then he'd gone. "

Dont know why i like that one, but it makes me smile

[rentboyesq]

It was love at first sight.
The first time Yossarian saw the chaplain he fell madly in love with him.
Jospeh Heller - Catch 22

8)

[EgonSpengler]

"It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times ..."

[lubes]

:lol: damn monkeys....

[Davomaxi]

Outsiders ftw... love the book so much

"As I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie theatre, I had two things on my mind....."

What a great childhood book that is - so many memories :thumb:

[the_sleepwalker]

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

[SpaceMonkey]

Jospeh Heller - Catch 22

8)

Ooooh yeah. :)

[watsakerring]

i can't read :(

[alison87]

"In five years, the penis will be obsolete."

[behma]

Where's Spot?

[discofunk]

"We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold."

From the same book (but not an opening line) '"Look over there," I said. "Two women fucking a polar bear."

[twistedbydesign]

"this is what happened"


disco
"we cant stop here, this is bat country"

[discofunk]

"Let it roll!" he screamed. "Just as high as the fucker can go! And when it comes to the fantastic note where the rabbit bites it's own head off, I want you to throw that fuckin radio into the tub with me."

twisted, we could go on, but we'd just copy out the whole book. RIP Hunter.

[Underwater]

Cool thread. Here's two that stand out, one classic and one more recent one that really touched me. See if you can get them.


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.


Some situations to avoid when preparing for your all-important, finally-I-am-fully-grown thirtieth birthday.
Having a one-night stand with a colleague from work.
The rash purchase of luxury items you can't afford.
Being left by your wife.
Losing your job.
Suddenly becoming a single parent.
If you are coming up to thirty, whatever you do, don't do any of that.
It will fuck up your whole day.

[Megs]

"The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed"fav series ever, 1 book to go:)

[toilet trained]

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

[Milky Crate Kid]

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.




Got no way of checking it while I'm at work but the tone at least sounds tres Holden Caulfield-esque... Is it Catcher in the Rye? I haven't read it in years...

MCK

[rentboyesq]

Oh, and another one:
FALL 1985

and it's a story that might bore you but you don't have to listen, she told me, because she always know it was going to be like that, and it was, she thinks, her first year, or, actually weekend, really a Friday, in September, at Camden, and this was three of four years ago, and she got so drunk that she ended up in bed, lost her virginity (late, she was eighteen) in Lorna Slavin's room, because she was a Freshman and had a roommate and Lorna was, she remembers, a Senior or a Junior and usually sometimes at her boyfriend's place off-campus, to who she thought was a Sophomore Ceramics major but who was actually either some guy from NYU, a film student, and up in New Hampshire just for The Dressed To Get Screwed party, or a townie.

Bret Easton Ellis - Rules of Attraction

[Beegie]

"He always shot up by TV light..."

American Tabloid by James Ellroy. Sets the tone perfectly for the rest of the book, so simple and matter of fact... :)

MCKI knew you'd quote that...

Re-reading The Black Dahlia atm... awesome :)

[tails]

Shantaram
Fucking great book

i'll secind that, an absoloute craker

[Underwater]

Got no way of checking it while I'm at work but the tone at least sounds tres Holden Caulfield-esque... Is it Catcher in the Rye? I haven't read it in years...

MCK
Yeah, you got it. Read it about twice a year from about 14 to 17, each time with a new perspective. Had a quick read through last night, but started to get depressed :lol:

The second line was from 'Man and Boy' by Tony Parsons. James Brown from The Observer aptly summed up the book by saying it made him "cry five times and laugh out loud four". Highly recommended to all.

[No Rehersal]

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

[smilla]

i'll secind that, an absoloute craker
i stuck to the rules and only posted the first line but heres the rest of the paragraph. It blows me away every time I read it. What a man

“It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured. I realised, somehow, through the screaming of my mind, that even in that shackled, bloody helplessness, I was still free: free to hate the men who were torturing me, or to forgive them. It doesn’t sound like much, I know. But in the flinch and bite of the chain, when it’s all you’ve got, that freedom is an universe of possibility. And the choice you make between hating and forgiving, can become the story of your life.”

(oh just got goosebumps)

[miranda_j]

fave first line.. in some random book i read

"your a skank".

[ms money penny]

Bret Easton Ellis - Rules of Attraction
One of my fav authors :thumb:

[Insomniac]

from the greatest book ever written by man or woman

The sweat wis lashing oafay Sick Boy; he wis trembling. Ah wis jist sitting thair, focusing oan the telly, tryin no tae notice the ****. He wis bringing me doon.

and there begins the most desperate trudge through sewage that you are ever likely to experience as a reader.

[marquis]

"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins"...

[Stream]

I haven't come across any of the best, but these are the worst...

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."

--Steven Garman, Pensacola, Florida (1984 Winner)

Through the gathering gloom of a late-October afternoon, along the greasy, cracked paving-stones slick from the sputum of the sky, Stanley Ruddlethorp wearily trudged up the hill from the cemetery where his wife, sister, brother, and three children were all buried, and forced open the door of his decaying house, blissfully unaware of the catastrophe that was soon to devastate his life.

--Dr. David Chuter, Kingston, Surrey, ENGLAND(1999 Winner)

http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/lyttony.htm

Oh so funny :lol:

[NIK-O-LAKI]

"Aristotle once said if you hold in your farts you die"

[snoochy-boochy]

Page 3: Tits

[DiscoLou]

Jospeh Heller - Catch 22

8)
i :love: that book so much, i have read it about 4-5 times but i think it is due for another re-read :)

[mushroombaby]

"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.. i just love it :lol:

mck hush up :P lol

[Tash 1985]

As the carriage drew away from the Circular Wharf Mr Stafford Merivale tapped the back of his wife's hand and remarked that they had done their duty.

A Fringe of Leaves - Patrick White


...so inspirational...
*sigh*

[Underwater]

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were stricking thirteen.I know ive read that. Too lazy to get out the books, but im thinking its either;
1984
Brave New World
Farenheit 451

I may be totally wrong

And to echo everyone's sentiments in here, yes Catch-22 made me laugh and laugh and laugh.

[wednesdayafter]

"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins"...
That one deserves the full version. The intro is just a beautiful use of the English language by a Russian guy writing his first english novel!

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.

[Lambretta]

from the greatest book ever written by man or woman

The sweat wis lashing oafay Sick Boy; he wis trembling. Ah wis jist sitting thair, focusing oan the telly, tryin no tae notice the ****. He wis bringing me doon.

and there begins the most desperate trudge through sewage that you are ever likely to experience as a reader.
I was going to say that one. Only I wouldnt call it desperate. Just darkly amusing. Actually the whole book is a fucking pisser. I love it.

[SpaceMonkey]

I was going to cite trainspotting too but thought it might be a bit obvious... bloody great opening though.

[satie]

"I come from Iowa. Someone had to."
Bill Bryson, The Lost Continent

[alexmac]

"Who is John Galt?"

[cavraver76]

"Aristotle once said if you hold in your farts you die"

tasmanian babes fiasco what a great book it was the line i was going to use

[Rusty_OHara]

"All of Gaul is conquered. All? No! One small Gaulish village holds out against the Roman invaders....."

[Imperial Tee]

Call me Ishmael.

[eman]

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in to sit down on or eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

The Hobbit

undoubtedly one of the best opening lines ever!! :thumb:

[white_tar]

"All of Gaul is conquered. All? No! One small Gaulish village holds out against the Roman invaders....."

:lol:

Asterix rocks my world

[alexmac]

"All of Gaul is conquered. All? No! One small Gaulish village holds out against the Roman invaders....."

:bow: :bow:

[eman]

My desert-island, all-time, top five most memorable split-ups, in chronological order: