What is your favorite first line from a novel?

Notes

1. crhodey likes this
2. playmixt answered: “We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.” F&L in Las Vegas, Hunter S. Thompson
3. mizjenkins likes this
4. blackcalendula answered: 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
5. esquared answered: Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul.
6. thewholeworldgrumbleswithyou answered: “All children, except one, grow up.”
7. teamlimabean answered: “I was twenty two, and without employment.” The Type-Writer Girl by Grant Allen
8. littlegarnethen reblogged this from nprfreshair
9. littlegarnethen answered: So perfect, so descriptive, so clear that you’re about to read a panorama of a novel: carolinastar.tumblr.com…
10. girlwithalessonplan answered: “If you really want to hear about it…” —Catcher in the Rye.
11. toseektofind answered: Two former lovers of Molly Lane stood waiting outside the crematorium chapel with their backs to the February chill. -Amsterdam
12. quietbees answered: “He speaks in your voice, American, and there’s a shine in his eye that’s halfway hopeful.”
13. merryburningparty answered: “He was insufferable, one of those boy geniuses, all nerve and brain.” Charles Baxter, ‘The Soul Thief’
14. anotherchancetogetitright reblogged this from nprfreshair and added:

    “I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice-not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I...

15. iamlearning answered: Everything in the world began with a yes.
16. daysofchad answered: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
17. taralewisblog answered: Mr. Premiere, Sir. Neither you nor I speak English, but there are some things that can be said only in English. -White Tiger (Aravind Adiga)
18. murmurandshout answered: “The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.” The entire epic story in a single line.
19. markwyner said: So good it’s beyond the maximum character count: laughingdaddy.com/post/…
20. markwyner answered: They came like a caravan of carnival folk up through the swales of broomstraw and across the hill in the morning sun, the truck rocking and
21. forwhenifeellikesharing answered: “Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon…”
22. bthny answered: “Serene was a word you could put to Brooklyn, New York.” - A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
23. mrthell answered: “Context is everything.” - Jonathan Lethem, Motherless Brooklyn
24. davidfarre likes this
25. davidfarre answered: Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.
26. iheartstats answered: A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily, one chooses that moment from which to look back or from which to look ahead.
27. tffnyw likes this
28. nomorepie answered: “I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.” From “I Capture the Castle,” by Dodie Smith.
29. vickyj answered: You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino’s new novel, If on a winter’s night a traveler.
30. hojoholiday answered: “The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation.”
31. ecantwell answered: First line of Catcher in the Rye (too long for the “Answer” option, but soooo good!)
32. jrvmajesty likes this
33. tronic answered: “One of the things about The Sofia Experimental Breadboard Octet was that they weren’t an octet.”
34. duckieoverblane answered: “All this happened, more or less.” - Slaughterhouse Five
35. earthgiant answered: The first line from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. It’s too long to post here, but it’s too great to ignore!
36. the-crows-nest answered: From Anna Karenina, “”Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
37. gingergeneral likes this
38. redjeep likes this
39. redjeep answered: it was a dark and stormy night….(hahaha)
40. thelonliestmonk answered: It was a pleasure to burn. (Which is funny, because I don’t like the book that follows that line.)
41. technipol likes this
42. squashed answered: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times …
43. citizenkerry answered: t is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.
44. duckieoverblane likes this
45. iijii answered: All this happened, more or less.
46. theamericanprospect reblogged this from nprfreshair and added:

    “You’re sure she doesn’t know?” said Georgie. “Antonia? About us? Certain.” Georgie was silent for a moment and then...

47. roboticbears answered: It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. - Orwell, 1984
48. abitlate answered: P&P, of course: IT is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.
49. wordishness answered: The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting. - Stephen Crane
50. littlekyle said: It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York — The Bell Jar.
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