A list created by: Lee Sonogan
The first words in chapter one in any book may or break the curious reader from committing to reading the whole thing. There is a long history of books with interesting opening lines. They set exactly what it is about to be set in motion without giving out too much information. For my first fiction book opening lines scroll down to the last paragraph in this list to read it.
1. “All this happened, more or less.” – Slaughterhouse-Five
2. “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” – The Go-Between
3. “Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board,” – Their Eyes Were watching God
4. “The stranger came early in February, one wintry day, through a biting wind and a driving snow, the last snowfall of the year, over the down, walking as it seemed from bramblehurst railway station, and carrying a little portmanteau in his thickly gloved hand.” – The Invisible Man
5. “My suffering left me sad and gloomy,” – Life of Pi
6. “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.” — The Secret History
7. “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.” – A Tale Of Two Cities
8. “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” – The Hobbit
9. “The drought had lasted now for ten million years, and the reign of the terrible lizards had long since ended.” – 2001 A Space Odyssey
10. “Time is not a line but a dimension, like the dimensions of space.” – Cat’s Eye
11. “They shoot the white girl first.” – Paradise
12. “A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head.” – A Confederacy Of Dunces
13. “The sky above the port was the colour of television, tuned to a dead channel.” – Neuromancer
14. “We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.” – Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
15. “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” – 1984
16. “Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the galaxy lies a small, unregarded yellow sun.” The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
17. “I’m Pretty much fucked.” The Martian
18. “It was a pleasure to burn.” Fahrenheit 451
19. “When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two thing on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home.” – The Outsiders
20. “A screaming comes across the sky.” – Gravity’s Rainbow
21.“The time traveler (for so it will be convenient to speak of him) was expounding a recondite matter to us.” – The Time Machine
22. “Call me Ishmael.” – Moby-Dick
23. “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, if you want to know the truth.” – The Catcher in the Rye
25 “That was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie and Dim, Dim being really dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar making up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening, a flip dark chill winter bastard through dry.” – A Clockwork Orange
26. “When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold,” – The Hunger Games
27. “I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.” – I Capture the Castle
28. “The Story so Far: In the beginning the Universe was created.” – The Restaurant At The End OF The Universe
29. “We started dying before the snow, and like the snow, we continued to fall.” — Tracks
30. “I am a sick man… I am a spiteful man.” – Note From Underground
31. “It was the day my grandmother exploded.” – The Crow Road
32. “He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.” – Scaramouche: A Romance Of The French Revolution
33. “Mother died today.” – The Stranger
34. “This is a tale of a meeting of two lonesome, skinny, fairly old men on a planet which was dying fast,” – Breakfast of Champions
35. “Jack Torrance thought: Officious little prick.” – The Shining
36. “The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children’s games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up.” – The Napoleon of Notting Hill
37. “On those cloudy days, Robert Neville was never sure when sunset came, and sometimes they were in the streets before he could get back.” – I Am Legend
38. “When the blind man arrived in the city, he claimed that he had travelled across a desert of living sand.” – The Brief History Of The Dead
39. “You better not never tell nobody but God.” – The Colour Purple
40. “The Moment one learns English, complications set in.” – Chromos
41. “It was now lunch time and they were all sitting under the double green fly of the dining tent pretending that nothing had happened.” – The Short Happy Life of Frances Macomber
42. “There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.” – The Voyage Of The Dawn Teacher
43. “This is my favourite book in all the world, though I have never read it.” – The Princess Bride
44. “Justice? You get Justice in the next world, in this world you have the law.” – A Frolic Of His Own
45. “In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.” – The Great Gatsby
46. “If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some
other book.” – A Series of Unfortunate Events
47.. “The year 1866 was signalized by a remarkable incident, a mysterious and inexplicable phenomenon which doubtless no one has yet forgotten,” – Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea
48. “Somewhere in la Mancham in a place whose name I do not care to remember, a gentleman lived not long ago, one of those who has a lance and ancient shield on a shelf and keeps a skinny nag and a greyhound for racing,” – Don Quixote
49. “The sun shone having no alternative on the nothing new,” – Murphy
50. “I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording not thinking,” – Goodbye To Berlin
What do you think of my opening lines of my first fiction book? “What is this, where am I … who am I?” thought the man wearing a suit jacket and jeans, who is awakened up by the waves of the ocean. Decent but does not give to much details into the story like some listed in this above. Like this post if you want to read 50 More Book Opening Lines or 50 Book Ending Lines.