Best opening lines

[Roderick Usher]

There are a ton of classics opening lines from books and short stories from the Dickensian "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." to Nabakov's "Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins." to Melville's "Call me Ishmael."

What's your favorite?

I just read a Steve Niles short story called "All My Bloody Things" (from a brilliant horror anthology called Dark Delicasies) that's so fucking hard boiled, it's scrambled. It opens with:

"By the time I came to, fuckhead El Beardo De Psycho was already trying to take a chunk out of my leg with a rusty scalpel. He had my pant leg ripped and my juicy thigh exposed.
The scalpel was pressed right into my fleshed when he paused and saw my eyes were open.
He was so fucking dead.
Stupid cannibals."

I laughed outloud in the coffee shop while reading this one yesterday.

You got one?

[The_Return]

Even though I didnt actually bother to read the whole thing, I started to read John Wyndham's Day of the Triffids a few years back....something about the opening lines struck me and have stayed with me ever since:

"When a day that you happen to know is Wednesday starts off by sounding like a Sunday, there is something seriously wrong somewhere"

Thats just such an odd statement...I love it.

[AUSTIN316426808]

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

[pinkerton]

When I stepped out into the bright sunlight, from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman, and a ride home.

[The_Return]

When I stepped out into the bright sunlight, from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman, and a ride home.

Great book

[pinkerton]

Great book





No matter how old I get I can always pick it up and give it a read.S.E. Hinton
wrote some great books.

[BASSI]

there about 10 i can think off but i will only do with just 3

Captives by Shaun Hutson

He knew he was going to die.
Knew it
He didn't think he might. Didn't wonder if he would.
Brian Ellis knew he was going to die.
The Barrel of the shotgun was less than a foot from his face. it poked through the shattered remsins if the safety glass partition, so close he could smell the oil and Cordite from the yawing.
From that muzzle seconds earlier had come thunderous blast which ripped thougth the ripped through the safety glass, it had been at that point that Brian had filled his pants. He stood there noW, reeking. standing there with a dark stain spreading across the front and back of his trousers

next one
Purity by Shuan Hutson
So, how easy do you think it would be to kill someone?


Nobody True by James Herbert
i wasn't there when i died.
Really, i wasn't. And finding my body dead came as a shock . Hell, i was horrifiled, lost, couldn't understand what the f**k happened .

[Papillon Noir]

From House of Leaves:

"This book is not for you."

Best opening line I ever read, actually made me stop and think for a second. Ultra-scary book too.

[Doc Faustus]

"In a certain corner of La Mancha, the name of which I do not choose to remember, there lately lived one of those country gentlemen, who adorn their halls with a rusty lance and worm-eaten target, and ride forth on the skeleton of a horse, to course with a sort of starved greyhound."

One of my favorites. Just as relevant now as it was back then.

[SamCostello]

Hard not to get behind:

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. (Orwell, 1984)

or

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel. (Giboson, Neuromancer)

Sam

[BASSI]

Slugs by Shaun Hutson


The slug's eye stalks waved slowly as it moved towards rthe crimson lump on which several of its copanions were already feeding as they slithered onto the meat and buried the long central tooth in the flesh and rows off sharp teeth moving back and forth like rasps as it chewed off pieces of meat, enjoying the new coppery taste of blood.

[jay o2 waster]

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

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream

-Hunter S. Thompson

[Despare]

Somewhere, to what remote and fearsome region I know not, Denys Barry has gone.

[AsylumSeeker]

Christmas crept into Pine Cove like a creeping....Christmas...thing: dragging garland, ribbon and sleigh bells, oozing eggnogg, reeking of pine, and threatening festive doom like a cold sore under the mistletoe.

The Stupidest Angel, Christopher Moore

[Herbert West]

The great gray beast February had eaten Harvey Swick alive.


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

[stubbornforgey]

'can't remember the author'

A story from N.Z
Hinemoa


The room filled with sunshine that spread evenly over the sleeping girls hair, as if protecting her from the outside world.
She smiled in her slumber as she tossed like a fairytale princess..relishing the moment when she was to get a taste of her 1st kiss. from her prince.
Her eyes closed..her tiny head tilted and her lips were in readiness .it was all too surreal..when all of a sudden she felt a stinging pain on her face.
'get up you lazy fucken whore' ..her eyes flew open and instead of her prince ..it was her father pulling her from her makeshift bed made from beer crates..
instead of golden rays of sunshine..there was nothing but stale darkness...