REALSIMPLE magazine asked "What is your favorite first line of a novel" and here are some of the responses they received. What is your favorite first line?
Charlotte's Web by E.B. White
"'Where's Papa going with that ax?,' said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast."
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
"We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold."
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."
The Secret Garden by Hodgson Burnett
"When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen. It was true, too."
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
"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."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
ReplyDelete"It was a dark and stormy night."
I'm having such fun finding these first lines. Here are some more great ones!
ReplyDeleteOne Hundred Years of Soliture by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano BuendÃa was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
"All this happened, more or less."
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
"Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board."
Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
ReplyDelete"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."
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
ReplyDelete"Call me Ishmael."
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
"Call me Jonah."
A confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
ReplyDelete"A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head."
i LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the lolita line!!!
ReplyDelete