20 Classic Opening Lines In Books (According to Entertainment Weekly)

Suppose that you and I were sitting in a quiet room overlooking a garden, chatting and sipping at our cups of green tea while we talked about something that had happened a long while ago, and I said to you, "That afternoon when I met so-and-so...was the very best afternoon of my life, and also the very worst afternoon."
Memoirs of a Geisha

One of my favorite books of all time. So beautiful.

I'm reading "A portrait of the Artist..." by James Joyce for a class and I hate it. Mostly because English isn't my first language and I'm absolutely dying, I think I'm just gonna cheat and get in French.
Anyways, the first line is pretty amazing and I almost gave up right there when I read it :

"Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo...."

I mean WFT man.

Joyce is difficult if you're a native speaker, so I can't imagine how difficult it is for a non-native speaker.

I had an extremely difficult time getting through it.

We have to read Ulysses...I feel your pain!

Though I have been told it is much easier to listen to an audiobook, and follow on the page. Depends how you are with Irish accents though.

Ugh, Portrait of the Artist.

I love his short stories, but Potrait nearly did me in. Luck with that!

"The same week our fowls were stolen, Daphne Moran had her throat cut." - The Scarecrow

"Steve got his dick caught in the window. He blames me, of course." - Mammon Inc.

"Early this morning, 1 January 2021, three minutes after midnight, the last human being to be born on earth was killed in a pub brawl in a suburb of Buenos Aires, aged twenty-five years, two months and twelve days." - The Children of Men

"The primroses were over." - Watership Down

omg what is Mammon Inc about?

Haha, it's a pretty misleading opening line. It's a an examination of identity, cross-culturalism and the idea of "selling-out" through the eyes of a young woman from Singapore. It's not the best novel I've ever read, but it is a fun read.

"Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge." - The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

"What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died? That she was beautiful. And Brilliant. That she loved Mozart and Bach. And the Beatles. And me."

"Late in the winter of my seventeenth year, my mother decided I was depressed, presumably because I rarely left the house, spent quite a lot of time in bed, read the same book over and over, ate infrequently, and devoted quite a bit of my free time to thinking about death."

What book is that?

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. It's amazing.

Also is that Cordy in your icon?

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agatharuncible

Middlesex >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

that book changed me in so many ways, idk

hate charles dickens so much

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kurtvonnegut

I can't get on with Dickens either. I had to read Great Expectations at university and I loathe the ending of that book so much, it pretty much ruined all other Dickens novels for me.

"It's a funny thing about mothers and fathers. Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you could ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful."

"Mrs. Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down into a little hollow, fringed with alders and ladies' eardrops and traversed by a brook that had its source away back in the woods of the old Cuthbert place; it was reputed to be an intricate, headlong brook in its earlier course through those woods, with dark secrets of pool and cascade; but by the time it reached Lynde's Hollow it was a quiet, well-conducted little stream, for not even a brook could run past Mrs. Rachel Lynde's door without due regard for decency and decorum; it probably was conscious that Mrs. Rachel was sitting at her window, keeping a sharp eye on everything that passed, from brooks and children up, and that if she noticed anything odd or out of place she would never rest until she had ferreted out the whys and wherefores thereof."

Both are perfect!

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Love her eternally. The first three books are perfect.

<3<3<3 the whole Anne series.

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asdflkjasdlfkj Anne.♥

I sing of arms and the man, he who, exiled by fate,first came from the coast of Troy to Italy, and to Lavinian shores – hurled about endlessly by land and sea, by the will of the gods, by cruel Juno’s remorseless anger, long suffering also in war, until he founded a city and brought his gods to Latium: from that the Latin people came, the lords of Alba Longa, the walls of noble Rome. Muse, tell me the cause: how was she offended in her divinity. how was she grieved, the Queen of Heaven, to drive a man, noted for virtue, to endure such dangers, to face so many trials? Can there be such anger in the minds of the gods?
Aeneid

oh hell no

I'm sort of aroused by the writing in the Aenied. /sicksickfreak

This. In fact, I love how literal this translation is.

Edited at 2012-11-22 11:17 pm (UTC)

I didn't go to Alice's funeral-Beautiful Malice

It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love.
Love in the Time of Cholera

a tale of two cities should have been first, and Pride & prejudice second. the rest dont matter.

a favorite quote of mine: "People are by nature changeable. It is easy to persuade them about some particular matter, but it is hard to hold them to that persuasion. Hence it is necessary to provide that when they no longer believe, they can be forced to believe." Niccolo Machiavelli

But I love that Harry Potter made it on the list, although I think it should be in the top ten

20 Classic Opening Lines In Books (According to Entertainment Weekly)

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