100 Best First Lines from Novels

B

Barrett

Still Mildly Glowing
While browsing I stumbled upon this.
There are already a ton of top x lists on the net, but I find this one very interesting.
What do you think about it?
 
One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin.
 
Wasn't in the list, but Dickens' Christmas Carol is, while not the most delightful story I have ever read, written with enough wit and charm to choke a python.

"Marley was dead: to begin with."

The first few paragraphs describing Marley's state of existence is the best part of any story in history.

Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don't know how many years. Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend and sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain.

The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to the point I started from. There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's Father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot -- say Saint Paul's Churchyard for instance -- literally to astonish his son's weak mind.
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how the fuck does stuff like "Call me Ishmael." or "I am an invisible man." rank?

and the rest of the list? pffft, it's ok i guess... but a single book by Chesterton or Vonnegut contains more memorable quotes than that entire list put together?
 
Suaside, I thought the same thing at first, but it is OPENING lines.

Honestly, I think that really takes a lot out of it as there are so many wonderful lines buried deep in the pages of books. Still, I guess it would be too tremendous of a task to make it just "best lines in a book"
 
well, all lines from one book vs the first lines of the entire collective works of humankind? i'd surely hope the second wins, because it's not very convincing from what i've read here, simpleminded.
 
Ah I follow what you were saying now. I don't know, I find it pretty limiting judging purely off of first lines since you'd think there's some sort of restrictions on what a first line can contain as it's your FIRST exposure to anything in the book.

That's what saddens me about this. There are so many rich lines in books... why limit it as such?
 
It was the year they finally immanetized the Eschaton ~ The Illuminatus! Trilogy (The Eye In The Pyramid)

Those three books have got to be my favorite books ever written. Such a brilliantly written work of fiction.. Its sad that not many have even heard of them.
 
My favorite "first line" is in Swedish, from an illustrated kids bedtime book of some 20 pages or so (just a guess from memory). It reads "Allt hade gått åt pipan för Sunkan". (From "Sunkan Flyger", Barbro Lindgren). I find it very hard to translate in a just way due to the use of a special Swedish expression, but it means sort of "Everything had gone to hell for Sunkan", though not as powerful/dark as 'gone to hell', but more playful. (Literally; "Everything had "gone to the pipe" for Sunkan". Why "going to the pipe" is bad, I dunno, but it is in the expression.) So yer, everything Sunkan knew had basically gone down the drain, which probably is a better translation. But something "going down the drain" is an expression that at least I don't find to be very playful or immature. At least for me, things can't really "go to the pipe" for anyone who is over the age of 10 and have any problems that aren't actually funny if you stop to think about. (Which I guess is an opinion I've established much thanks to this book.)

The text continues to explain that his cat has gone missing, his mother was being stupid, a dog had nicked his football, his daddy didn't hug him, etc. All he was left with in the world was a wooden stick he had found outdoors (and a pretty crappy stick at that), and a string that he had tied some empty cans to, for some reason. (Probably empty beer cans, due to the potential drinking problem of his father who never listens.) He used that item to rattle with - ie, the rattling was the main activity one could engage in by using it. The stick, he used to poke into holes of trees. (Innuendo?) Anyway, when you're down to a stick and empty cans tied to a piece of string, you know you've hit rock bottom.

SPOILER OMG! Then Sunkan grows a couple of magic wings and flies around town and impresses all the people, and find his missing cat and his football, and all becomes well.
 
I don't understand how something like this merits the list:
37. Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself. —Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway (1925)
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It's supposed to be a great opening line, which means it ought to have some meaning in and of itself with no reference to anything else. Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself? - it means nothing on it's own. I can think of 100 better opening lines than that. It doesn't even paint an interesting picture.

There are several on the list of a similar nature.

Ayradesh said:
Why "going to the pipe" is bad, I dunno, but it is in the expression.
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Heh. Reminds me of the expression, "on the pipe," which means you're smoking crack, and thus insane.

Whomever added Mrs. Dalloway to the list was on the pipe. :mrgreen:
 
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