I bet we've all heard how important the opening line of a book is in hooking the reader. What's the opening line of the book you're reading at the moment?
Mine is:
"One day in 1972, I came home from work and found my wife sitting at the kitchen table with a pair of gardening shears in front of her".
Taken from "Just After Sunset" by Stephen King.
The afternoon of the 9th of September was exactly like any other afternoon.
Agatha Christie - The Clocks
"I am the Vampire Lestat. I am immortal, more or less. The light of the Sun, the heat of an intense fire. These things may destroy me. Then again, they may not."
-Anne Rice
That is the lead in to 'The Vampire Lestat. That single paragraph had me hooked forever and to me stands with any work ever done. Pure literary genius.
"Torak woke with a jolt from a sleep he'd never meant to have."
From Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver... part of the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series.
"I write because kidnapping, torturing and murdering fictional people is legal."
His brain was being bombarded by the light from angry headlights, he was growing more tired by the minute and the dashboard clock told him he was falling behind schedule.
It happened every year, was almost a ritual. And This was his eighty-second birthday.
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson
HEADACHES, VODKA, AND ASPRIRIN; ASPIRIN, VODKA, and headaches. Power Plays by Tom Clancy.
"The morning of the day I lost her, my daughter asked me to scramble her some eggs."
Taken from Fear the Worst by Linwood Barclay.
"Elizabeth Fitch's short-lived teenage rebellion began with L'Oreal Pure Black, a pair of scissors and a fake ID. It ended in blood."
The opening line from "The Witness" by Nora Roberts.
"Noah Fisher needed a double-diamond ski slope, a hot ski-bunny babe, and a beer, and not necessarily in that order."
From Smart and Sexy by Jill Shalvis
"to wound the autumnal city."
First line of Dhalgren by Samuel R Delany.
"Waiting here, away from the terrifying weaponry, out of the halls of vapor and light, beyond holland and into the hills, I have come to"
is the last line.
"International baggage claim in the Brussels airport was large and airy, with multiple carousels circling endlessly." Orange Is The New Black - My Year In A Women's Prison, A Memoir Piper Kerman
"Any book not worth reading twice was not worth reading the first time." Oscar Wilde
"I was five when my step dad stole my innocence."
From: "Fifteen Shards of Broken Glass" by Phoenix, published on Stories Space.
I found it through the random story button, a feature I've grown to like more and more. That single line caused my blood to boil and I simply have to read the story now.
If life seems jolly rotten
there's something you've forgotten
and that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing
from Monty Python's "Life of Brian"
"None of them knew the color of the sky."
From The Open Boat by Stephen Crane
I love that line.
And of course a plug...
"When you love an artist, sometimes you feel as if you are loving alone."
From When He Plays Piano In The Dark by AvrgBlkGrl
Please Read My Latest Story (Click on the Banner):
"We can't tell you who we are. Or where we live. It's too risky, and we've got to be careful. Really careful. So we don't trust anyone. Because if they find us... well, we just won't let them find us.."
Opening to the animorphs by K. A. Applegate
Love it when I was a kid and read it to my niece's.
