Poll
Sometimes the first line of a book just grabs you by the nostrils and drags your fool head into its pages, preventing escape in any way, shape or form. Which of these opening lines has its phalanges most firmly planted in your nasal cavities?
"Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much."
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K. Rowling
"He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad."
Scaramouche by Raphael Sabatini
Scaramouche by Raphael Sabatini
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
"There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it."
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis
"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit."
The Hobbit: Or There and Back Again by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Hobbit: Or There and Back Again by J.R.R. Tolkien
"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."
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
"It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York."
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
"He— for there could be no doubt of his sex, though the fashion of the time did something to disguise it— was in the act of slicing at the head of a Moor which swung from the rafters."
Orlando by Virginia Woolf
Orlando by Virginia Woolf
"Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small, unregarded yellow sun."
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Bah! Foolish poll-maker-person! The nostril seizing power of these paltry lines is minimal, at best! Look to the comments section where I shall carefully type out my choice, which you have so imprudently omitted!
"As Gregor Samsa awoke from a night of uneasy dreaming, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect."
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
“'To be born again,' sang Gibreel Farishta tumbling from the heavens, 'first you have to die.'”
The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
"Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person."
Back When We Were Grownups by Anne Tyler
Back When We Were Grownups by Anne Tyler
"Of all the things that drive men to sea, the most common disaster, I've come to learn, is women."
Middle Passage by Charles Johnson
Middle Passage by Charles Johnson
"The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel."
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Neuromancer by William Gibson
"I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice - not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany."
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
"There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie and Dim and we sat in the Korova milkbar trying to make up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening."
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
"The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up."
The Napoleon of Notting Hill by G.K. Chesterton
The Napoleon of Notting Hill by G.K. Chesterton
"Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show."
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
"No one would have believed, in the last years of the nineteenth century, that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were being scrutinized and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water."
The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
“'When your mama was the geek, my dreamlets,' Papa would say, 'she made the nipping off of noggins such a crystal mystery that the hens themselves yearned toward her, waltzing around her, hypnotized with longing.'”
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
"When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon."
The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley
The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley
"Most really pretty girls have pretty ugly feet, and so does Mindy Metalman, Lenore notices, all of a sudden."
The Broom of the System by David Foster Wallace
The Broom of the System by David Foster Wallace
"Ages ago, Alex, Allen and Alva arrived at Antibes, and Alva allowing all, allowing anyone, against Alex's admonition, against Allen's angry assertion: another African amusement . . . anyhow, as all argued, an awesome African army assembled and arduously advanced against an African anthill, assiduously annihilating ant after ant, and afterward, Alex astonishingly accuses Albert as also accepting Africa's antipodal ant annexation."
Alphabetical Africa by Walter Abish
Alphabetical Africa by Walter Abish
"When a day that you happen to know is Wednesday starts off by sounding like Sunday, there is something seriously wrong somewhere."
The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the house-tops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."
Paul Clifford by Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
Paul Clifford by Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
"When I was three and Bailey was four, we had arrived in the musty little town, wearing tags on our wrists which instructed - 'To Whom It May Concern' - that we were Marguerite and Bailey Johnson Jr., from Long Beach, California, en route to Stamps, Arkansas, c/o Mrs. Annie Henderson."
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
"Of Herbert West, who was my friend in college and in after life, I can speak only with extreme terror."
Herbert West: Reanimator and Other Stories by H.P. Lovecraft
Herbert West: Reanimator and Other Stories by H.P. Lovecraft
"My lady and I are being shut up in a tower for seven years"
Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale
Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale
"Somewhere in la Mancha, in a place whose name I do not care to remember, a gentleman lived not long ago, one of those who has a lance and ancient shield on a shelf and keeps a skinny nag and a greyhound for racing."
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
"'Barabbas came to us by sea', the child Clara wrote in her delicate calligraphy."
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
"Dr. Weiss, at forty, knew that her life had been ruined by literature."
The Debut by Anita Brookner
The Debut by Anita Brookner
"What if this young woman, who writes such bad poems, in competition with her husband, whose poems are equally bad, should stretch her remarkably long and well-made legs out before you, so that her skirt slips up to the tops of her stockings?"
Imaginative Qualities of Actual Things by Gilbert Sorrentino
Imaginative Qualities of Actual Things by Gilbert Sorrentino
Poll added by: Samantha
This Poll is About
Authors:
Anne Tyler, Katherine Dunn, Herman Melville, Isabel Allende, Leo Tolstoy, Iain Banks, Albert Camus, Samuel Beckett, Gabriel García Márquez, Rafael Sabatini, Gilbert Sorrentino, Marcel Proust, J.M. Barrie, Charles Dickens, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, W. Somerset Maugham, J.K. Rowling, Neil Gaiman, Douglas Adams, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Jane Austen, Franz Kafka, Ray Bradbury, Anthony Burgess, Felipe Alfau, C.S. Lewis, John Irving, Charles R. Johnson, Salman Rushdie, Shannon Hale, H.G. Wells, Maya Angelou, William Gibson, James Crumley, J.D. Salinger, George Orwell, Vladimir Nabokov, H.P. Lovecraft, John Wyndham, G.K. Chesterton, David Foster Wallace, Sylvia Plath, Ha Jin, Anita Brookner, Dodie Smith, Virginia Woolf, Walter Abish, J.R.R. Tolkien, Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Books:
Anne Tyler, Katherine Dunn, Herman Melville, Isabel Allende, Leo Tolstoy, Iain Banks, Albert Camus, Samuel Beckett, Gabriel García Márquez, Rafael Sabatini, Gilbert Sorrentino, Marcel Proust, J.M. Barrie, Charles Dickens, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, W. Somerset Maugham, J.K. Rowling, Neil Gaiman, Douglas Adams, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Jane Austen, Franz Kafka, Ray Bradbury, Anthony Burgess, Felipe Alfau, C.S. Lewis, John Irving, Charles R. Johnson, Salman Rushdie, Shannon Hale, H.G. Wells, Maya Angelou, William Gibson, James Crumley, J.D. Salinger, George Orwell, Vladimir Nabokov, H.P. Lovecraft, John Wyndham, G.K. Chesterton, David Foster Wallace, Sylvia Plath, Ha Jin, Anita Brookner, Dodie Smith, Virginia Woolf, Walter Abish, J.R.R. Tolkien, Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Books:
Comments Showing 151-200 of 263 (263 new)
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Ikè
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Mar 31, 2012 05:55PM
Theses are so good. So good.
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"When I was nine years old I hid under a table and heard my sister kill a king."Quest For A Maid, by Francis Mary Hendry
Hooked me right from the beginning! I love this book!
Lindsay wrote: "I have actually read the Metamorphosis in English and German. It is the only respectable book I have read in German. I can't say that I loved the book. In either language. But you can't help bu..."Esspecially considering the second line is the climax of the book and the rest is all falling action into Dénouement. Not the best book or read on the list but the most perfect opening line on it.
This was actually a pretty good list for exploring interesting new books to read... Still deciding on which first line seized my nostrils with the most alacrity, but while going through the list I definitely ran at least 7-8 searches on GoodReads for some of these.
Wowsers, there are way too many to pick from!!The Hobbit, Peter Pan, Pride and Prejudice, Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Whichever shall I chose?? :)
Love the name/description of this poll!
Heeeey, the hundred best opening lines or whatever!
These are good, (And I voted for Geek Love, which I have not read) but I want to suggest a couple others.The first line of John Varley's Steel Beech Goes like this "'In five years the penis will become obsolete."
Also, Spellbound, by Blake Charlton,
"Francesca did not realize she had used an indefinite pronoun until it began to kill her patient."
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
This is my favorite sentence of all time, not just book opening lines. Mostly because my 8th grade English teacher made the comment that she could digram any sentence that we had read in a book - this was my suggestion. She acctually did digram it. It took all three room size chalkboards and very small hand writting but she did it. I was very glad she had a good sense of humor.
I voted for Peter Pan, but Voyage of the Dawn Treader and The Day of the Triffids were close, too. xDAlso, I wanted to suggest, from Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones:
"In the land of Ingary, where such things as seven-league boots and cloaks of invisibility really exist, it is quite a misfortune to be born the eldest of three."
"Snow was falling on Riverside, great white feather-puffs that veiled the cracks in its ruined houses; slowly softening the harsh contours of jagged roof and fallen beam." -Swordspoint, Ellen Kushner
Haha!Ok first, Poll-maker, I like you.
Secondly, I didn't expect to find my favorite line here, but the beginning line to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy comes in a close second, followed by Pride and Prejudice....
However, the line that most fiercly grabbed my nasal cavaties was this: "Gordon Edgley's death came as a shock to everyone -not least himself." From Derek Landy's Skulduggery Pleasant.
"So, there I was, tied to an altar made from outdated encyclopedias, about to get scarified to the dark powers by a cult of evil Librarians."- Alcatraz vs the Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson
Lindsay wrote: "I have actually read the Metamorphosis in English and German. It is the only respectable book I have read in German. I can't say that I loved the book. In either language. But you can't help bu..."I thought exactly the same thing but I read it only in German and after that I thought the Kaffka was quite a sick man!!!
Kafka is not sick. He's a poor, poor and troubled man. Don't hurry to judge, he hadn't had a pleasant life.
丹娜 wrote: "Kafka is not sick. He's a poor, poor and troubled man. Don't hurry to judge, he hadn't had a pleasant life."Well, he was in an institution and that's where usually sick people go, does mentally disturbed sound better? I had to read quite a few of his stories and he is still on the curriculum in Germany. But then from the choices it was the only story that I actually have read although Jane Austen seems to be a more popular read. Started that one but never finished it.
Manuela wrote: "丹娜 wrote: "Kafka is not sick. He's a poor, poor and troubled man. Don't hurry to judge, he hadn't had a pleasant life."Well, he was in an institution and that's where usually sick people go, does..."
Institutions? Ha! He was stuck in a one-bedroom apartment his whole life above that stinky Piaza(how do you translate piaza? btw) in Prague! He was psychologically damaged... I mean, hello! Gregor....
Emily wrote: ""So, there I was, tied to an altar made from outdated encyclopedias, about to get scarified to the dark powers by a cult of evil Librarians."- Alcatraz vs the Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson"
Yes...that grabbed me too. But then he cheated. Should have expected that.
'When I was little, my dad would tell me, "Will, you can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your friend's nose." This seemed like a reasonably astute observation to me when I was eight, but it turns out to be incorrect on a few levels. To begin with, you cannot possibly pick your friends, or else I never would have ended up with Tiny Cooper.'- Will Grayson Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan.
Wow, I couldn't answer your poll because I got bored reading the options :/
Nichola wrote: "Wow, I couldn't answer your poll because I got bored reading the options :/"Honesty is your middle name, isn't it? :)
Lol, sorry I could have been a little more eloquent with my feedback. What I meant to point out was that having so many options made it a little bit too difficult to choose. I didn't mean to offend i'm sorry if I did. I consider myself reprimanded and it is duly noted :)
No, it's alright. I mean, you're right. There are too many to read! I doubt anyone made it to the end and still awake, even slightly.
Of the ones that I did read the bell jar won :)
Lots of great choices, but I had to vote for The Crow Road. I might have been sucked in by the opening sentences of several, but that was the one I bought almost entirely due to the opening sentence.
I will not vote because i can't vote for more than 1
"I had not found a way to stop time, join the circus, or turn invisable." The Total Tragedy of a Girl Named Hamlet
The passage from Orlando is certainly not the sort of thing you forget; however, my overall vote is "a screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now..." from Gravity's Rainbow.
"My name is Robinette Broadhead, in spite of which I am male". Frederick Pohl from Gateway.
Eragon by Christopher Paolini: "Wind howled through the night, carrying a scent that would change the world. A tall Shade lifted his head and the air."
I also liked the first line of The Gunslinger: "The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed."
Sara wrote: ""Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again." Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier"
I would vote for that one too but I don't see it there.
I would vote for that one too but I don't see it there.
hard choice. really, really hard choice. I choose Anna Karenina, but there are two books even: Fahrenheit 451 and Pride and prejudice.
"There is one mirror in my house. It's behind a sliding panel in the upstairs hallway. Our Faction allows me to stand in front of it on the second day of every third month when my mother cuts my hair." Veronica Roth Divergent
That Is the book that fits this description
"Sometimes the first line of a book just grabs you by the nostrils and drags your fool head into its pages, preventing escape in any way, shape or form. Which of these opening lines has its phalanges most firmly planted in your nasal cavities?"
Thank you very much:)
I HAD to sign up to GoodReads just to say this: A Clockwork Orange's first line is wrong... the actual first line is simply (and powerfully):“What’s it going to be then, eh?”
... and then the quoted part. It makes a whole world of difference, to be greeted by that question at your face, than the otherwise simpler "who-when-where" that follows; so much in fact, than here in Argentina there was a widely known punk rock song titled after this line itself...
That. Now it's out of my system...
"-Puedo dejarte uno de mis brazos para esta noche- dijo la muchacha. Se quitó el brazo derecho desde el hombro y, con la mano izquierda, lo colocó sobre mi rodilla."One Arm, by Yasunari Kawabata
[In love with it. I don't have the english version, I have the book in Spanish :P sorry. But I just LOVE LOVE this. I HAD to read the little story the minute I hovered through that line. Beautiful.]
I almost changed my vote just because I believe Don Quixote deserves more than 32 votes. I loved that book I thought it was hilarious. But this is my all time favorite opening line:
“The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come to pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past…”
The Wheel Of Time: Eye Of The World By Robert Jordan
I really like Bradbury's "It was a pleasure to burn", but among my other favourites are:"Some years ago there was in the city of York a society of magicians." (Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell)
"On the day that his grannie was killed by the English, Sir William Scott the Younger of Buccleuch was at Melrose Abbey, marring his aunt." (The Disorderly Knights)
"Not to every young girl is it given to enter the harem of the Sultan of Turkey and return to her homeland a virgin." (The Ringed Castle)
"We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold."
"We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold."
Lynn wrote: ""The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed."Stephen King's best opening sentence.
I also love GWTW: "Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but few realized it when caught..."
I agree with the King quote. Read it as a kid and it has never escaped my head.
Oh, can't forget "We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold" from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Cartload wrote: "Um, Mark, could you please make your polls a little bit longer?"Those are the exact words my friend Lindsay used to open this discussion!
Weird...
So, it's been 4 years since Mark first posted this poll, but I only recently explored some of the interesting features on Goodreads, including polls. This poll is awesome, and (most of) the comments! I just want to add two of my all-time personal favorite attention-grabbing first lines:"This is the saddest story I have ever heard."
Ford Maddox Ford, The Good Soldier
"When Papa was away at sea, and Mama in the arbor, Ida played her wonder horn to rock the baby still - but never watched."
Maurice Sendak, Outside Over There
I was a bit worried about picking H2G2 based on the book rather than the quote, but, upon seeing the results, I think that's why most people picked their books.It feels good when being a hypocrite is justifiable.
I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up. I had just gotten over a serious illness that I won't bother to talk about, except that it had something to do with the miserably weary split-up and my feeling that everything was dead. With the coming of Dean Moriarty began the part of my life you could call my life on the road. Before that I'd often dreamed of going West to see the country, always vaguely planning and never taking off.On the Road by Jack Kerouac
"I still remember the day my father took me to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books for the first time." Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruis Zafon
