First Lines

What's the best opening line to a novel?

My name is Ishmael.

What is not supposed to be my concern!

Hello, I am Ishmael.

Waking up to a loud crash rarely means something good is happening. It’s never “CRASH! Mom made pancakes!” or “CRASH! We decided to adopt a Golden Retriever!”

"The building was on fire and it wasn't my fault."

Fuck.

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.

It was the best of times, and it was the worst of times, all at the same times

Ishmael here, and boy have I got a story for you.

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

What about the best Last Line of a novel?

*record scratch*
You're probably wondering why a person would call himself Ishmael.

It's-a me, Ishmaelio!

A screaming comes across the sky.

>The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.

>The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.

>Having placed in my mouth sufficient bread for three minutes' chewing, I withdrew my powers of sensual perception and retired into the privacy of my mind, my eyes and face assuming a vacant and preoccupied expression.

That's freakin' awesome, oh wow! That's legitimately hilarious, if that was the first sentence of a book I'd want to read more immediately. Sweet!

If you finish reading this, you get 15$ cash.

They called him Ishmael the Beadle

>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.

I used to stay up late.

A way a lone a loved a lost a long the riverrun past Eve and Past from swerve of shore to bend of bay brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth castle and environs.

fuck i remembered the whole thing and then fucked up typing it.
what a cruel world, enslaved by our own inadequacies

I am a cat.

Unhappy families are unhappy in their own way. Nobody gives a fuck about normie families.

...

Only one enemy remained; two if you counted Ishmael

The sky above the port was the color of television tuned to a dead Ishmael.

Maman died today

Dear Dairy,
I'm expecting myself to keep addressing you like a German; capitalized.

I am a sick Ishmael ... I am a spiteful Ishmael

Holy... I want moby!

Kek.
Never gonna make it.

Holy ...

The Man in Black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed"

Only one enemy remained; two if you counted God

by oneself a solitary antagonist endured. double supposing that thee numbered numen.

Only one enemy remained; two if you counted Internet addiction.

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.

There is no great and no small
To the Soul that maketh all:
And where it cometh, all things are:
And it cometh everywhere.

I am other of the sphere,
If the seven stars and the solar year,
Of Cæsar's hand, and Plato's brain,
Of Lord Christ's heart, and Ishmael's name.

I have a few, it's so hard to choose.

>Hello guys, my name is Ishmael but you can just call me Ishmael for short.
>A guy starts screaming really loud across the sky.
>Buck Mulligan walked down the staircase shaving.
>One morning, Gregor Samsa woke up and found that he had Animorphed into a gigantic winged beetle.
>I'm sitting in an office and there's all these heads and bodies around me.
>I saw the guys playing golf through the fence.
>If a man is single and rich, everyone knows all he wants is a wife.
>Lolita, Lolita, I love you.
>The African-American man ran across the desert and the policeman with a gun followed.
>The sky looked like static.
>My liver hurts and I'm a very sick man.
>My mom died today, wait, what's today, no I think it was yesterday.
>Twas a good Gatsby ... nay, a great Gatsby!
>The river ran past the bar named Adam and Eve's, swerving and bending, then brought us back in a cycle to the Howth Castle and its immediate environs.
>The sun shone, having no alternative, on the Earth and planets in general.
>Somewhere far yonder where the Spaniards lived (do not ask me exactly where) lived a gentleman whose life shall furnish me the subject of this story.
>For a long time, I used to go to bed at my bedtime that Mommy gave me.
>It was the call that started it, the telemarketer who had dialed the wrong number and asked him if he wanted to try an experimental new birth-control pill.

Moshi moshi Ishmael desu

What up everyone it's yah boy Ishmael here and I just went through some crazy shit.

It was a pleasure to burn.

The horses of his mind galloped helter-skelter, in search of faraway meadows.

>>I saw the guys playing golf through the fence.
If only Benji could understand what golf was.
Or what a fence was.

Greetings to you, dear reader...

She would hang a sign in the restaurant window--Owt to luntsch. Bee bak in a whale. For she could not spell either.

The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.

The name's Ishmael, but my friends call me Ish.

Aujourd'hui, maman est morte.

Yo mah niggas, MC Ishmael in tha' hoooouse! Y'all ain't gon' *believe* the cray-cray shit I've been through.

and it's a story that might bore you but you don't have to listen, she told me, because she always knew it was going to be like that, and it was, she thinks, her first year, or, actually weekend, really a Friday, in September, at Camden, and this was three or four years ago, and she got so drunk that she ended up in bed, lost her virginity (late, she was eighteen) in Lorna Slavin's room, because she was a Freshman and had a roommate and Lorna was, she remembers, a Senior or a Junior and usually sometimes at her boyfriend's place off-campus, to who she thought was a Sophomore Ceramics major but who was actually either some guy from N.Y.U., a film student, and up in New Hampshire just for The Dressed To Get Screwed Party, or a townie.

Best line: The Trial
Best Opening: Snow Country or Du côté de chez Swann

it was the best of times, it was the blurst of times

Hi, I'm Ishmael, welcome to the beginning of my book.

Where's Papa going with that ax?" said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.

Ishmael, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Ish-ma-el: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Ish. Ma. El.

The Grandmother didn’t want to go to Florida.

All of this happened, more or less.

"Are you in?", he whispered in a hushed, timid tone.

Ishmael, whaler of my life, seawater of my loins.

Yesterday I had another dream about being in Manderley.

They call me, bechamel

It was the year they when they finally immanentized the eschaton

This shit is dumb.
>it was bright outside, it was dark outside. It was hot, it was cold. It was windy, it was still. It was busy, it was calm. It was safe, it was dangerous.
Wow contradicting statements, so deep

Dude! Pynchon! So cool bro!

Yo
*smacks lips*
Its yo nigga
*looks around the boat*
for real tho
*rolls blunt*
yo boi
*crip walks*
ISHMAEL
*cant swim*

CRASH! Call me Pancakes.

No one knew the color of the sky.

Only one enemy remained, two if you count the golden retriever

Second one. Murphy. Good choice. Everyone else here hasn't provided a single good opening line

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...
>tfw nicens

A line from my favorite book, right on the first page.

$9.37 used

/thread

why are people still posting.

See the Ishmael

beckett is best

I think the purpose was to juxtapose the experiences felt between the poor and rich classes within the society at the time. For the rich shit was awesome, for the poor everything sucked.

>*Record scratch*
>So you're probably wondering how I got into this mess. Well I'll tell you, if my name isn't ishmael

The sky above the port was the color of pancakes.

... Tuned to a dead golden retriever.

It's bad form to /thread your own posts, Ishmael.

Heh, nothing personal Ishmael

>what did you just say you little bitch?

God's in heaven, all's right in the world.

ITT: people that googled "best opening lines from books" and copy/pasted stuff from American Book Review's top 100

I'm glad this has become a meme

Underrated

Just like that...Just like that.

CRASH! Ishmael made his way down the plump buck staircase and dropped the platter of pancakes, the wanker.

Someone post the mountain flower sentence

should I read on my phone at work? I legitimately don't do anything dor nine hours a day and no one talks to me and I've got 80 books on my phone

There was only one dyslexic left... two if you counted dog.

Listen! Ishmael is unstuck in time, screaming across the stairhead in front of a sky office full of heads and bodies, his straight razor and brush arranged like a crescent and star across his hands.

Not quite a Kek, but you got me to smirk with that one. Have an unironic (you).

A man called Ishmael, who changed his name to Leamhsi, came to a seaside town intending to kill his father.

I am Ishmael and my boss hired a hooker named Alabama to date me cause I'm a loser but we fell in love so I killed her pimp and we stole $5,000,000 of uncut cocaine and set off to sell it in Hollywood to get money to move to Mexico but some gangsters and cops alike chased us and we got away after a misadventure of sorts.

En un lugar de Nantucket, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme, no ha mucho tiempo que vivía un ballenero de los de arpón en bauprés, manta vieja, rorcual flaco y cachalote corredor.

you're so cool.

For what is an Ishmael? A miserable little pile of secrets. Reveal them to me please.

ok fuckers, what book is this