Lovely infographic I found via ebookfriendly. What are some of your favorite first lines? Comment them below.
These are some of my favorite ones:
“I’ve been locked up for 264 days.”
Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi
“How does one describe Artemis Fowl? Various psychiatrists have tried and failed.”
Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer
“You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino’s new novel, If on a winter’s night a traveler.” —Italo Calvino, If on a winter’s night a traveler
“It was the day my grandmother exploded.” —Iain M. Banks, The Crow Road
The above selection are excellent choices. Funnily enough, not all great beginnings mean great stories [and vice versa].
I’d like to share one with you:
“Dr iannis had enjoyed a satisfactory day in which none of his patients had died or got any worse.”
[Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernières]
I can recognize a good book from the first sentence…lie I repeatedly tell myself. That is a great line! Is Corelli’s Mandolin a great story?
It’s a nice romance but de Berniére’s style of mixing POV and first/third person annoyed me.
Here are some of the most famous first lines that I know:
– Call me Ishmael (Moby Dick – Melville)
– Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K., he knew he had done nothing wrong but, one morning, he was arrested. (The Trial – 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 – Garcia Marquez)
– It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York. (Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath)
– The boy with fair hair lowered himself down the last few feet of rock and began to pick his way towards the lagoon. (Lord of the Flies – William Golding)
……
And so many others! :D