Greatest opening lines in literature

A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism.

I know some will shout "left wing cliche" but this is a great opening to a still great piece of literature, polemic or not.

Heh, yeah, I did enjoy the way The Crow Road starts.

I like the vague portentousness* of:

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents...

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(Lovecraft's The Call Of Cthulhu)



*it is a word, I just looked it up

Hale knew before he had been in Brighton three hours that they meant to kill him.

Or something...

"Hale knew before he had been in Brighton three hours that they meant to kill him."

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Was just going to say that one.... looks as though we've mentioned the most obvious ones now. Couple more iconic ones and then people will have to come up with some away from the beaten track:

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times etc"

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"Now is the winter of our discontent etc"

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I quite like

"It was inevitable: the smell of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love."

from Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Kind of baroque and sad in a way that immediately puts me in the mood for the sort of thing he's so good at...

"It was inevitable: the smell of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love."

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Because it's the smell of cyanide and he's a doctor and the bloke has killed himself right?

IdleRich said:

Because it's the smell of cyanide and he's a doctor and the bloke has killed himself right?

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Arsenic?

Edit: No, just looked it up, cyanide smells of bitter almonds - useful to know these things.

reeltoreel said:

I quite like

"It was inevitable: the smell of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love."

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Also, from 100 Years of Solitude:

"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."

Obvious: "The sky above the port was the colour of television, tuned to a dead channel."
William Gibson, Neuromancer.

A bit less obvious: "Snow-Balls have flown their Arcs, starr'd the Sides of Outbuildings, as of Cousins, carried Hats away into the brisk Wind off Delaware, - the Sleds are brought in and their Runners carefully dried and greased, shoes deposited in the back Hall, a stocking'd-foot Descent made upon the great Kitchen, in a purposeful Dither since Morning, punctuated by the ringing Lids of various Boilers and Stewing-Pots, fragrant with Pie-Spices, peel'd Fruits, Suet, heated Sugar, - the Children, having all upon the Fly, among rhythmic slaps of Batter and Spoon, coax'd and stolen what they might, proceed, as upon each afternoon all this snowy Advent, to a comfortable Room at the rear of the House, years since given over to their carefree Assaults."
Thomas Pynchon - Mason & Dixon.

"Sithen the siege and the assaut was cesed at Troy
The burg brittened and brent to brondes and askes
The tulk that the trammes of tresoun there wroght
Watz tried for his tricherie, the trewest on erthe."
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

This is the saddest story I have ever heard

The Good Soldier - Ford Madox Ford.

'He always shot up by TV light.'

Ellroy, American Tabloid

'The first time I laid eyes on Terry Lennox he was drunk in a Rolls-Royce silver Wraith outside the terrace of The Dancers.'

Chandler, The Long Goodbye

'I can feel the heat closing in, feel them out there making their moves, setting up their devil doll stool pigeons, crooning over my spoon and dropper I throw away at Washington Square Sation, vault a turnstile and two flights down the iron stairs, catch an uptown A train…'

Burroughs, Naked Lunch

How about

The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.

-Stephen King, "The Gunslinger"

this is the only one I can remember, so it must be good (or I must be a hopeless dullard):

"A screaming comes across the sky".

vimothy said:

"April is the cruelest month..."

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Yeah, Benny B's post reminded me of that, too. Doesn't he go about how ugly and menacing daffodils are or somesuch?

Mr. Tea said:

Yeah, Benny B's post reminded me of that, too. Doesn't he go about how ugly and menacing daffodils are or somesuch?

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Breeding lillacs out of the dead ground?

vimothy said:

Breeding lillacs out of the dead ground?

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Yes, it's a very dark blue, isn't it? Almost...black. Black, the colour of death! The endless wardrobe of despair! What's for dinner, mother? Ink Stew?! Lock me in the basement and feed me pins!

Lying in bed, I abandoned the facts again and was back in Ambrosia

Billy Liar

"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