Top Ten Favorite Opening Lines In Books

Hosted by The Broke and the Bookish

This was yet another impossible Top Ten challenge. The prompt was officially "Favorite openings/beginnings or endings", but if you leave something that open-ended for me I'll just end up writing a thesis paper on all fifty-seven of my favorite books. So. I had to limit myself. I chose opening lines because nothing is quite so important as a first impression. There's a real art to starting off a novel. You want to write something that captures the reader's interest and generates a lot of questions, and all of these managed to do that with me.


1. I remember being born.

Seraphina by Rachel Hartman


2. "You stop fearing the Devil when you're holding his hand."
 
Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by April Genevieve Tucholke


3. I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith


4. After a year of slavery in the Salt Mines of Endovier, Celaena Sardothien was accustomed to being escorted everywhere in shackles and at sword-point.

Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas


5. They always screamed.

Reboot by Amy Tintera


6. There was a boy in her room.

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell


7. 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.


8. There was once a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis


9. Froggy Welsh the Fourth is trying to get up my shirt.

The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things by Carolyn Mackler


10. When Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien


11. This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it.

The Princess Bride by William Goldman


12. As the iron war club scythed toward her head, Yukiko couldn’t help wishing she’d listened to her father.

Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff


And my very favorite ever, of course:

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 


Bonus: Classics Edition!

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

1984 by George Orwell 


Marley was dead, to begin with.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens 


 It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, ti 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.

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens