Opening line:
Behind every man now alive stand thirty ghosts, for that is the ratio by which the dead outnumber the living.
2001 – A Space Odyssey by Arthur C Clarke
September 7, 2009 at 10:53 am (Arthur C Clarke, Opening lines, science fiction)
The Tell-Tale Heart, by Edgar Allan Poe
September 7, 2009 at 10:48 am (Edgar Allan Poe, Opening lines, fiction)
Opening line:
True! – nervous – very, very nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?
Thank You for Smoking: A Novel by Christopher Buckley
September 7, 2009 at 10:48 am (Christopher Buckley, Opening lines, fiction)
Opening line:
Nick Naylor had been called many things since becoming the chief spokesman for the Academy of Tobacco Studies, but until now no one had actually compared him to Satan.
Smilla’s Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg
September 7, 2009 at 10:45 am (Opening lines, Peter Hoeg, fiction)
Opening line:
Its freezing – an extraordinary 0 Fahrenfeit – and its snowing, and in the language that is no longer mine, the snow is qanik - big, almost weightless crystals falling in clumps and covering the ground with a layer of pulverized white frost.
The Collector by John Fowles
September 7, 2009 at 10:43 am (John Fowles, Opening lines, fiction)
Opening line:
When she was home from her boarding-school I used to see her almost every day sometimes, because their house was right opposite the Town Hall Annexe.
Out of the Silent Planet by CS Lewis
September 7, 2009 at 10:41 am (CS Lewis, Opening lines, science fiction)
Opening line:
The last drops of the thundershower had hardly ceased falling when the Pedestrian stuffed his map into his pocket, settled his pack more comfortably on his tired shoulders, and stepped out from the shelter of a large chestnut tree into the middle of the road.
Le Morte D’Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory
September 7, 2009 at 10:41 am (Opening lines, Sir Thomas Malory, fiction)
Opening line:
It befell in the days of Uther Pendragon, when he was king of all England, and so reigned, that there was a mighty duke in Cornwall that held war against him long.
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
September 7, 2009 at 10:40 am (Michael Ondaatje, Opening lines, fiction)
Opening line:
She stands in the garden where she has been working and looks into the distance.
Das Boot by Lothar-Gunther Buchheim
September 7, 2009 at 10:39 am (Lothar-Gunther Buchheim, Opening lines, fiction)
Opening line:
From the officers’ billet in the Hotel Majestic to the Bar Royal the coast road describes a single extended curve three miles long.
