Best Opening Sentences
What makes a great opening sentence to a novel? My favourite opening lines have to tick two boxes: captivating and imaginative. They have to make me think about the world and the issues dealt with in the novel; they have to stand out as key moments of the novel and hold a deeper meaning when I look back after finishing the book; they have to be different from the ordinary, grab my attention, and set up the extraordinary journey on which I am about to embark.
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
Ana Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
Neuromancer, William Gibson
The sky above the port was the colour of television, tuned to a dead channel.
The Voyage of the Dawn Trader, C.S. Lewis
There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.
Orlando, Virginia Woolf
He—for there could be no doubt of his sex, though the fashion of the time did something to disguise it—was in the act of slicing at the head of a Moor which swung from the rafters.
Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys
They say when trouble comes close ranks, and so the white people did.
Still Life with the Woodpecker, Tom Robbins
If this typewriter can’t do it, then f*** it, it can’t be done.
A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickins
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.
The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York.
Moby Dick, Herman Melville
Call me Ishmael
Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins.
Matilda, Roald Dahl
It's a funny thing about mothers and fathers. Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you could ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful.
