34 Compelling First Lines of Famous Books

34 COMPELLING FIRST LINES OF FAMOUS BOOKS ONE FLEW OVER THE The PRINCESS BRIDE 1984 CUCKOO'S NEST (1973) (1949) (1962) FAHRENHEIT 451 “They're out there. Black boys in white suits up before me to commit sex acts in the hall and get it mopped up before I can catch them. “This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it." "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." (1953) "It was a pleasure to burn. Ken Kesey Ray Bradbury William Goldman George Orwell THE HOBBIT HUCKLEBERRY FINN BREAKFAST Pride and of CHAMPIONS ADVENTURES of (1937) Prejudice (1884) (1973) (1813) "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort. “You don't know about me without you have read a The book by the name Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." of “This is a tale of a meeting of two lonesome, skinny, fairly old white men on a planet which was dying fast." J.R.R. Tolkien Mark Twain Kurt Vonnegut, Ir. Jane Austen EINVISIBLE MAN THE CATCHER IN THE RYE A TALE OF TWO CITIES 1859) (1897) "The stranger came early in February, one wintry day, through a biting wind and a "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 v epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of (1951) I was the it was the spring of hope, driving spow last snowfall the last of it was the winter of despair, we had everything befo nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all snow, is, we had "If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that the walking as it seemed from Bramblehurst going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. the railway station, and carrying a little black David Copperfield kind of but I don't feel like going into it, Crap. portmanteau in his thickly gloved hand." H. G. Wells know the truth" J.D. Salinger if you want to Charles Dickens : "Far out in the : uncharted backwaters of the GUIDE unfashionable end of the Western Spiral the Galaxy . lies a small the HITCHHIKER'S TO KILL A FEAR AND LOATHING IN MOCKINGBIRD LAS VEGAS: (1960) to the GALAXY arm (1979) : yellow A ng this at Bistance of roughly A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream (1971) sun. ninety-eight million miles is an utterly ie-green itt planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a "When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow. When it healed, and Jem's fears of never being able to play football were assuaged, he was seldom self-conscious about his injury." "We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold." pretty neat idea." Douglas Adams Hunter S. Thompson Harper Lee Catch-22 Anna Karenina "The drought had lasted now for ten million years, and the reign of the terrible lizards had long since ended. Here on the Equator, in the continent which would one day be known as 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968) (1877) (1961) Africa, the battle for existence had reached a new climax of ferocity, and the victor was not yet in sight. In this barren and desiccated land, only the small or "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. the swift or the fierce could flourish, or even "It was love at first sight." hope to survive." Joseph Heller Leo Tolstoy Arthur C. Clarke Their Eyes Were Watching God of the DEAD (2006) The Pearl ORYX AND CRAKE A BRIEF HISTORY (1937) (1947) (2003) "In the town they tell the story of the great pearl – how it was found and how it was lost again." "When the blind man arrived "Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board." "Snowman wakes in the city, he claimed that he had traveled across before dawn." a desert of living sand." Zora Neale Hurston Kevin Brockmeier John Steinbeck Margaret Atwood Charlotte's Web EHUNGER GAMES THE RESTAURANT AT THE END OF * * THE UNIVERSE (1952) "When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold. My fingers stretch out, seeking Prim's warmth but finding only the rough canvas cover of the mattress. She must (2008) (1980) have had bad dreams and climbed in with our mother. Of course, she did. This is the "The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This had made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move." "Where's Papa going with that ax?' said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast." day of the reaping." E.B. White Suzanne Collins Douglas Adams AND THEN THERE WERE NONE (1939) THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE (1950) The Outsiders HARRY POTTER and the PHILOSOPHER'S STONE (1997) (1967) "In the corner of a first-class smoking carriage, Mr. Justice Wargrave, lately retired from the bench, "Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much." puffed at a cigar "When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home." and ran an interested eye through the political news in the Times." "Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. This story is about something that happened to them when they were sent away from London during the war because of the air-raids." S.E. Hinton J.K. Rowling Agatha Christie C.S. Lewis GOLDFINGER (1959) HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE (1986) ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND (1865) “Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had "James Bond, with two double bourbons inside him, sat in the final departure lounge of Miami Airport and thought about life and death." "In the land of Ingary, where such things as seven-league boots and cloaks of invisibility really exist, it is quite a misfortune to be born the eldest of three!" peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, 'and what is the use of a book,' thought Alice 'without pictures or conversations?" lan Fleming Diana Wynne Jones Lewis Carroll The Great Gatsby TWENTY THOUSAND LEAGUES under the sea Peter and Wendy (1925) (1911) "In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning (1870) over in my mind ever since. 'Whenever you feel like criticizing any one, 'he told me, 'just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had." "The year 1866 was signalized by a remarkable incident, a mysterious and inexplicable phenomenon, which doubtless no one "All children, except one, grow up." F. Scott Fitzgerald has yet forgotten." Jules Verne J.M. Barrie SCRÍBENDI