Info ListsList RulesNovels that have often quoted first lines or opening sentences that are otherwise in the cultural zeitgeist. Vote up the most memorable.
The opening lines of a novel can prove crucial, and many authors spend an inordinate amount of time considering how their books will begin. From Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities to Melville's Moby Dick, often the opening sentence or two of a book will become the most frequently quoted and iconic passage from the entire novel. This list has the best novels with great first lines, bound to make the best impression on readers.
These books of fiction are well known for their opening lines. The authors know that books don't just need a great story, there also needs to be something that draws in the reader. The opening line is that hook and the books on this list all have intriguing, interesting, and unique opening sentences.
This is a list of the greatest novels with the best introductory text, including world literature (with an emphasis on English literature), from throughout history, with the most memorable and significant beginnings. Vote up the most memorable first lines from fiction below.
Source: American Book Review
1
796159A Tale of Two Cities
Charles DickensIt 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.
2
604182Nineteen Eighty-Four
George OrwellIt was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.- 3558167
Fahrenheit 451
Ray BradburyIt was a pleasure to burn. - 4518174
Pride and Prejudice
Jane AustenIt is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. - 5496167
Anna Karenina
Leo TolstoyHappy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. - 6505172
The Hobbit
J. R. R. TolkienIn a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. - 7543193
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale
Herman MelvilleCall me Ishmael. - 8427148
Slaughterhouse-Five
Kurt VonnegutAll this happened, more or less. - 9294113
The Metamorphosis
Franz KafkaAs Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.
- 10350146
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
C. S. LewisThere was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it. - 11294116
David Copperfield
Charles DickensWhether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. - 1224289
The Color Purple
Alice WalkerYou better not never tell nobody but God. - 13369169
The Catcher in the Rye
J. D. SalingerIf 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 David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. - 14288127
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Mark TwainYou don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. - 15349166
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
J. K. RowlingMr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were very normal, thank you very much.
- 16330157
The Great Gatsby
F. Scott FitzgeraldIn my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. - 1720277
The Go-Between
L. P. HartleyThe past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. - 1823499
The Bell Jar
Sylvia PlathIt was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York. - 1922493
The Crow Road
Iain BanksIt was the day my grandmother exploded. - 20254120
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Gabriel García MárquezMany years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. - 21245116
To Kill a Mockingbird
Harper LeeWhen he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow. - 2218882
Invisible Man
Ralph EllisonI am an invisible man. - 23268141
Lolita
Vladimir Vladimirovich NabokovLolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. - 24224111
Don Quixote
Miguel de CervantesSomewhere in la Mancha, in a place whose name I do not care to remember, a gentleman lived not long ago, one of those who has a lance and ancient shield on a shelf and keeps a skinny nag and a greyhound for racing. - 2515163
Scaramouche: A Romance of the French Revolution
Rafael SabatiniHe was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.
