Best opening lines - Amazon UK vote results

[UncleEbenezer]

Fog.

(Bleak House).

Some great lines there. Others ... erm ... less so. And inexplicable omissions: Du Maurier has already been mentioned here!

I guess the scope is limited to novels, else we'd have some great candidates from, for example, theatre and poetry - e.g. many of Shakespeare's plays.

Yes, Richard III springs to mind,

"Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this son of York,"

I said many of them. Just a few more examples from the same author ...

To be, or not to be.
When shall we three meet again?
If music be the food of love, play on!


Perhaps even more great candidates in poetry. A few candidates with no two alike ...


Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit ...
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways
April is the cruelest month
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan ...
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves ...

[Charlottesquare]

Yes, Richard III springs to mind,

"Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this son of York,"

I said many of them. Just a few more examples from the same author ...

To be, or not to be.
When shall we three meet again?
If music be the food of love, play on!


Perhaps even more great candidates in poetry. A few candidates with no two alike ...


Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit ...
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways
April is the cruelest month
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan ...
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves ...

Surely "To be " is not an opening line, I thought it was after the Graveyard scene , however long time since I read Hamlet (1980, 1st year Uni)

I endorse Milton's Paradise Lost, Coleridge's drug induced Kubla Khan ( subsequently picked up by Rush )and Lewis Carol's Jabberwoky, not so au fait with EBB as never studied her work nor, for that matter, Elliot.

Can I slip in :

"Had we but world enough and time,"

And one of my earliest favourites:

"A bear, however hard he tries,
Grows tubby without exercise."

Also one of the earliest "serious poems" I ever read,

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,

And possibly the best known opening line of any poem (well certainly one I had to learn by heart at school)

"I wandered lonely as a cloud"

[UncleEbenezer]

Surely "To be " is not an opening line, I thought it was after the Graveyard scene , however long time since I read Hamlet (1980, 1st year Uni)

Heh. I was thinking of the last Hamlet I saw. Which happened to be an operatic setting and took some liberties with the text.

I endorse Milton's Paradise Lost, Coleridge's drug induced Kubla Khan ( subsequently picked up by Rush )and Lewis Carol's Jabberwoky, not so au fait with EBB as never studied her work nor, for that matter, Elliot.
[/quote]

Pub quiz questions. Where in the modern world is Xanadu and the stately pleasure dome? Who was Kubla Khan's famous grandfather?

Can I slip in :

Noone has yet mentioned that fine opening: Once upon a time.

[Charlottesquare]

Surely "To be " is not an opening line, I thought it was after the Graveyard scene , however long time since I read Hamlet (1980, 1st year Uni)

Heh. I was thinking of the last Hamlet I saw. Which happened to be an operatic setting and took some liberties with the text.

I endorse Milton's Paradise Lost, Coleridge's drug induced Kubla Khan ( subsequently picked up by Rush )and Lewis Carol's Jabberwoky, not so au fait with EBB as never studied her work nor, for that matter, Elliot.

Pub quiz questions. Where in the modern world is Xanadu and the stately pleasure dome? Who was Kubla Khan's famous grandfather?

Can I slip in :

Noone has yet mentioned that fine opening: Once upon a time.[/quote]

Genghis for the grandfather, will have to cheat with the modern geography question and use Google. Will need to first locate the river Alp measureless to man.

[Charlottesquare]

Surely "To be " is not an opening line, I thought it was after the Graveyard scene , however long time since I read Hamlet (1980, 1st year Uni)

Heh. I was thinking of the last Hamlet I saw. Which happened to be an operatic setting and took some liberties with the text.

I endorse Milton's Paradise Lost, Coleridge's drug induced Kubla Khan ( subsequently picked up by Rush )and Lewis Carol's Jabberwoky, not so au fait with EBB as never studied her work nor, for that matter, Elliot.

Pub quiz questions. Where in the modern world is Xanadu and the stately pleasure dome? Who was Kubla Khan's famous grandfather?

Can I slip in :

Noone has yet mentioned that fine opening: Once upon a time.[/quote]

I forgot all about this opening couplet (No idea how I forgot, it and Tennyson plagued my life in second year at secondary school, they were never ending, lesson after lesson -bl**dy Shallot)

"It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three."

Obviously a fair description of some of the Scotland goalkeepers of the 70s.

[bluedonkey]

Greavsie would agree with you!

[DelianLeague]

Here are a few more great opening lines that didn’t make it to the list.

The Iliad by Homer (the E.V.Rieu translation):
The Wrath of Achilles is my theme, that fatal wrath which, in fulfilment of the will of Zeus, brought the Achaeans so much suffering and sent the gallant souls of many a noblemen to Hades, leaving their bodies as carrion for the dogs.


The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham:
When a day that you happen to know is Wednesday starts off by sounding like Sunday, there is something seriously wrong somewhere.


The Pilgrims Progress by John Bunyan:
As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place where there was a den, and as I laid me down in that place to sleep…and as I slept, I dreamed a dream.


The Cloister and the Hearth by Charles Read:
Not a day passes over the earth, but men and women of no note do great deeds, and speak great words, and suffer noble sorrows.

Regards, D.L.

[redsturgeon]

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

[GrahamPlatt]

I guess the scope is limited to novels, else we'd have some great candidates from, for example, theatre and poetry - e.g. many of Shakespeare's plays.

Busy old fool, unruly sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?

And apropos of that particular piece by Donne, I give you this https://yt.artemislena.eu/watch?v=97tgi6o1tZ0

“How many clever men have called the Sun a fool before today
Oh Oh Unruly Sun they say
For stepping in to take my love away”

Though I take it we’ve not opened the field up to songs yet?

[Dod101]

Surely "To be " is not an opening line, I thought it was after the Graveyard scene , however long time since I read Hamlet (1980, 1st year Uni)

Heh. I was thinking of the last Hamlet I saw. Which happened to be an operatic setting and took some liberties with the text.

I endorse Milton's Paradise Lost, Coleridge's drug induced Kubla Khan ( subsequently picked up by Rush )and Lewis Carol's Jabberwoky, not so au fait with EBB as never studied her work nor, for that matter, Elliot.

Pub quiz questions. Where in the modern world is Xanadu and the stately pleasure dome? Who was Kubla Khan's famous grandfather?

Can I slip in :

Noone has yet mentioned that fine opening: Once upon a time.[/quote]

Got both the pub questions. I have read a lot about that part of the world, including 'In Xanadu' by William Dalrymple, in fact I think it was his first book as he travelled across the world from Europe. Great entertainment.

Dod

[moorfield]

The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation.

[triatharoo]

I was listening to an old episode if The Infinite Monkey Cage today, and they mentioned that Alan Moore had recently written a short story taking place in the first femto-second of the universe.

The opening line was "It was the best of times, it was the first of times".

[stewamax]

... Alan Moore had recently written a short story taking place in the first femto-second of the universe.The opening line was "It was the best of times, it was the first of times".

The best opening line is, by definition, It was the best of lines,...

[Dicky99]

"Awake, awake, the sun begins to rise
and brings to all a glimpse of paradise.
Forsake the arms of sleep and come with me
To see the jewels that life to sloth denies.

[CalCapital]

I know I'm responding to an old thread, but hopefully some bored fellow fool will be perusing this section of the forum and take some interest from the below additions.

Tolstoy's Anna Karenina: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

Dostoevsky's Notes From Underground: "I am a sick man, I am a wicked man, I am an unattractive man. I think there's something wrong with my liver..."