The first lines in a book doesn’t necessarily make that book a great read but it can instantly pique your interest or make you close that book and move on.
I listed here (this is in no particular order) some of the most memorable first lines I have ever read.
1. Dark Fever by Karen Marie Moning
My philosophy is pretty simple – any day nobody’s trying to kill me is a good day in my book.
I haven’t had many good days lately.
2. I Am The Messenger by Markus Zusak
The gunman is useless.
I know it.
He knows it.
The whole bank knows it.
3. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
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.
4. The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks
I am nothing special, of this I am sure. I am a common man with common thoughts and I’ve led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten, but I’ve loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough.
5. Hounded by Kevin Hearne
There are many perks to living for twenty-one centuries, and foremost among them is bearing witness to the rare birth of genius. It invariably goes like this: Someone shrugs off the weight of his cultural traditions, ignores the baleful stares of authority, and does something his countrymen think to be completely batshit insane. Of those, Galileo was my personal favorite. Van Gogh comes in second, but he really was batshit insane.
What’s your favorite first line? Please share it in the comment.
Tome Treats 
Good list! I think one of my favorite if not opening lines but openings in general (a single-page prologue) is that of Patrick Rothfuss’ ‘Name of the Wind’.
“It was night again. The Waystone Inn lay in silence, and it was a silence of three parts.”
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Ohh that’s a good one. I have to finish that book! 🙂
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“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”
-Neuromancer, William Gibson
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This is great and so vivid.
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For me there is no better beginning to a book than The War Of The Worlds by H.G. Wells.
“No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water.”
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This is an excellent beginning to a book which have piqued my interest. Will check this out. Thank you for spending a little bit of your time reading this post. 😊
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