Famous first words.

The first line. It's always the hardest. Sometimes I don't write because I can't think of an opening line. Maybe because I'm always thinking about those amazing ones, you know trying to measure up, to not be embarrassed in the first five words. I don't always succeed.
Here's some good 'uns.

"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect."
The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka

This is one of those... what the hell do you say in the second sentence, if the first sentence is about a guy transforming into a gigantic insect. Hard act to follow, I'd say. Of course, Kafka's genius enough.

"All children, except one, grow up."

Peter Pan, J. M. Barrie

It's short, and I like it.

"I am a sick man ... I am a spiteful man. I am an unpleasant man. I think my liver is diseased."

Notes from Underground, Fyodor Dostoevsky

If you really want to stop reading, go ahead, but why would you. I mean, there are already a million questions, the sentences so far have been so easy to read, and it feels like you're really going to get into someone's head - who says no to that?

"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents"

Paul Clifford, by Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

Never NEVER start with the weather, unless your name is Edward Lytton, and your opening line is the most famous weather-related opening line.

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

This, I might add, is the only opening line in a Jane Austen book that does not extend past the first page. I love Austen, and had to get her in somewhere.

"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 ..."
A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens

And it goes on from there. It's just so beautiful and ugly. Antonyms at their prettiest.


"Marley was dead to begin with."
A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens (again)

JOY TO THE WORLD goes emo.

"In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit."
The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien

Sure, it sounds, like there once was an old woman, who lived in a shoe, except, if you read the book like you're supposed to, ie. when you're ten and have never seen the movies, then you kind of say... well what in the world is a hobbit, then you realize ... it's not in the world. It's in middle earth.

"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."
Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell

Again with the weather... it's a rule breaker. It works when the clocks strike thirteen, because then the reader asks... well, what kind of rules does this book follow?

"Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean."
Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare

Blood goes in the lead. Blood and Conflict.

"There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it."
Voyage of the Dawn Treader, C.S. Lewis

There was a boy, a very strange enchanted boy.... ahem... okay, well if you think of a name like that for your character, it goes in the lead. Then you say something to identify him, because it's the first impression. The reader is always going to think of this sentence when they read the name Eustace.

Good stuff.... good stuff.