Who Wrote The Best First Line Of Books In History?

2025-07-09 05:04:21 116

3 Answers

Yvette
Yvette
2025-07-10 05:05:14
I’m a sucker for first lines that feel like a door creaking open to a world you never knew you needed. My vote? Charlotte Brontë’s 'Jane Eyre': 'There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.' It’s deceptively simple but throbs with Jane’s restrained rebellion. Another favorite is Douglas Adams’ 'The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy': 'Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.' It’s absurd, hilarious, and perfectly sets up the book’s tone.

For sheer audacity, I love Nabokov’s 'lolita': 'Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins.' It’s beautiful and horrifying, just like the novel. And then there’s 'The Bell Jar' by Sylvia Plath: 'It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs.' That line sticks like a splinter—you can’t shake it. These openings aren’t just words; they’re promises of the wild rides ahead.
Ava
Ava
2025-07-13 08:41:30
I’ve spent years dissecting literature, and the debate about the best first line is one I adore. For me, it’s a tie between two giants: Charles Dickens and Franz Kafka. Dickens’ 'A Tale of Two Cities' opens with 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...'—a line so iconic it’s etched into cultural memory. It’s sweeping, paradoxical, and instantly sets up the novel’s themes. Kafka, though, hits differently with 'The Metamorphosis': 'As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.' That line is a punch to the gut, blending horror and mundanity in a way only Kafka could.

Then there’s the sly brilliance of Orwell’s '1984': 'It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.' The subtle dystopian twist in something so ordinary chills me every time. And let’s not forget Toni Morrison’s 'Beloved': '124 was spiteful.' Three words, and you’re already drowning in the novel’s haunting atmosphere. Each of these lines does more than introduce a story—they *are* the story in miniature.
Reese
Reese
2025-07-14 02:17:28
As someone who devours books like candy, I've always been obsessed with opening lines that grab you by the collar and refuse to let go. The crown for the best first line, in my opinion, goes to Gabriel García Márquez for 'One Hundred Years of Solitude': 'Many 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.' It's like a time machine—dropping you into a moment so vivid and mysterious that you can't stop reading. Close runners-up include Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice' ('It is a truth universally acknowledged...') and Herman Melville's 'Moby-Dick' ('Call me Ishmael'), but Márquez’s line is pure magic. It sets the tone for an entire epic while feeling like a whispered secret.
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