06-25-2018, 01:52 PM | #61 |
Bibliophagist
Posts: 35,393
Karma: 145435140
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Vancouver
Device: Kobo Sage, Forma, Clara HD, Lenovo M8 FHD, Paperwhite 4, Tolino epos
|
Another favourite opening line.
The first thing the boy Garion remembered was the kitchen at Faldor’s farm. For all the rest of his life he had a special warm feeling for kitchens and those peculiar sounds and smells that seemed somehow to combine into a bustling seriousness that had to do with love and food and comfort and security and, above all, home. |
06-25-2018, 02:03 PM | #62 | |
The Grand Mouse 高貴的老鼠
Posts: 71,506
Karma: 306214458
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Norfolk, England
Device: Kindle Voyage
|
Quote:
|
|
Advert | |
|
06-25-2018, 10:14 PM | #63 |
Wizard
Posts: 2,502
Karma: 28893796
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: Perth Western Australia
Device: kindle
|
The third and fourth of my last batch:
3: Bonjour Tristesse. (I thought of including the whole opening para which has "sorrow" in it about six times, a translation of "tristesse" from the French, but thought one was enough. I don't read French but it would be interesting to know what the original French looked like. Lots of tristesses, I guess.) 4: Glitz, Elmore Leonard The Agatha Christie was from Appointment With Death, 1938. The opening lines I collect are ones that stick in my mid as "sucking me into the book" rather than spitting me out. afterthought: found the opening para online: Sur ce sentiment inconnu dont l'ennui, la douceur m'obsèdent, j'hésite à apposer le nom, le beau nom grave de tristesse. C'est un sentiment si complet, si égoïste que j'en ai presque honte alors que la tristesse m'a toujours paru honorable. Je ne la connaissais pas, elle, mais l'ennui, le regret, plus rarement le remords. Aujourd'hui, quelque chose se replie sur moi comme une soie, énervante et douce, et me sépare des autres. Last edited by Pulpmeister; 06-25-2018 at 10:18 PM. Reason: afterthought. |
06-25-2018, 11:50 PM | #64 | |
Home Guard
Posts: 4,729
Karma: 86721650
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Alpha Ralpha Boulevard
Device: Kindle Oasis 3G, iPhone 6
|
Quote:
3 is from A Short History of a Small Place by T. R. Pearson 5 is from The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz by Russell Hoban |
|
06-27-2018, 09:32 AM | #65 |
Professor of Law
Posts: 3,640
Karma: 65925980
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: Chapel Hill, NC
Device: Kobo Elipsa, Kobo Libra H20, Kobo Aura One, KoboMini
|
1 - "I am always drawn back to places where I have lived, the houses and their neighborhoods."
2 - "ON THE MORNING after the Feds burned down her house and took her father, Havaa woke from dreams of sea anemones." 3 - "IN LATER YEARS, holding forth to an interviewer or to an audience of aging fans at a comic book convention, Sam Clay liked to declare, apropos of his and Joe Kavalier's greatest creation, that back when he was a boy, sealed and hog-tied inside the airtight vessel known as Brooklyn, New York, he had been haunted by dreams of Harry Houdini." 4 - "The writer, an old man with a white mustache, had some difficulty in getting into bed. The windows of the house in which he lived were high and he wanted to look at the trees when he awoke in the morning." |
Advert | |
|
06-27-2018, 11:45 AM | #66 |
Bibliophagist
Posts: 35,393
Karma: 145435140
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Vancouver
Device: Kobo Sage, Forma, Clara HD, Lenovo M8 FHD, Paperwhite 4, Tolino epos
|
|
06-27-2018, 11:48 AM | #67 | |
o saeclum infacetum
Posts: 20,226
Karma: 222235366
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: New England
Device: H2O, Aura One, PW5
|
Quote:
|
|
06-27-2018, 12:09 PM | #68 |
Professor of Law
Posts: 3,640
Karma: 65925980
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: Chapel Hill, NC
Device: Kobo Elipsa, Kobo Libra H20, Kobo Aura One, KoboMini
|
|
06-27-2018, 01:17 PM | #69 |
Bibliophagist
Posts: 35,393
Karma: 145435140
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Vancouver
Device: Kobo Sage, Forma, Clara HD, Lenovo M8 FHD, Paperwhite 4, Tolino epos
|
Another of my favourites.
There were four of us—George, and William Samuel Harris, and myself, and Montmorency. We were sitting in my room, smoking, and talking about how bad we were—bad from a medical point of view I mean, of course. |
06-27-2018, 02:51 PM | #70 |
Wizard
Posts: 1,432
Karma: 25151986
Join Date: May 2012
Location: Seattle, US
Device: Kindle Oasis 3, Kobo Libra 2
|
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome
|
06-27-2018, 03:16 PM | #71 |
Grand Sorcerer
Posts: 11,248
Karma: 35000000
Join Date: Jan 2008
Device: Pocketbook
|
Some more obscure stories, but well worth one's time.
#1 - She was a girlygirl and they were true men, the lords of creation, but she pitted her wits against them and she won. #2 - If I had cared to live, I would have died. #3 - When the office door opened suddenly I knew the game was up. It had been a money-maker - but it was over. #4 - Gallegher played by ear, which would have been all right if he had been a musician - but he was a scientist. #5 - I first heard Personville called Poisonville by a red-haired mucker called Hickey Dewey in the Big Ship in Butte. |
06-27-2018, 05:42 PM | #72 | |
Bibliophagist
Posts: 35,393
Karma: 145435140
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Vancouver
Device: Kobo Sage, Forma, Clara HD, Lenovo M8 FHD, Paperwhite 4, Tolino epos
|
Quote:
3. The Stainless Steel Rat, Harry Harrison 4. Time Locker, Henry Kuttner writing as Lewis Padgett. I think I have it in a book called Robots Have No Tails but not about to venture into the basement to locate it. |
|
06-27-2018, 10:12 PM | #73 |
Grand Sorcerer
Posts: 11,248
Karma: 35000000
Join Date: Jan 2008
Device: Pocketbook
|
Good shooting!!!
#5 is not S/F. . . |
06-28-2018, 03:46 AM | #74 |
Fanatic
Posts: 519
Karma: 2693434
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Australia
Device: Cybook Gen 3, Pocketbook 902, Sony 650
|
|
06-28-2018, 05:22 AM | #75 |
Wizard
Posts: 1,228
Karma: 7838248
Join Date: Dec 2009
Device: Ipad Pro/Kindle Oasis 3/iPhone 13 Pro Max
|
The Martian by Andy Weir
"I'm pretty much f...ed." |
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Finding lines with dropped opening quote | MerlinMama | Editor | 4 | 01-02-2016 04:15 PM |
Other Fiction Various: A Little Collection of Opening Lines from Various Novels v1. 6. Apr. 2015 | Kasper Hviid | ePub Books | 1 | 04-09-2015 12:49 PM |
Touch Dark lines between lines of text | taming | Kobo Reader | 12 | 06-13-2011 07:20 PM |
What are your favorite opening lines to a sci/fi novel? | wayspooled | Reading Recommendations | 76 | 11-06-2009 08:51 AM |
Opening lines of classic novels | HarryT | Lounge | 32 | 07-11-2009 07:01 PM |