What is it about the first line of a story that makes the reader want to read more? The perfect mix of style and humor, or maybe a bit of intrigue? From the literary classic to the bedtime story, here
’s a smattering of our favorites – the ones that keep us turning the page and coming back for more.
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.
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
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 by Jane Austen
If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis
In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
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 by Charles Dickens
Call me Ishmael.
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
All children, except one, grow up.
Peter Pan by James Matthew Barrie
Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was arrested.
The Trial by Franz Kafka
It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the house-tops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.
Paul Clifford by Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
It was like so, but wasn't.
Galatea 2.2 by Richard Powers
All this happened, more or less.
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
In our family there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing.
A River Runs Through It by Joel Snyder
I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person.
Back When We Were Grownups by Anne Tyler
“To be born again,” sang Gibreel Farishta tumbling from the heavens, “first you have to die.”
The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York.
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Once there was a tree and she loved a little boy.
The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J. K. Rowling
This is a tale of a meeting of two lonesome, skinny, fairly old white men on a planet which was dying fast.
Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
“I was not trying to slash his throat," she told police later. "I was trying to cut his nose off, but I missed.”
The World According to Garp by John Irving
They shoot the white girl first.
Paradise by Toni Morrison
Every summer Lin Kong returned to Goose Village to divorce his wife, Shuyu.
Waiting by Ha Jin
Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board.
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
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