i feel like i got so much shit done yesterday and today

[tsuki_no_bara]

first things first, flist: what are your favorite first lines from books? fiction, non-fiction, whatever

Comments

[ignipes]

Just because the trailer has me thinking about it lately, but I love the first line from The Martian: "I'm pretty much fucked." :)

I am also a big fan of the first line of the first line of the Dresden files book Blood Rites: "The building was on fire, and it wasn't my fault."

I don't know if they're favorites, but I do remember them. I guess I don't go much for beautiful, deep first lines. I like ones that make me laugh while simultaneously making me wonder what's going on.

[tsuki_no_bara]

those are excellent first lines! especially the one for blood rites, because it makes me curious about harry dresden and the rest of the book.

[tsuki_no_bara]

ooh, that's a good one.

everything i know about harry dresden i know from the short-lived scifi channel series. so, not a lot.

[charisstoma]

I want to know how he painted the snails. Obviously he couldn't stick his finger into the shell since the snail is in residence. Amazing.

The dilophosaurus dress would work fine as a fairy dress too. Which is nice because fairy cosplay is probably more lasting than Jurassic World dinoplay.

[tsuki_no_bara]

i have no idea how the guy painted the snails! i'm curious how he managed to add things to them, like the lighthouse and the crown and the shark fin. how do you tell a snail to hold still?

[dear_tiger]

Aaaaah, I can't remember which ones I love the most right now. But I, too, thought of The Graveyard Book - it's not among my favorites, but somehow it springs to mind immediately.

I love Listen: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time. I possibly bought Slaughterhouse Five because of that opening line alone.

\o/ Cheers for the BB edits! You're mighty. I'm gonna go answer that email now.

[tsuki_no_bara]

the graveyard book does have a really good first line, doesn't it. i like the opening of the gunslinger, which is one of the very few stephen king books i've read - "the man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed." also neuromancer, which is iconic - "the sky above the port was the color of television tuned to a dead channel." the short ones are easiest to remember.

i am somehow unsurprised that vonnegut wrote such a good opening line.

i am mighty! also looking at it wondering what i forgot....

[rysmiel]

"It was the day my grandmother exploded." -- Iain Banks, The Crow Road.

"It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me." -- Anthony Burgess, Earthly Powers

[tsuki_no_bara]

that first one...! the second one is good too.

[rysmiel]

It is a literally accurate description of what happens in the scene. Despite which, it's really quite a sweet book and I would highly recommend it. (Sort of a lovely meandering Scots family saga that about two-thirds of the way in realises "ah hell, people expect these things to have plots, must do one of those.")