ITT: perfect opening sentences

The entire first paragraph of cannery row

I remember as an adolescent I read the first two books and really liked them, so much so that I bought the entire series. I think I got a few chapters into book 3 and never picked it up again. All I remember is some retarded nonsense about a big teddy bear robot or something

>Mandatory Nabokov.
Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.

Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.

He said sentence, not paragraph

Only one enemy remained, two if you counted God

>loins

dropped

OP is a faggot.

All this happened more or less.

>Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins.

Happy faggot now?

Terrific. Makes me want to read that book. Marqueze skillfully captures a very deep feeling here. :)

true goat

The first line of Infinite Jest just breaks all the post modern irony, something that affects Hal during all the book. And considering the time the first scene is set on it makes perfect sense.

Based Shandy

Call me Ishamel.

>One summer afternoon Mrs. Oedipa Maas came home from a Tupperware party whose hostess had put perhaps too much kirsch in the fondue to find that she, Oedipa, had been named executor, or she supposed executrix, of the estate of one Pierce Inverarity, a California real estate mogul who had once lost two million dollars in his spare time but still had assets numerous and tangled enough to make the job of sorting it all out more than honorary.

It is possible I already had some presentiment of my future.

Truly the chad of books

Verbosity isn't a virtue, bozo.

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>Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo

Kino

What book is this from?

user...

Actually, he said sentenceS (plural).

Unironically this is the chad stride of writing, just not giving a fuck going off on tangents with incredibly complex sentences filled with clauses

The Greatest Line by R. Dit

>moocow

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"Antes que me hubiera apasionado por mujer alguna, jugué mi corazón al azar y me lo ganó la Violencia."

Don't get too excited, it only goes downhill from there.

>A destiny that leads the English to the Dutch is strange enough; but one that leads from Epsom into Pennsylvania, and thence into the hills that shut in Altamont over the proud coral cry of the cock, and the soft stone smile of an angel, is touched by that dark miracle of chance which makes new magic in a dusty world.

These

Just answer the fucking question you fucking root vegetable.

My diary

Agriculture was a mistake.

This

The Party Rockers were in the house that night.

NIGGAS IFFY UH

It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit

Les gens devraient citer La Peste plutôt que L'étranger. Camus a un style de merde quoi qu'il en soit.

"Harry locked his mother in the closet."

“- Money...?”

I was checking out books one time at the library, opened The Gunslinger, read that sentence, and decided immediately to get the book.
Now The Dark Tower is a series I look back on fondly, even if it has a bunch of missteps.

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>If my mom and dad didn't fuck I'd be happier
Is what I got out of that.

Nothing ever beats this one. I think about it all the time

Love in the Time of Cholera has a great opening line too

>In some place in La Mancha whose name I don't want to remember

Based and quixotepilled

Way too much use of 'the'

pulp tier
not that great

First of all, let me get something straight: this is a JOURNAL, not a diary.

It's cliche as hell. Boring.

based

Garbage

b+r

What would happen if a year-old baby fell from a fourth-floor window onto the head of a burly truck driver, standing on the sidewalk?

"You suck me I suck you, deal?"
Hemingway

I prefer the original version with Big Chungus and the meme version that made fun of Nabokov more.

Not a first line but a note from the author:

" All I can do is mention her name at the beginning of this story, which, like all others, is sbout finding happiness"

newyorker.com/books/page-turner/lost-in-translation-what-the-first-line-of-the-stranger-should-be

tl;dr 'Today, Maman died' works better - expresses relationship between protagonist and his mother, emphasizes protagonist's sense of the present moment.

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lol pass

>jew yorker

>concise, tight, has great word economy
unlike you

The whole book in one whispered word. You got to love Gaddis.

>Only one enemy remained; two if you counted God.

Someone already posted it, fuck. I guess I gotta post that "CRASH!" one now.

>See the kid.

I commented above about OP's opening sentence, and how I thought it was longish. Laxnut, your opening line is a superb example of not only being concise, but providing an awesome hook. A great opening line causes the reader to want to more. In this case, my immediate reaction was "why is god the enemy?" Great concept, with great contrast, and I would love to read more.

Great prose also has great flow-great rhythm. Again, yours is a perfect example. The cadence is so perfect. Sounds great and feels great.

My friends and clients know me as often being over critical. On the other hand, when I see greatness, I am equally blunt. Your opening line is nothing less than superb.

>It was a dark and stormy night.

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Ah, monsieur

Ooooooweee. U ever seen his first draft? Elucidating.

Why do you type like a faggot?

underrated, desu

Unironically great, communicates the entire tone of the series and character of Greg effortlessly.
I'm not even memeing, it's genuinely a great opening

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There is room for both, and space for the knowledge of when to use each. If you go all out all the time the pacing is horrible. You have to have moments, lows and highs. Even Joyce knew this. A writer that doesnt know restraint is juvenile at best.

Unironically teaching children to be assholes

I think he meant it's their fault he's the way he is because they didn't try hard enough (whatever it's supposed to mean).

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog

Not bad for a book about a thinking man's fetish.

>it's an author starts apologizing for writing the book opening

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Genuinely feels like a perfect sentence. Un-improvable in any way.

he's saying his parents didn't give him a good enough upbringing

pleb tier

Strange how most attribute that to Bullwer "bad writing" Lytton when it was also the opening line for Wrinkle in Time.

Thank you so much.

I went down yesterday to the Piraeus with Glaucon the son of Ariston, that I might offer up my prayers to the goddess

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A screaming comes across the sky.

What book is that from?

>Doritos, light of my life, cheese on my fingers. My hunger, my munchies. Do-ree-toes: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Do. Ree. Tos. It was chips, plain chips, during lunch, weighing one-point-eight ounces in one hand. It was Nacho Cheese for snacks. It was Cool Ranch at school. It was Salsa Verde in the shopping line. But in my mouth it was always Doritos.

i fucked up my tooth and decided not to go to the dentist

God, the 18th century sure was a boring one. Alexander Pope had to carry the full weight of it on his shoulders.

I'm pretty sure the line is "see the child."

Wrong.

At the time it was believed that the moment of conception was crucial in forming the child's personality. The narrator goes on to tell how his mother interrupted his father during ejaculation with a stupid unrelated question and that's why he's a little odd (and constantly digressing in his tale).

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy

So I was right you stupid fuck, they didn't try hard enough during the conception to do everything right.

So:
>If my mom and dad didn't fuck I'd be happier
you fuckin pseud

>The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.

One one screen the man played a videogame. It was Space Invaders. On another, he watched a classic movie from the 80s.

Who the fuck used 'Maman'?

just boring and clunky. Not memorable in any sense outside fanboy western wank. It's funny how you psueds love to talk about 'word economy' then seethe whenever Daddy Hemingway is mentioned.

how could he be happier if he didn't exist, you fucking blithering moron. He says if his parents fucked better, he might be more stable as an individual.

'Flitter flatter!' and fluff flew from the writing desk as Justice Adderly exercised his incompetence.

based and cyberpilled

he is probably talking about his father getting cucked

>Nous voici encore seuls.

>Nous voici encore seuls. Tout cela est si lent, si lourd, si triste... Bientôt je serai vieux. Et ce sera enfin fini. Il est venu tant de monde dans ma chambre. Ils ont dit des choses. Ils ne m'ont pas dit grand-chose. Ils sont partis. Ils sont devenus vieux, misérables et lents chacun dans un coin du monde.
Hier à huit heures Madame Bérenge, la concierge, est morte. Une grande tempête s'élève de la nuit. Tout en haut, où nous sommes, la maison tremble. C'était une douce et gentille fidèle amie. Demain on l'enterre rue des Saules. Elle était vraiment vieille, tout au bout de la vieillesse. Je lui ai dit dès le premier jour quand elle a toussé : « Ne vous allongez pas surtout !... Restez assise dans votre lit ! » Je me méfiais. Et puis voilà... Et puis tant pis.

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For a long time I would go to bed early...

No shit, there I was.

cringe

Yeah, I fucked up

>In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

How can pagan texts even compete?

A spectre is haunting Europe, the spectre of communism

oooooOOOOOooooo

>Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus' son Achilleus
>and its devastation, which put pains thousandfold upon the Achaians

>Hearing I ask, from the holy races,
>From Heimdall's sons, both high and low;
>Thou wilt, Valfather, that well I relate
>Old tales I remember, of men long ago.

I'd say they compete pretty well

To you and everyone else in this thread who hasn't read Tristram Shandy, it's hilarious and completely worth reading.

All of this happened while I was walking around starving in Christiania – that strange city no one escapes from until it has left its mark on him.

It was a town full of niggers.

One of the best

Arma Virumque Cano

your mom thought I was pretty tight, bro

/r/iamverysmart

> My mother drove me to the airport with the windows rolled down. It was seventy-five degrees in Phoenix, the sky a perfect, cloudless blue. I was wearing my favorite shirt — sleeveless, white eyelet lace; I was wearing it as a farewell gesture. My carry-on item was a parka.

Lmao. It reads like someone’s drunk inner monologue as they’re gazing over a river with the view from atop the bridge.

>This is not for you.

>Kublai Khan does not necessarily believe everything Marco Polo says when he describes the cities visited on his expeditions, but the emperor of the Tartars does continue listening to the young Venetian with greater attention and curiosity than he shows any other messenger or explorer of his.

>In accordance with the law the death sentence was announced to Cincinnatus C. in a whisper.

>Moldenke would remain.

Alright I'll put you out of your misery, It's a line written by a plebbit fag. I know that you unironically thought it was a great line.

This is not a suicide note, although it does have an end, and it is my diary.

Do letter counts?
>I’m writing to you today out of sentimental necessity — I have an anguished, painful need to speak to you. It’s easy to see that I have nothing to tell you. Just this: that I find myself today at the bottom of a bottomless depression. The absurdity of the sentence speaks for me.

>you fucking root vegetable
redditor retected

>ITT: perfect opening sentences

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ISBN-10: 0-7432-3733-1

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absolutely underrated

>Ayy, ayy, plug walk (plug walk, plug, plug)

In eighteenth-century France there lived a man who was one of the most gifted and abominable personages in an era that knew no lack of gifted and abominable personages.