100 Best Opening Lines

[Emily]

from children's books. Well worth a read: 100 best opening lines from children's books

I particularly like this one; I have it on the TBR pile for my children:

"Kidnapping children is never a good idea; all the same, sometimes it has to be done." Island of the Aunts (Eva Ibbotson) The title alone is slightly terrifying, having ten rather awe-inspiring and fierce aunts myself.

And this one made me laugh: "The year that Buttercup was born, the most beautiful woman in the world was a French scullery maid named Annette." The Princess Bride (William Goldman)

 

[RK Capps]

Oh, gosh I loved The Princess Bride. I have to read again!

 

[Leonora]

Some weird ideas about what counts as Children's books. Catcher in the Rye???

 

[Emily]

gosh I loved The Princess Bride.

Me too!

Some weird ideas about what counts as Children's books.

I thought that too. Lord of the Flies isn't exactly children-friendly either. There were a few that I raised my eyebrows at.

 

[E G Logan]

Here is probably a good How NOT to Start a Novel, though it didn't do the book serious harm:

"Squire Trelawney, Dr. Livesey, and the rest of these gentlemen having asked me to write down the whole particulars about Treasure Island, from the beginning to the end, keeping nothing back but the bearings of the island, and that only because there is still treasure not yet lifted, I take up my pen in the year of grace 17-- back to the time when my father kept the Admiral Benbow inn and the brown old seaman with the sabre cut first took up his lodging under our roof."

Opening sentence -- yes, all one sentence -- Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson

 

[Emily]

Opening sentence -- yes, all one sentence -- Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson

Eeeek

 

[Chris Yugay]

My favorite is from Rachel Hartman's Seraphina:

"I remember being born. In fact, I remember a time before that. There was no light, but there was music: joints creaking, blood rushing, the heart's staccato lullaby, a rich symphony of indigestion. Sound enfolded me, and I was safe."

 

[Katie-Ellen]

I like that last one.

And I can believe in it. I remember too.

 

[Eva Ulian]

I like that last one.

And I can believe in it. I remember too.

Must be fascinating @Katie-Ellen Hazeldine to remember one's birth- I don't at all- but I do remember someone else's... being in their mind.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

How was it for them? Extraordinary, Eva. No, I don't remember birth, at all, but as a child I used to get a vivid kind of flashback I didn't understand, an, impression of a memory of being inside/on the way; a reddish brown light and muffled sounds, and a really strong impression of somehow hurtling face first through dark space...though not a tight tunnel as one might imagine. And the baby doesn't hurtle, not till the very last minute. It has to work at coming down that canal. I recall them still, but stopped actually having the flashbacks once I was six or seven.

 

[Chris Yugay]

I like that last one.

And I can believe in it. I remember too.

I thought you might appreciate it.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

One of the best written IMO.