First lines

I think that one of most difficult tasks for authors of great novels is writing the very first line. Or maybe it's the first line that makes the novel so great. When I read classics, the first lines stick out. They're unusual or interesting. When I read current fiction (teen fiction, even some adult fiction), I don't ever remember the first lines. Instead, they're almost skimmed over. That's my problem with today's fiction: I use it for mind candy. I only want a mediocre story that will satisfy my imagination for about a day or less and I want it fast. Today's fiction is a bit like junk food or Tylenol PM or energy drinks... unhealthy in large quantities and just a quick fix.

And maybe these books will be appreciated in the years to come, just as we appreciate the great novels of the past centuries. But my heart will always be completely devoted to the classics and their amazing first lines.

When I think of memorable first lines, I always think of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen first.

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."

I'm not sure why that line is so particularly stunning. It just is. Austen sits you down, tells you how it is, and sets up the entire novel in that one line. Brilliant.

And of course, since I'm rather obsessed with Virginia Woolf right now, I simply adore the first line of Mrs. Dalloway.

"Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself."

Maybe I'm just an English major, but those words just hit me. Simple and yet as the reader, you have to know more. Who is Mrs. Dalloway? Why is she buying flowers? Why is she going to buy the flowers herself? Who is she talking to?

First lines. Absolute brilliance in a sentence.

Here are more favorite first lines:

"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, had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heave, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only." ~ Charles Dickens, Tale of Two Cities

"There was no possibility of taking a walk that day." ~ Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

"As Gregor Samsa awoke from a night of uneasy dreaming, he found himself transformed in his bed into a giant insect." ~ Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis

"No on who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy, would have supposed her born to be a heroine." ~ Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." ~ J.R.R Tolkien, The Hobbit

"The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the most delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn."

~ Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

"'The Signora had no business to do it,' said Miss Bartlett, 'no business at all.'"

~ E.M. Forster, A Room With a View

"A throng of bearded men, in sad-colored garments, and gray, steeple-crowned hate, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods and others bare-headed, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes." ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlett Letter

"In these times of ours, though concerning the exact year there is no need to be precise, a boat of dirt and disreputable appearance, with two figures in it, floated on the Thames, between Southwark Bridge which is of iron, and London Bridge which is of stone, as an autumn evening was closing." ~ Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend

"The year that Buttercup was born, the most beautiful woman in the world was a French scullery maid names Annette." ~ William Goldman, The Princess Bride

"True! - nervous - very, very nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?"

~ Edgar Allen Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart (yes, this is a short story)

"When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow."

~ Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

And of course, I'm just scratching the tip of the iceberg here. There are so many first lines of books that I haven't read, and I only listed lines of books that I have read. I've got a lot of reading ahead of me...