Category: BOOKS Page 2 of 2
11. The Miss Lonelyhearts of the New York Post-Dispatch (Are you in trouble?—Do-you-need-advice?—Write-to-Miss-Lonelyhearts-and-she-will-help-you) sat at his desk and stared at a piece of white cardboard. —Nathanael West, Miss…
10. I am an invisible man. —Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1952) Part of my 100 Best First Lines from Novels project. First lines are powerful. It’s the author’s…
9. 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…
8. It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. —George Orwell, 1984 (1949) Part of my 100 Best First Lines from Novels…
7. riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs….
6. Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. —Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina (1877; trans. Constance Garnett) Part of my 100 Best…
5. Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. —Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (1955) Part of my 100 Best First Lines from Novels project. First lines are powerful….
4. 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. —Gabriel…
3. A screaming comes across the sky. —Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow (1973) Part of my 100 Best First Lines from Novels project. First lines are powerful. It’s the…
2. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. —Jane Austen, Pride and…
1. Call me Ishmael. —Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (1851) Part of my 100 Best First Lines from Novels project. First lines are powerful. It’s the author’s best chance to…