Opening lines are important. Some stick in the mind longer than others and some will mean that short moment in which a reader decides to read on (that all important ‘hook’) … or not. Here are a few of mine.
“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” Daphne du Maurier: Rebecca
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must want for a wife.” Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice
“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Leo Tolstoy: Anna Karenina
“It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.” Sylvia Plath: The Bell Jar
“It was the day my grandmother exploded.” Iain Banks: The Crow Road
“124 was spiteful.” Toni Morrison: Beloved
“Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were very normal, thank you very much.” J.K.Rowling: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
What are yours and why?