Literary Works With the Best Opening Sentence

Blue_Devereaux This list is for the best opening sentence (singular) in prose fiction. Opening lines (plural) are disallowed. I tried to include those sentences that at once intrigue the reader and inform him/her of the tenor of the work. Like any of these type of lists, what I would include changes almost daily. I didn't include the very famous opening lines from "Moby Dick" or "A Tale of Two Cities," not because they aren't good, but because I didn't want to today. I also present the sentence in the comments section without any editorializing by me. The sentence speaks for itself. Whichever work you choose, be sure to give its sentence a thumbs up so that the sentence remains at the top of the comments section...

The Top Ten

1 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving

"I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice - not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother’s death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany. " - Blue_Devereaux

2 1984 - George Orwell

"It was a bright, cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." - Blue_Devereaux

3 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

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

4 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." - Blue_Devereaux

Beautiful list, Blue_Devereaux! So, you love literature. Just keep making your awesome lists. - Kiteretsunu

5 The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger

"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth." - Blue_Devereaux

6 Peter and Wendy - J.M. Barrie

"All children, except one, grow up." - Blue_Devereaux

7 The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers

"In the town, there were two mutes and they were always together." - Blue_Devereaux

8 Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury

"It was a pleasure to burn. ” - Blue_Devereaux

9 The Violent Bear it Away - Flannery O'Connor

"Francis Marion Tarwater's uncle had been dead for only half a day when the boy got too drunk to finish digging his grave and a Negro named Buford Munson, who had come to get a jug filled, had to finish it and drag the body from the breakfast table where it was still sitting and bury it in a decent and Christian way, with the sign of its Saviour at the head of the grave and enough dirt on top to keep the dogs from digging it up." - Blue_Devereaux

10 Paradise - Toni Morrison

"They shoot the white girl first." - Blue_Devereaux

The Contenders

11 A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini

Mariam was five years old the first time she heard the word harami. - crbdlaze

12 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain

Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.

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