100 Best First Lines from Novels

[Dave Monroe]

On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 1:51 PM, Michel Ryckx <mryc2903 at yahoo.fr> wrote:
> 106: That Quarrel, Goddess;
> tell me about it: the one between Achilles (he was Peleus' son),
> his damning Wrath,
> taking the Greeks into an endless Misery,
> sending off to the Underworld many heroes' mighty souls
> making their bodies victim to vultures and dogs
> fulfilling thus Zeus' initial plan,
> [the quarrel], from its very beginning,
> which broke Unity, and caused dissension
> betwixt't the Leader of Armies, the Atreid,
> and Achilles (who shone magnificently).
>
> Iliad, Homer, way B.C.
>
> robinlandseadel at comcast.net schreef:
>>
>> 101: Louie pulled off his bra and threw it down upon the casket.
>> Nick Tosches, "In the Hand of Dante" 2002
>>
>> 102: "Now single up all lines!"
>> Thomas Pynchon, "Against the Day" 2006
>>
>> 103: He speaks in your voice, American, and there'sbreaking U a shine in
>> his eye that's halfway hopeful.
>> Don Delillo; Underworld 1997
>>
>> 104: A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head.
>> John Kennedy Toole: "A Confedracy of Dunces"
>>
>> 105: On Tuesday, October 11,1988, the Jason Taverner Show ran thirty
>> seconds late.
>> Philip K. Dick: "Flow My Tears The Policeman Said" 1974
>>
>> http://americanbookreview.org/100BestLines.asp

107. "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."
       George Orwell, 1984 (1949)

108.  ''Dog carcass in alley this morning, tire tread on burst stomach."
        Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, Watchmen (1986)

109.  "This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it."
        William Goldman, The Princess Bride (1973)