Good first lines

[Otto]

2008/7/31 Krafft, John M. <krafftjm at muohio.edu>:
> The latest list is semi-interesting, but it disappoints, as all such lists must, by what it omits. Every time this topic has come up here, I've been tempted to post one of my own favorites, so here goes:
>
> I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. --Shirley Jackson, _We Have Always Lived in the Castle_ (1962)
>
> OK, it isn't just one sentence (I couldn't resist going on a bit more), and it isn't actually quite first, but it's close enough (third, if you must know).
>
> John
>

Ok, if more than one sentence is allowed John Barth's beginning of his
"Perseid" is still one of my all-time favourites:

--------

     Good evening.
     Stories last longer than men, stones than stories, stars
than stones. Bur even our stars' nights are numbered, and
with them will pass this patterned tale to a long-deceased
earth.
     Nightly, when I wake to think myself beworlded and
find myself in heaven, I review the night I woke to think
and find myself vice-versa.

("Chimera", 1972, p. 67)
---------

Once upon a time I tried to translate this story into German, but I
never managed to get across that second sentence.

Otto