[nemesm]

Hey, I was just wondering whether you are like me or not. See, I am a big-big fan of opening lines of books, there is something special to them. I couldn't really define it, but sometimes you are able to predict whether a book will be good or bad based on that opening statement, which I guess should come as no surprise, authors probably spend a great deal of time coming up with something splendid, something in your face, if you know what I mean. And I am not necessarily talking about in medias res openings when you don't even know where you are, something like "...and he ducked down to dodge the bullet that would have blown his head off" or soemthing like that, but lines that give you the feeling that OK, this is already good...

My personal favourite is from "The Hedge Knight":

"The spring rains have softened the ground so Dunk had no problem digging the grave."

This is awesome. These remarks work best in my oppinion, when something is paired with a another totally unexpected thing, or when they're ambiguous.

Closing lines are a similar kind of animal, I always hope that a story goes out with a bang.

On the other hand, there could be opening lines which just won't work...
Any oppinions?

[Winter]

Opening and closing lines from Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis:

Opening line: I opened my eyes to see the rat taking a piss in my coffee mug.

Closing lines (because there is nothing special about the short sentence at the very end): Of course the, the first apartment we took took together turned out to have been vacated due to the owner, a dog breeder, having been beaten to death with the corpse of a chihuahua. And after the third break-in we realized that our repeat burglars were a team of necrophiliacs trying to retrieve some dead bodies they'd stored in the walls. But we did okay.

While these lines may do nothing for others, they have managed to stick firmly in my mind since I read the book and I am not the type who remembers opening lines or any lines for that matter. I think there is another book around here with an opening line that I like, but true to form, I cannot remember it.

[Bond]

My favorite movie begins with the opening line:

Once upon a time...

[DailyRich]

Closing line? "Well, I'm back."

[nemesm]

Opening line from Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis:

I opened my eyes to see the rat taking a piss in my coffee mug.


That's...original. Nice. :p

[Daddy Darth]

I Love the opening line of the Gunslinger in the Dark Tower series.

The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.

Short, Sweet and Simple. Grabbed me from the get go.

[Mock]

Film:

Now you're looking for the secret. But you won't find it because of course, you're not really looking. You don't really want to work it out. You want to be fooled.

[Draxinusom]

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.

[Randy M.]

"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone."
-- first paragraph of The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

"Gormenghast, that is, the main massing of the original stone, taken by itself would have displayed a certain ponderous architectural quality were it possible to have ignored the circumfusion of those mean dwellings that swarmed like an epidemic around its outer walls. They sprawled over the sloping earth, each one half way over its neighbour until, held back by the castle ramparts, the innermost of these hovels laid hold on the great walls, clamping themselves thereto like limpets to a rock. These dwellings, by ancient law, were granted this chill intimacy with the stronghold that loomed above them. Over their irregular roofs would fall throughout the seasons, the shadows of time-eaten buttresses, of broken and lofty turrets, and, most enormous of all, the shadow of the Tower of Flints. This tower, patched unevenly with black ivy, arose like a mutilated finger from among the fists of knuckled masonry and pointed blasphemously at heaven. At night the owls made of it an echoing throat; by day it stood voiceless and cast its long shadow."
-- first paragraph of Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake


Randy M.

[sic's mom]

"After all tomorrow is another day!" Not fantasy but I love the optimism of this line and try to live by it. Can you tell I am a huge procrastinator:rolleyes: