"Where's Papa going with that
axe?" said Fern to her mother as
they were setting the table for
breakfast. --E B White,
Charlotte's Web
Up from the skeleton stone walls,
up from the rotting floor boards
and the solid hand-hewn beams of
oak of the pre-war cotton factory,
dusk came. --Jean Toomer, "BloodBurning Moon," from Cane
None of the merry-go-rounds
seem to work anymore.
I stand at the window of this great
house in the south of France as
night falls, the night which is
leading me to the most terrible
morning of my life.
Many years later, as he faced the
firing squad, Colonel Aureliano
Buendía was to remember that
distant afternoon when his father
took him to discover ice.
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Gabriel García Márquez
It was a pleasure to burn.
Fahrenheit 451: Ray Bradbury
As Gregor Samsa awoke one
morning from uneasy dreams he
found himself transformed in his
bed into a monstrous vermin.
Metamorphosis: Franz Kafka
In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.
Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the
ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a
dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit
down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and
that means comfort.
The Hobbit: J.R.R. Tolkien
When I was three and Bailey four, we
had arrived in the musty little town,
wearing tags on our wrists which
instructed – ‘To Whom It May Concern’
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings: Maya
Angelou
It was the day my grandmother
exploded.
The Crow Road: Iain Banks
Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the
unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the
Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting
this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles
is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet
whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly
primitive that they still think digital watches are a
pretty neat idea.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Douglas Adams
All children, except one, grow up.
Peter Pan: J.M Barrie
When Mr Bilbo Baggins of Bag End
announced that he would shortly be
celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a
party of special magnificence, there was
much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the
Ring
Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four Privet
Drive, were proud to say that they were
perfectly normal, thank you very much.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone: J.K
Rowling
My father got the dog drunk on cherry
brandy at the party last night.
Adrian Mole: Sue Townsend
In these dungeons the darkness was
complete, but Katsa had a map in her mind.
– Graceling
The way I figure it, everyone gets a miracle. Like,
I will probably never be struck by lightning, or
win a Nobel Prize, or become the dictator of a
small nation in the Pacific Islands, or contract
terminal ear cancer or spontaneously combust.
But if you consider all the unlikely things
together, at least one of them will probably
happen to each of us. – Paper Towns.
My mother thinks I’m dead. Obviously I’m not
dead, but it’s safer for her to think so.
– Legend.
Everyone thinks it was because of the snow. And
in a way, I suppose that’s true.
– If I Stay
He began his new life standing up, surrounded
by cold darkness and stale, dusty air.
– The Maze Runner
He stopped trying to bring her back. She only
came back when she felt like it, in dreams and
lies and broken-down deja vu.
– Eleanor and Park
They called the world beyond the walls of the
pod “the Death Shop.” A million ways to die out
there. Aria never thought she’d get so close.
– Under the Never Sky
First the colours.
Then the humans.
That’s usually how I see things.
Or at least, how I try.
–– Here is a small fact ––
You are going to die.
– The Book Thief
I was born with water on the brain. Okay so
that’s not exactly true. I was actually born with
too much cerebral spinal fluid inside my skull.
But cerebral spine fluid is just the doctors’ fancy
way of saying brain grease.
– The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time
Indian
When it finally appeared in the distance, Finnikin
wondered if it was some phantom half-imagined
in this soulless kingdom at the end of the world.
– Finnikin of the Rock
I remember lying in the snow, a small red spot of
warm going cold, surrounded by wolves. They
were licking me, biting me, worrying my body,
pressing in.
– Shiver
I felt her fear before I heard her screams.
– Vampire Academy
She shouldn’t have been tempted. This is what
Kestrel thought as she swept the sailors’ silver
off the impromptu gaming table set up in the
corner of the market.
– The Winner’s Curse
“People will forget what you said, people
will forget what you did, but people will
never forget how you made them feel.” –
Mary Angelou
And what’s the best way to make people
feel? By telling a compelling story.
Reading creates writers!
Can you be inspired to write a story from
these opening lines?
Can you write your own original opening
line for a story?
#openinglines