A selection of 6 opening lines I really really like:
1) “In eighteenth-century France there lived a man who was one of the most gifted and abominable personages in an era that knew no lack of gifted and abominable personages.”
Perfume by Patrick Suskind
2) “Hale knew, before he had been in Brighton three hours, that they meant to murder him.”
Brighton Rock by Graham Green
3) “It was Mrs May who first told me about them. No, not me. How could it have been me – a wild, untidy, self-willed little girl who stared with angry eyes and was said to crunch her teeth.”
The Borrowers by Mary Norton
4) “Upstairs in my brain, there lives this kind of cut snake virus in its doll’s house.”
The Swan Book by Alexis Wright
5)”It was night when the Nargun began to leave. Deep down below the plunging walls of a gorge it stirred uneasily.”
The Nargun and the Stars by Patricia Wrightson
6) “The old bus is a city reject. After shaking in it for twelve hours on the potholed highway since early morning, you arrive in this mountain county town n the South.”
Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian
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