First Lines of Books

Late in the winter of my seventeenth year, my mother decided I was depressed, presumably because I rarely left the house, spent quite a lot of time in bed, read the same book over and over, ate infrequently, and devoted quite a bit of my abundant free time to thinking about death.

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.

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

___, light of my life, fire of my loins.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.

Call me Ishmael.

Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy.

It was five o’clock on a winter’s morning in Syria.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

In a hole in the ground there lived a ___.

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.

When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

On the first Monday of the month of April, 1625, the market town of Meung, in which the author of the Romance of the Rose was born, appeared to be in as perfect a state of revolution as if the Huguenots had just made a second La Rochelle of it.

Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans.

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.

It was a pleasure to burn.

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.