[okonomiyaki]

Exactly what it says on the tin

My nomination is from the Knife of Letting Go by Patrick Ness.
(I know, I am of the highest order of lame)

"The first thing you find out when yer dog learns to talk is that dogs don't got nothing much to say. About anything."

Post away! I'm curious to see what other people's favourites are

[Emberson]

I don't know that it's the best but it's famous and has a certain resonance.

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.

From Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier.

[thethinker]

Not technically the opening but I love it anyway:

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.
She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.

Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, a certain initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns.

[whatsername2009]

"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." - Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell.

[Dante's Inferno]

"He — for there could be no doubt of his sex, though the fashion of the time did something to disguise it — was in the act of slicing at the head of a Moor which swung from the rafters." - Orlando, Virginia Woolf

[CrazyPyramid]

(Original post by whatsername2009)
"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." - Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell.

I came in here to post that.

Then again I really don't think I properly remember opening lines as such, it tends to be opening scenes as a whole that really keep with me and funnily enough, I remember absolutely falling in love with 1984's. That said, if 1984 has one of the few opening lines that I actually remembered, then perhaps it is one of the best/my favourite.

[alex_hk90]

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

[briesandwich]

"We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold."

[thirstysailor]

I know it's a cliché now, but it's still a great opening line

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife'
Pride and Prejudice

[ForgettingWhatsername]

"Call me Ishmael." - Moby-Dick

[lolipanda]

(Original post by ForgettingWhatsername)
"Call me Ishmael." - Moby-Dick

i was going to post exactly that! my friend insists its the best opening line ever

[thompsonic7]

If you listen, you can hear it.
The city, it sings.
If you stand quietly, at the foot of a garden, in the middle of a street, on the roof of a house.
It's clearest at night, when the sound cuts more sharply across the surface of things, when the song reaches out to a place inside you. It's a wordless song, for the most, but it's a song all the same, and nobody hearing it could doubt what it sings.
And the song sings the loudest when you pick out each note.

If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things- Jon McGregor

[Aeonstorm]

Can't decide between these two:

"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins." - Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

- This just oozes perverse excitement, really sets up a book that at times can almost persuade you that the main character actually is a decent guy.

"The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there." - The Go-Between by LP Hartley

- Haven't read the book, but the quote itself is just true on so many levels.

Edit: Just noticed that thethinker already has Lolita.

(Original post by thethinker)
Not technically the opening but I love it anyway:

And it is technically the opening! The foreword doesn't count.

[Forget that]

The opening paragragh of 'Treasure Island'... I mean opening sentence

I swear I used to be able to recite that thing.

[geetar]

'This is the saddest story I have ever heard' - The Good Soldier
'Except for the Marabar Caves - and they are twenty miles off - the city of Chandrapore presents nothing extraordinary.' - A Passage to India

[Ra Ra Ra]

"I am always drawn back to places where I have lived, the houses and their neighbourhoods".

A novella, not a novel, but whatever. I love Breakfast at Tiffany's

[A Perfect Circle]

"A few miles south of Soledad..." Steinbeck sets the tone for the entire novelette - just brilliant.

Oh, and this:

(Original post by briesandwich)
"We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold."

Wacky and fantastic book.

[ArcadiaHouse]

(Original post by thirstysailor)
I know it's a cliché now, but it's still a great opening line

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife'
Pride and Prejudice

Excuse me while I finish gagging.

EDIT: I just really hate Jane Austen.

[thirstysailor]

(Original post by ArcadiaHouse)
Excuse me while I finish gagging.

It makes me queasy to say that it's a great opening line, because it's become so cheesy from the over-use, but you have to admit it's a great bit of writing.

[patrickinator]

'she ate my ejaculate' - i just started on my first novel. what do you think?