Oh man. I feel like this prompt comes up in one or other of my link-ups at least a couple of times a year, and each time I’m equally stumped. I listen to most of my books as audiobooks these days, so I don’t make notes or mark pages. I’m usually busy as I listen, so I don’t stop to jot down anything, either. But even when I did read print books it was very rare indeed that I wrote down a quote from a book, even the ones that were highly quotable. So what do I do here? The best I can offer is a couple of my favourite first lines from books:
It is not easy to cut through a human head with a hacksaw.
That one was from Travels by Michael Crichton – a book I loved when I was a teenager and read several times. It was a bit of an eccentric journey between his time training in medicine and his various wild adventures in the far reaches of earth, and I adored how eclectic it was. It shocked and delighted me, from the very first line.
I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.
This is the first line from one of my all-time favourite novels, I Capture the Castle by the incomparable Dodie Smith. It’s a great first line, but also it somehow captures the feel of the entire book. The formal structure of the sentence mixed with the rather odd content just fits the odd family you are set to meet in the pages of this book, one I’ve read many times through my life and that will always have a solid place in my heart.
What about you guys? Do you have any favourite first lines from books? Are either of these favourites of yours as well?
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These are great. That first one is certainly intriguing 😂 Chrichton is a great writer.
It certainly is! Yes, I think he’s the only one who could have me up reading a book about dinosaurs through the night and actually feeling like there could be one outside my bedroom window!