Favorite First Lines

Alcott, Loisa May
"Christmas won't be Cristmas without any presents," grumbled Jo, lying on the rug. -- Little Women

Austen, Jane
No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be a heroine. -- Northanger Abbey

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

Barrie, J.M.
All children, except one, grow up. -- Peter Pan

Baum, L. Frank
Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was a farmer's wife. -- The Wizard of OZ

Bronte, Charlotte
There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. -- Jane Eyre

Bunyan, John
As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place where was a Den, and I laid me down in that place to sleep: and, as I slept, I dreamed a dream. -- The Pilgrim's Progress

Cooper, James Fenimore
It was a feature peculiar to the colonial wars of North America, that the toils and dangers of the wilderness were to be encountered before the adverse hosts could meet. -- The Last of the Mohicans

Crane, Stephen
The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting. -- The Red Badge of Courage

Dickens, Charles
Marley was dead, to begin with. -- A Christmas Carol

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, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so. -- Tale of Two Cities

Dodgeson, Charles (Lewis Carrol)
Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, "and what is the use of a book," thought Alice "without pictures or conversation?" -- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor
Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov was the third son of Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov, a landowner well known in our district in his own day, and still remembered among us owing to his gloomy and tragic death, which happened thirteen years ago, and which I shall describe in its proper place. -- The Brothers Karamazov

Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan
On glancing over my notes of the seventy odd cases in which I have during the last eight years studied the methods of my friend Sherlock Holmes, I find many tragic, some comic, a large number merely strange, but none commonplace; for, working as he did rather for the love of his art than for the acquirement of wealth, he refused to associate himself with any investigation which did not tend towards the unusual, and even the fantastic. Of all these varied cases, however, I cannot recall any which presented more singular features than that which was associated with the well-known Surrey family of the Roylotts of Stoke Moran. -- The Adventure of the Speckled Band

Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon those not infrequent occasions when he was up all night, was seated at the breakfast table. -- The Hound of the Baskervilles

Du Maurier, Daphne
Last night I dreamt I went to Manderly again. -- Rebecca

Golding, William
The boy with fair hair lowered himself down the last few feet of rock and began to pick his way toward the lagoon. -- Lord of the Flies

Goldman, William
This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it. -- The Princess Bride

Grahame, Kenneth
The Mole had been working hard all that morning, spring-cleaning his little home. -- The Wind in the Willows

Haggard, H. Rider
It is a curious thing that at my age--fifty-five last birthday--I should find myself taking up a pen to try and write a history. -- King Solomon's Mines

There are some events of which each circumstance and surrounding detail seem to be graven on the memory in such a fashion that we cannot forget them. -- SHE

Hugo, Victor
In 1815, M. Charles-Francois-Bienvenu Myriel was Bishop of D---. -- Les Miserables

Irving, Washington
[The following Tale was found among the papers of the late Diedrich Knickerbocker, m old gentleman of New York, who was very curious in the Dutch history of the province, and the manners of the descendants from its primitive settlers. -- Rip Van Winkle

Lewis, C.S.
Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmond, and Lucy. -- The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Lovecraft, H.P.
Unhappy is he to whom the memories of childhood bring only fear and sadness. -- The Outsider

Melville, Herman
Call me Ishmael. -- Moby Dick

Milne, A.A.
Here is Edwad Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. -- Winnie-the-Pooh

Munro, H.H. (Saki)
"My aunt will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel," said a very self-possessed young lady of fifteen; "in the meantime you must try and put up with me." -- The Open Window

Orwell, George
It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. -- 1984

Poe, Edgar Allan
For the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. -- The Black Cat

During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. -- The Fall of the House of Usher

Porter, William Sydney (O.Henry)
One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. -- The Gift of the Magi

Scott, Sir Walter
In that pleasant district of merry England which is watered by the river Don, there extended in ancient times a large forest, covering the greater part of the beautiful hills and valleys which lie between Sheffield and the pleasant town of Doncaster. -- Ivanhoe

Stevenson, Robert Louis
Squire Trelawney, Dr. Livesey, and the rest of these gentlemen having asked me to write down the whole particulars about Treasure Island, from the beginning to the end, keeping nothing back but the bearing of the island, and that only because there is still treasure not yet lifted, I take up my pen in the year of grace 17--, and go back to the time when my father kept the 'Admiral Benbow' inn, and the brown old seaman, with the sabre cut, first took up lodging under our roof. -- Treasure Island

Stoker, Bram
3 May. Bistritz.

Left Munich at 8:35 P.M, on 1st May, arriving at Vienna early next morning; should have arrived at 6:46, but train was an hour late. Buda-Pesth seems a wonderful place, from the glimpse which I got of it from the train and the little I could walk through the streets. I feared to go very far from the station, as we had arrived late and would start as near the correct time as possible. -- Dracula

Tolkien, J.R.R.
In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. -- The Hobbit

Tolstoy, Leo
All happy families are alike, but an unhappy family is unhappy after its own fashion. -- Anna Karenina

Verne, Jules
The year 1866 was signalized by a remarkable incident, a mysterious and puzzling phenomenon, which doubtless no one has yet forgotten. -- Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

Wells, H.G.
No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselve about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost a narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. -- The War of the Worlds

White, E.B.
"Where's Papa going with that ax?" said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast. -- Charlotte's Web

Wyss, Johann
For many days we had been tempest-tossed. -- The Swiss Family Robinson