top 15 favorite opening lines to books

vintage book source

“It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York.” -The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath

“In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.” -The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

"We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold." -Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S Thompson

"Tap-dancing child abuser. That’s what The Sunday New York Times from March 8, 1993, had called Vivi." -The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Rebeca Wells

“I wish Giovanni would kiss me.” -Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert

"Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the riverbank, 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, Lewis Caroll

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

"The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn." -The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde

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

“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." -The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger

"If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book." -A Series of Unfortunate Events, Lemony Snicket, Daniel Handler

"This is a tale of a meeting of two lonesome, skinny, fairly old white men on a planet which was dying fast.” -Breakfast of Champions,Kurt Vonnegut

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

"The first time I read the ad, I choked and cursed and spat and threw the paper to the floor." -Ishmael, Daniel Quinn.

"It was love at first sight." -Catch 22, Joseph Heller