Great opening lines

[Beowulf]

"All children, except one, grow up"

"Getting through the night is becoming harder and harder. Last evening, I had the uneasy feeling that some men were trying to break into my room to shampoo me."

"There once was a boy named Eustace Clarence Scrubb and he almost deserved it."

and one of my favorite books..
"It was a pleasure to burn"

in which .. I would HAVE to become the one above.. in an odd mobius-like twist in the tale

[straycat]

Originally Posted by Beowulf1970

"All children, except one, grow up"

That could only be Peter Pan. Although it's funnier if you read it as a command...

Originally Posted by Beowulf1970

"Getting through the night is becoming harder and harder. Last evening, I had the uneasy feeling that some men were trying to break into my room to shampoo me."

No idea. Sounds intriguing. What is it?

Originally Posted by Beowulf1970

"There once was a boy named Eustace Clarence Scrubb and he almost deserved it."

I think this would be Voyage of the Dawn Treader (which I consistently misread as 'Dawn Trader' all the way through my childhood for some bizarre reason)

Originally Posted by Beowulf1970

and one of my favorite books..
"It was a pleasure to burn"

Ahhhh - the incomparable Mr Bradbury. My favourite of his is Death is a Lonely Business - beautiful, beautiful book....

[philsmove]

Originally Posted by Beowulf1970

"Getting through the night is becoming harder and harder. Last evening, I had the uneasy feeling that some men were trying to break into my room to shampoo me."

Woody Allen, Without Feathers

[philsmove]

It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on Earth has ever produced the expression “as pretty as an airport”.
Airports are ugly. Some are very ugly. Some attain a degree of ugliness that can only be the result of a special effort. This ugliness arises because airports are full of people who are tired, cross, and have just discovered that their luggage has landed in Murmansk, and architects have on the whole tried to reflect this in their designs."

[Beowulf]

Originally Posted by philsmove

It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on Earth has ever produced the expression “as pretty as an airport”.
Airports are ugly. Some are very ugly. Some attain a degree of ugliness that can only be the result of a special effort. This ugliness arises because airports are full of people who are tired, cross, and have just discovered that their luggage has landed in Murmansk, and architects have on the whole tried to reflect this in their designs."

Long dark Tea time of the soul.. Douglas Adams

[whitetiger1518]

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


one of my favourite escapes from reality

Whitetiger

[CJ]

Originally Posted by Stuart M

Ah, so were you yet another victim of the Red Weed? Somehow I don't think audio cassette tape was meant to handle that particular section - it claimed my Dad's copy.

Apologies for going off topic but....

WOTW: audio DVD in 5.1 sound: OH YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The sound of the Martian lid twisting off the capsule, alone, is worth buying a 5.1 system for!!

[azande]

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

[Stuart M]

Originally Posted by azande

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

One of my fave films, though I've never read the book fully - Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

How about these?

Many years later,as he faced the firing squad,Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.

The primroses were over.

Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K.,for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning.

Yes,it could begin this way, right here, just like that, in a rather slow and ponderous way, in this neutral place that belongs to all and to none, where people pass by almost without seeing each other, where the life of the building regularly and distantly resounds.

[straycat]

This isn't the opening line from a book (well - it might be, but I don't remember it as such) - but it is the opening line from one episode of a radio show.

In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry, and been widely regarded as a bad move.

[straycat]

Originally Posted by whitetiger1518

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

Just finished reading that one (again)
And watching it (the definitive version - sorry, Kiera, but Ms. Ehle was a hard act to follow...)

[Gadget]

"Willie McCoy had been a jerk before he died. His being dead didn't change that. He sat across from me, wearing a loud plaid sport jacket."

[jacksondonut]

Originally Posted by straycat264

This isn't the opening line from a book (well - it might be, but I don't remember it as such) - but it is the opening line from one episode of a radio show.

Makes me think of Monty Python, or maybe Hitchhikers Guide.. does ring a bell though...

[Sparkles]

"Mr Jones, of the Manor Farm, had locked the hen-houses for the night, but was too drunk to remember to shut the pop-holes."

[Sparkles]

And, from one of my favourite books of all time:

"Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realised it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were."

[philsmove]

"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat; it was a hobbit hole, and that means comfort."

[Stuart M]

In honour of today's date:

"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

[ToeTrampler]

Originally Posted by Stuart M

Many years later,as he faced the firing squad,Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.

Ah, from "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by GGM methinks
(Sorry couldn't spell Gabriel Garcia Marquez)

[straycat]

Originally Posted by jacksondonut

Makes me think of Monty Python, or maybe Hitchhikers Guide.. does ring a bell though...

Imagine it being said by Peter Jones (The Book)

[Beowulf]

Originally Posted by straycat264

Imagine it being said by Peter Jones (The Book)

I tend to believe that the entire universe was sneezed out of the nose of the Great Green Arkleseizure. I live in perpetual fear of the time I call "The Coming of the Great White Handkerchief".