Classic first lines of novels

[substitute]

"This is the saddest story I have ever heard".

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."

"This is not an ordinary cookbook."

"Call me Ishmael."

What are yours?

Comments

different aesthetic, here:

[nosrialleon.livejournal.com]

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

"We were halfway across the desert, on the outskirts of Barstow, when the drugs began to take effect."

"riverrun, past Eve and Adam, through swerve of shore and bend of bay..."

You'd think I would remember the opening lines of Ulysses or The Illuminatus Trilogy, given the number of times I've read them...

Re: different aesthetic, here:

[tuliphead.livejournal.com]

"It was the year they immmanentized the Eschaton."

Re: different aesthetic, here:

[nosrialleon.livejournal.com]

D'oh!

and you busted me on the misremembered HST quote!

But I'm HOME now. I got BOOKS!

"Stately, Plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed."

and to fix my mauling of Finnegans Wake:
"riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs."

and add:
"A merry litle surge of electricity piped by automatic alarm from the mood organ beside his bed awakened Rick Deckard."

and
"In the week before their departure to Arrakis, when all the final scurrying about had reached a nearly unspeakable frenzy, an old crone came to visit the mother of the boy, Paul."