Top 12 Famous / Favourite / Best Opening Lines from Literature
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice (1813)
‘It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.’ George Orwell: Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)
"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again" - Daphne du Maurier: Rebecca (1938).
"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." J.D Salinger: The Catcher In The Rye (1951)
"In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. Whenever you feel like criticising any one, he told me, just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.” F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby (1925)
"All children, except one, grow up." J.M. Barrie: Peter Pan (1911)
"All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Leo Tolstoy: Anna Karenina (1878)
"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." Charles Dickens: A Tale Of Two Cities (1859)
"You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer'; but that ain't no matter. That book was made by a Mr Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly.” Mark Twain: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)
"There was no possibility of taking a walk that day." Charlotte Brontë: Jane Eyre (1847)
"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous vermin." Franz Kafka: Metamorphosis (1915).
"It’s a funny thing about mothers and fathers. Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you could ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful" Roald Dahl: Matilda (1988)
