100 Best Opening Lines

[kgbooklog]

kate_nepveu commented here, here, and here about American Book Review's 100 Best First Lines from Novels.

There's not much I can add to Kate's comments, so I'll just offer some lines that I think should be on the list, one for each major category:

Self-referential:
Sometime during your life -- in fact, very soon -- you may find yourself reading a book, and you may notice that a book's first sentence can often tell you what sort of story your book contains.

Terse and in media res:
No shit, there I was...

Profound:
Everything starts somewhere, though many physicists disagree.

Famous:
In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.

Long and rambling:
When my workday is over, and I have closed my notebook, hidden my pen, and sawed holes in my rented canoe so that it cannot be found, I often like to spend the evening in conversation with my few surviving friends.

Story hook:
The day I died started off bad and got worse in a hurry.