Literature by Opening Lines

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

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary

Call me Ishmael

As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood

Mother died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; I can’t be sure.

Mr and Mrs Dursley of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal

Light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth.

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

Whan that Aprille with his shoures sote

Now is the winter of our discontent

All this happened, more or less. The war parts, anyway, are pretty much true.

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

I am a sick man... I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man. I think my liver is diseased.

It was a pleasure to burn.

It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York

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.

Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K., he knew he had done nothing wrong but, one morning, he was arrested.