Top Five Wednesday: Favorite First Lines

We all know that opening lines can set the mood for a book and give us a taste of what to expect. Just like first impressions, good first lines can make you decide to stick around. This week's top five is all about our favorite opening lines in books. 



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

I'm sure this line is on most "best first lines" lists but it really does set the tone for this novel. As everyone in Regency England knew, a good marriage was the main concern of every mother across the country. It's slightly sarcastic tone gives us a hint of the personality we're going to find in Lizzie Bennett, a Regency mother's worst nightmare. Everything considered, you can almost forgive Mrs. Bennett for being off her rocker over her daughter's marriages. Almost.




"All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

Again, not the most unusual line to find on this kind of list but for a good reason. Tolstoy's philosophical examination of happiness and the idea that what makes us human also makes us unhappy gives us a glimpse of what we can expect from this sweeping novel - a host of families that are unhappy precisely because they have gone against societal expectations and behaved in painfully human ways.

"Fear presides over these memories, a perpetual fear."

In Roth's alternative history novel, a young Jewish boy is remembering back to his childhood in which Charles Lindburgh is elected president, an "understanding" is reached with Adolph Hitler, and a program of anti-Semitism is adopted by the American government. This opening line highlights the reality of what this kind of environment would be like for a child - perpetual fear.

"There are places I'll remember all my life - Red Square with a hot wind howling across it, my mother's bedroom on the wrong side of Eight Mile, the endless gardens of a fancy foster home, a man waiting to kill me in a group of ruins knows as the Theater of Death."

I guess when your main character is a super-secret international mega-spy it's not reasonable to expect a quiet opening line. This one, though, sets the stage for Pilgrim's intense adventure through multiple countries and countless adversaries. It packs a punch that you feel all the way to the end of this book.

"Nick Naylor had been called many things since becoming chief spokesman for the Academy of Tobacco Studies, but until now no one had actually compared him to Satan."

Buckley's hilarious satire of DC lobbyists, corporations, and media coverage is off to a snort-inducing start with this line. You start to feel bad for Nick, despite the questionable morality of his job. This line perfectly prepares you for a front-row seat to poor Nick's moral quandaries.




What are your favorite opening lines? Comment below and tell us!

*The Top Five Wednesday book tag was created by Lainey from GingerReadsLainey on YouTube and is now managed by Sam from ThoughtsOnTomes, also on YouTube. You can find the topics in their Goodreads group, Top 5 Wednesdays, here.*