Opening Lines
Book Opening Lines. Famous First Lines. Book Opening Scenes.
ONE MORNING, WHEN GREGOR SAMSA WOKE FROM TROUBLED DREAMS, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin.
Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka, 1915
“Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them …”
Hard Times, Charles Dickens, 1854
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen, 1813
Every art, and every science reduced to a teachable form, and in like manner every action and moral choice, aims, it is thought, at some good: for which reason a common and by no means a bad description of the Chief Good is, “that which all things aim at.”
Ethics, Aristotle, Circa 350 BCE
The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink flowering thorn.
Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde, 1890