51 Opening Line Quotes

There’s something irresistibly captivating about a powerful opening line. It sets the tone, piques curiosity, and can hook readers from the very first moment. Whether it's the enigmatic allure shrouded in mystery or a simple phrase that resonates deeply, the first few words of a story hold incredible power. In this collection, we’ve gathered 51 of the most striking opening line quotes that have left indelible marks on literature and our imaginations. Dive in to see how these sentences have shaped stories and captured the hearts of readers around the world.

1. “He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.” - Rafael Sabatini

2. “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

3. “It was a pleasure to burn.” - Ray Bradbury

4. “If you're going to read this, don't bother.” - Chuck Palahniuk

5. “Call me Ishmael.” - Herman Melville

6. “It was almost December, and Jonas was beginning to be frightened.” - Lois Lowry

7. “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

8. “The last thing one discovers in composing a work is what to put first.” - Blaise Pascal

9. “Two households, both alike in dignity,In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.From forth the fatal loins of these two foesA pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;Whole misadventured piteous overthrowsDo with their death bury their parents' strife.The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,And the continuance of their parents' rage,Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;The which if you with patient ears attend,What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.” - William Shakespeare

10. “I am a vampire, and that is the truth.” - Christopher Pike

11. “Listen. The Sanctuary of the Redeemers on Shotover Scarp is named after a damned lie for there is no redemption that goes on there and less sanctuary” - Paul Hoffman

12. “To the as-yet-unborn, to all innocent wisps of undifferentiated nothingness: Watch out for life.” - Kurt Vonnegut

13. “There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife.” - Neil Gaiman

14. “First, I'm going to give you all the Copperfield crap, and I'm not going to apologize for any of it, not one paragraph, so if you're not interested in how I came to see the future, or how I came to understand that the biggest truth in my life was a lie, or, for that matter, how I parlayed my distaste for hot dogs into an '84 RX-7 and a new self-concept, do us both a favor, and just stop now.” - Jonathan Evison

15. “Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.” - James Joyce

16. “The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color.” - Natalie Babbitt

17. “In the beginning we were a group of nine.Three are gone, dead.There are six of us left.They are hunting us, and they won't stop until they've killed us all.I am Number Four.I know that I am next.” - Pittacus Lore

18. “You're surprised at all the blood.He looks over at you, eyes wide, mouth dropping open, his face almost as white as his shirt.He's surprised, too.” - Charles Benoit

19. “Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.” - J.K. Rowling

20. “Where shall we three meet again in thunder, lightning, or in rain? When the hurlyburly 's done, when the battle 's lost and won” - William Shakespeare

21. “A dead man fell from the sky, landing at my feet with a thud.” - Gary Corby

22. “When the phone rang, Parker was in the garage, killing a man.” - Richard Stark

23. “I did it! I stopped time.[Hampton Green]” - Tim Tharp

24. “I was looking for a quiet place to die.” - Paul Auster

25. “Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was arrested.” - Franz Kafka

26. “The first time I read the ad, I choked and cursed and spat and threw the paper to the floor.” - Daniel Quinn

27. “Lok was running as fast as he could. His head was down and he carried his thorn bush horizontally for balance and smacked the drifts of vivid buds aside with his free hand.” - William Golding

28. “This is the story of a man named Eddie and it starts at the end, with Eddie dying in the sun. It may seem strange to start a story with and ending, but all endings are also beginnings. We just don't know it at the time.” - Mitch Albom

29. “There were crimson roses on the bench; they looked like splashes of blood.” - Dorothy L. Sayers

30. “Serene was a word you could put to Brooklyn New York. Especially in the summer of 1912. Somber as a word was better. But it did not apply to Williamsburg Brooklyn. Prairie was lovely and Shenandoah had a beautiful sound but you couldn't fit those words into Brooklyn. Serene was the only word for it especially on a Saturday afternoon in summer.” - Betty Smith

31. “Indian summer is like a woman.” - Grace Metalious

32. “It was 7 minutes after midnight. The dog was lying on the grass in the middle of the lawn in front of Mrs. Shears's house.” - Mark Haddon

33. “There is no lake at Camp Green Lake.” - Louis Sachar

34. “In the town there were two mutes, and they were always together.” - Carson McCullers

35. “What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died?” - Erich Segal

36. “They murdered him.” - Robert Cormier

37. “The idea really came to me the day I got my new false teeth.” - George Orwell

38. “The great fish moved silently through the night water.” - Peter Benchley

39. “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. It was the future, and everything sucked.” - Greg Nagan

40. “Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood.” - Rick Riordan

41. “It was Wang Lung's marriage day.” - Pearl S. Buck

42. “Grandfather recently died. He died alone on a trip away from home in a town where no one expected him to be” - Téa Obreht

43. “Mma Ramotswe had a detective agency in Africa, at the foot of Kgale Hill. These were its assets: a tiny white van, two desks, two chairs, a telephone, and an old typewriter. Then there was a teapot, in which Mma Ramotswe – the only lady private detective in Botswana – brewed redbush tea. And three mugs – one for herself, one for her secretary, and one for the client. What else does a detective agency really need? Detective agencies rely on human intuition and intelligence, both of which Mma Ramotswe had in abundance. No inventory would ever include those, of course.” - Alexander McCall Smith

44. “It was dusk - winter dusk. Snow lay white and shining over the pleated hills, and icicles hung from the forest trees. Snow lay piled on the dark road across Willoughby Wold, but from dawn men had been clearing it with brooms and shovels. There were hundreds of them at work, wrapped in sacking because of the bitter cold, and keeping together in groups for fear of the wolves, grown savage and reckless from hunger.” - Joan Aiken

45. “A mile below the lowest cloud, rock breaches water and the sea begins.It has been given many names. Each inlet and bay and stream has been classified as if it were discrete. But it is one thing, where borders are absurd. It fills the space between stones and sand, curling around coastlines and filling trenches between the continents.” - China Miéville

46. “This morning, my mother didn't get out of bed.” - Melina Marchetta

47. “Did you wish upon a star and take the time to try to make your wish come true?Did you try to paint the sunrise and find the gift of life within?Did you write a song just for the joy of it?Or write a poem just to feel the pain?Did you find a reason to ignore the petty injustices, the spoken barbs, or the envies, jealousies and greed that crossed your path?Did you wake up this morning and whisper inside, “Today, I’ll find every reason to smile, and ignore the excuses to frown.”Today will be the day I’ll whisper nothing snide, I’ll say nothing cruel. I’ll be kind to my enemy, I’ll embrace my friends, and for thisone day, I’ll forget the slights of the past.Today will be the day I’ll live for the joy of it, laugh for the fun of it, and today, I’ll love whether it’s returned, forsaken, or simplyignored.And if you did, then your heart has joined the others who have as well, uniting, strengthening, and in a single heartbeat you’ve createda world of hope.” - Lora Leigh

48. “She'd be lucky if she got out of this alive . . . and she'd never been lucky in her life.” - Dorian Paul

49. “If a lioness spends her hours pacing back and forth in a cage of gold with the finest meats at her disposal, does that make her any less of a prisoner? If that same feline’s fangs are filed down to blunt, un-tearing teeth and her roar is silenced, can she still be called a lioness?” - Kristen Reed

50. “The family of Dashwood had long been settled in Sussex. Their estate was large, and their residence was at Norland Park, in the centre of their property, where, for many generations, they had lived in so respectable a manner as to engage the general good opinion of their surrounding acquaintance. The late owner of this estate was a single man, who lived to a very advanced age, and who for many years of his life, had a constant companion and housekeeper in his sister. But her death, which happened ten years before his own, produced a great alteration in his home; for to supply her loss, he invited and received into his house the family of his nephew Mr. Henry Dashwood, the legal inheritor of the Norland estate, and the person to whom he intended to bequeath it. In the society of his nephew and niece, and their children, the old Gentleman's days were comfortably spent. His attachment to them all increased. The constant attention of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Dashwood to his wishes, which proceeded not merely from interest, but from goodness of heart, gave him every degree of solid comfort which his age could receive; and the cheerfulness of the children added a relish to his existence.” - Jane Austen

51. “There are only two kinds of people in our town. The stupid and the stuck."” - Kami Garcia