Lizstar

Gay Murr Girl

Liz, Goblin, Part-Time Shark, VTuber, retired speedrunner, author, GDQ staff, Sega fan, "Yuri Sommelier", Walking Encyclopedia of All Things Useless, Twitch partner, general menace. Says "Murr" a lot. This is not a place of honor, views my own, etc. Avatar art by me.


pnictogen-wing
@pnictogen-wing

J. K. Rowling's publicity people apparently arranged for her to win a meaningless accolade in the British press—"greatest opening line of all time" for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. (EDIT: Rowling got fifth place, I should stress, so the Telegraph and all the other fawning press articles are simply stressing that she's "one of the greatest", not THE greatest.)

I read that book a month ago. I cannot remember its opening line. At all.

~Chara


Shorkgirl
@Shorkgirl
Clears her throat.

I object most strenuously to that drivel of the TERF in Chief being the greatest opening line of all time, and submit for consideration by the vox populi:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”
Charles Dickens - A Tale of Two Cities

Don't make me break out the Dostoyevsky, JK. Go have your publicist buy you another award you didn't earn.

selnyam
@selnyam

ALSO
FUCKING
Gideon the Ninth has a fucking AMAZING first line

" In the myriadic year o our Lord – the ten thousandth year of the King Undying, the kindly Prince of Death! – Gideon Nav packed her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and she escaped from the House of the Ninth."
-"Gideon the Ninth" by Tamsyn Muir

that single line gives us a TON of info about the world and Gideon Nav. Like the original post said, I don't even REMEMBER what the first line of the winning book was. I don't know I'll EVER forget the first line to Gideon the Ninth

(I am not discrediting any of the AMAZING first lines in classic literature, I just wanted to use a more recent book)


DecayWTF
@DecayWTF

But none of those hold to a candle to the famous line:

"I'm a wizard, so go fuck yourself!" said Harry Potter, to his fat uncle (he's fat so you know he's evil).


DecayWTF
@DecayWTF

lmao god I wasn't that far off the mark

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.


DianeThePunk
@DianeThePunk

I'm just gonna take this opportunity to list off a few incredible opening lines that are way better than anything JKR has ever written.

All this happened, more or less.

Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Slaughterhouse Five

One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin

Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis, Trans. David Wyllie

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream.

Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House

This is not for you.

Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves


DecayWTF
@DecayWTF

Marley was dead, to begin with.

Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.

William Gibson, Neuromancer

Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans.

Homer, The Iliad


TalenLee
@TalenLee

The Mighty ScreeWeeTM EmpireTM is poised to attack Earth!

  • *Only You Can Save Mankind, Terry Pratchett

There was once, in the country of Alifbay, a sad city, the saddest of cities, a city so ruinously sad that it had forgotten its name.

  • Haroun and the Sea of Stories, Salman Rushdie

HOW IMO MADE THE WORLD, IN THE TIME WHEN THINGS WERE OTHERWISE AND THE MOON WAS DIFFERENT

  • Nation, Terry Pratchett

I woke up on morning to find that the entire city had been covered in a three foot layer of man-eating jam.

  • Jam, Ben Croshaw

quantum-jump
@quantum-jump

Even if we keep it to children's books:

I disappeared the night before my twelfth birthday.

  • Kensuke's Kingdom, Michael Morpurgo

Lizstar
@Lizstar

I can't help but add to this. My favorite opening line is actually from a book series about a wizard! A much better one, though.

"The building was on fire, and it wasn't my fault."
- Harry Dresden, Blood Rites

Tells ya everything you need to know about the narrator right in one sentence.


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in reply to @pnictogen-wing's post:

the canonization of J. K. Rowling as the jewel in the crown of British letters is slightly mystifying, especially because her post-Potter career has been so listless. it's not like "Fantastic Beasts" or "Cormorant Strike" have set the world ablaze, so...maybe the British press should find someone a bit fresher to be their literary standard-bearer? but I guess Rowling has been able to afford a lot of publicity on her side. ~Chara

When it leaked she was writing those detective books, it was a weird semi-scandal. Like, it was seen a juicy news, because it was a secret uncovered, but it didn't actually negatively affect the press's opinion of her. So like, it didn't really matter what the books were, because JKR was secretly publishing under a pen name! That's spicy news!

Propping up bad and bigoted artists who were involved in successful media is par for the course for British media. See also David Walliams, beloved childrens' author who previously performed blackface on the BBC.
—🗡️

in reply to @DecayWTF's post:

in reply to @Lizstar's post:

I'm rather partial to "It is the year forty-thousand of Our Eternal Dead Emperor, and the galaxy is embroiled in ceaseless war."

Gripping, pulls you in, makes you wonder a little bit what the Emperor's deal is, but sets the stage for so much more. A single gleaming perfect sentence.

#MasterclassInWriteing