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
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.
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)
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).
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.
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
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
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
Even if we keep it to children's books:
I disappeared the night before my twelfth birthday.
- Kensuke's Kingdom, Michael Morpurgo
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.
"If I close my eyes, and breathe to the rolling rhythm of the sea, I can still remember that long ago day." TA Barron, The Lost Years of Merlin