Best Opening Lines

[CrusaderFrank]

"The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call "out there" -- In Cold Blood

"Behavioral Science, the FBI section that deals with serial murder, is on the bottom floor of the Academy building at Quantico, half-buried in the earth." -- The Silence of the Lambs

-------------------------
For reasons I can't fathom, the first line of "In Cold Blood" has been playing back in my head the last 2 days. I thought I would exorcise it by starting a "Best Opening Line" Thread

What's your favorite?

 

[boedicca]

"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

 

[boedicca]

And just to be a bit naughty:

"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the house-tops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness." -- Paul Clifford

 

[tigerbob]

My name is Turkish. Funny name for an Englishman, I know. My parents were on the same plane when it crashed. That's how they met. They named me after the plane. Not many people are named after a plane crash.

 

[California Girl]

And just to be a bit naughty:

"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the house-tops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness." -- Paul Clifford

 

[xsited1]

Come on, boys! The way you're lollygaggin' around here with them picks and them shovels, you'd think it was a hundert an' twenty degree. Can't be more than a hundert an' fourteen.

 

[California Girl]

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like..

 

[Luissa]

I was 12 going on 13 the first time I saw a dead human being. It happened in the summer of 1959-a long time ago, but only if you measure in terms of years. I was living in a small town in Oregon called Castle Rock. There were only twelve hundred and eighty-one people. But to me, it was the whole world. - Stand by Me

 

[Truthmatters]

Everything Is Illuminated Script - transcript from the screenplay and/or Liev Schreiber movie from the Jonathan Safran Foer novel


I will be truthful and mention that before our rigid search...
...I had the opinion Jewish people were having shit between their brains.
Primarily, this is because all I knew of Jewish people...
...was that they paid Father very much currency...
...in order to make vacations from America to Ukraine.
I was of the opinion that the past is past...
...and like all that is not now, it should remain buried...
...along the side of our memories.
But this was before the commencement of our very rigid search.
Before I encountered the collector...
...Jonathan Safran Foer.

 

[CurveLight]

"This is the Earth at a time when the dinosaurs roamed a lush and fertile planet. A piece of rock just six miles wide changed all that. It hit with the force of ten thousand nuclear weapons sending up a blanket of dust the sun was powerless to penetrate for a thousand years."

-Armageddon (almost totally ruined by ben afleck)

(phone rings)
Cypher: Yeah.

Trinity: Is everything in place?

Cypher: You weren't supposed to relieve me.

Trinity: I know, but I felt like taking your shift.

Cypher: You like watching him, don't you? You like watching him.

Trinity: Don't be ridiculous.

Cypher: We're going to kill him, do you understand that?

Trinity: Morpheus believes he is the One.

Cypher: Do you?

Trinity: It doesn't matter what I believe.

Cypher: You don't, do you?

Trinity: Did you hear that?

Cypher: Hear what?

Trinity: Are you sure this line is clean?

Cypher: Yeah, 'course I'm sure.

Trinity: I better go.

-The Matrix (who knew Reeves horrible acting actually found a niche?)

 

[CurveLight]

Come on, boys! The way you're lollygaggin' around here with them picks and them shovels, you'd think it was a hundert an' twenty degree. Can't be more than a hundert an' fourteen.

"Gosh sir! You use your tongue prettier than a twenty dollar whore."

 

[Luissa]

"The first rule of Zombieland: Cardio. When the zombie outbreak first hit, the first to go, for obvious reasons... were the fatties. "

 

[manu1959]

"Howard Roark laughed." - fountainhead - ayn rand

 

[manu1959]

"I am a sick man . . . I am a wicked man. An unattractive man, I think my liver hurts."

dostoevsky - notes from the underground

 

[boedicca]

"When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin." -- The Metamorphosis

 

[Luissa]

"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." 1984

"We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like 'I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive . . .' And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming, 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'" Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

 

[boedicca]

"All this happened, more or less." -- Slaughterhouse Five

 

[CrusaderFrank]

"Amerigo Bonasera sat in New York Criminal Court Number 3 and waited for justice; vengeance on the men who had so cruelly hurt his daughter, who had tried to dishonor her." -- The Godfather

 

[LuckyDan]

Is it hot in here? Or is it just you?

 

[LuckyDan]

Oh! We're talking lit.

I like, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..."