Favourite first lines from book?

"The mole had been working very hard all morning, spring -cleaning his little home."
Wind in the Willows

“If you asked me now who I am, the only answer I could give with any certainty would be my name. For the rest: my loves, my hates, down even to my deepest desires, I can no longer say whether these emotions are my own, or stolen from those I once so desperately wished to be.”
― Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited

"Life is difficult" The Road Less Travelled

Not sure about favourite but it's the one that sticks in my head.

“Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents”. Little Women - The first book I read as a youngster.

Mine is 'Two Shoes, New shoes, Bright shiny blue shoes' Shirley Hughes.

I know - pathetic. But it makes me think of children and grandchildren snuggled up before bed.

(approximate) The boys arrived early for the hanging - Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth - one of my most repeatedly read novels!

Ps: you can forget the filmed version!

From the start, she had known what she wanted, and proceeded single-minded, with the force of a steam engine towards her goal.

'The sun hit me smartly in the face like a bully'

it's not the first sentence of my favourite book but at the end of the first paragraph and since reading the line at 13yrs old, I've never forgotten it.

“It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York."

PS: I love this thread.

Some fab ones...I also like

"Lieutenant Dunbar wasn’t really swallowed." I didn't understand it at first but it's great book...dance with wolves Michael Blake

Ps I wish people would put the book the line is from as I don't know them all!

' When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm broken at the elbow' - To Kill a Mockingbird.

Ragtime the line I quoted is from 'Cider With Rosie'.

Casdon

‘I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.’

I capture the castle - Dodie Smith

'We slept in what had once been the gymnasium.'

And I'm there ?

Casdon

‘I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.’

This!

Callistemon - I enjoyed A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian because Valentina burst into their lives a " fluffy pink grenade "

Sorry missed out the word - like (a fluffy pink grenade ).

Ah, I'm treating this like a quiz, and 'I write this sitting in the kitchen sink' is I Capture the Castle - semi-biographical novel by Dodie Smith - hope I'm correct as I haven't looked it up!
And kittylester, one of mine would be 'Once there was a soft brown toy called.......'

"Marley was dead."

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

Charles Dickens: A Tale of Two Cities

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking 13 ( I think ?) ....I did it for English lit o level.... 1984

“I was ten years old when I first saw the inheritance and twenty years old when I first saw Janna Roslyn, but my reaction to both was identical. I wanted them.”

Penmarric by Susan Howatch.

I was 14 when I first read this book and the opening lines still stay put in my head. I found it fascinating.

"The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there."

The Go-Between L P Hartley.

“Lovely woman my Mam.”

I knew right away I had to read it with a mental Welsh accent!

Alexander Cordell, The Rape of the Fair Country.

Love some of the above as well.