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21 Novels with the Best First Lines

These books had us at hello.

By Kira Walton • 2 years ago
best first lines

You can’t judge a book by its cover, so they say, but you can judge it by its first line. One sentence is all it takes: we’re intrigued, we’re shocked, we have to keep reading. The best first lines, though, stand alone; they’re like one-sentence poems. When read aloud, they carry the whole of the novel in them. Take a peek at the opening lines—poems? masterpieces?—of these 21 exquisite novels.


Featured Image: Nikada/iStock

  • The cover of the book Pride and Prejudice

    Pride and Prejudice

    Jane Austen

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    “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

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  • The cover of the book The Broom of the System

    The Broom of the System

    David Foster Wallace

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    “Most really pretty girls have pretty ugly feet, and so does Mindy Metalman, Lenore notices, all of a sudden.”

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  • The cover of the book Waiting

    Waiting

    Ha Jin

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    “Every summer Lin Kong returned to Goose Village to divorce his wife, Shuyu.”

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  • The cover of the book Invisible Man

    Invisible Man

    Ralph Ellison

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    “I am an invisible man.”

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  • The cover of the book Paradise

    Paradise

    Toni Morrison

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    “They shoot the white girl first.”

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  • The cover of the book Calling Invisible Women

    Calling Invisible Women

    Jeanne Ray

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    “I first noticed I was missing on a Thursday.”

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  • The cover of the book All My Mother's Lovers

    All My Mother's Lovers

    Ilana Masad

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    “Maggie is in the midst of a second lazy orgasm when her brother, Ariel, calls to tell her their mother has died.”

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  • The cover of the book David Copperfield

    David Copperfield

    Charles Dickens

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    “Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.”

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  • The cover of the book Tell the Wolves I'm Home

    Tell the Wolves I'm Home

    Carol Rifka Brunt

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    “My sister, Greta, and I were having our portrait painted by our uncle Finn that afternoon because he knew he was dying.”

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  • The cover of the book The Mothers

    The Mothers

    Brit Bennett

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    “We didn’t believe when we first heard because you know how church folk can gossip.”

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  • The cover of the book Uprooted

    Uprooted

    Naomi Novik

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    “Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley.”

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  • The cover of the book The Chaperone

    The Chaperone

    Laura Moriarty

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    “The first time Cora heard the name Louise Brooks, she was parked outside the Wichita Library in a Model-T Ford, waiting for the rain to stop.”

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  • The cover of the book May We Be Forgiven

    May We Be Forgiven

    A. M. Homes

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    “Do you want my recipe for disaster?”

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  • The cover of the book Middlemarch

    Middlemarch

    George Eliot

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    “Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress.”

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  • The cover of the book True Believers

    True Believers

    Kurt Andersen

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    “My publishers signed me up a year ago to write a book, but not THIS book.”

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  • The cover of the book Swimming Studies

    Swimming Studies

    Leanne Shapton

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    “Water is elemental, it’s what we’re made of, what we can’t live within or without.”

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  • The cover of the book The People of Forever Are Not Afraid

    The People of Forever Are Not Afraid

    Shani Boianjiu

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    “There is dust in this caravan of a classroom, and Mira the teacher’s hair is fake orange and scorched at the tips.”

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  • The cover of the book The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

    The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

    Rachel Joyce

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    “The letter that would change everything arrived on a Tuesday.”

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  • The cover of the book San Miguel

    San Miguel

    T.C. Boyle

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    “She was coughing, always coughing, and sometimes she coughed up blood.”

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  • The cover of the book The Empty Glass

    The Empty Glass

    J.I. Baker

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    “After a while, everything started to blur.”

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  • The cover of the book Inside

    Inside

    Alix Ohlin

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    “At first glance, she mistook him for something else.”

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About Kira Walton

Kira Walton

KIRA WALTON has been stalking books all her life as a college English teacher, bookseller, book club consultant, author, and editor.

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