Top 10 Tuesdays: Best/Intriguing Opening Lines

I feel like I say this about nearly every Top 10 Tuesday topic, but this was such a struggle for me! I don’t do a great job of keeping track of quotes from books, and although I might really love the opening line to something, it’s unlikely that I’ll actually make note of it! The only upside was that I’d recently been doing some research for a challenge prompt that requires a book with a great opening line, so at least I already had some books in mind. Usually, what makes an opening line stand out to me is when it’s somehow a little unusual or weird, because that draws me in to want to find out what’s going on. The only ones that I tend to find truly memorable are the most famous examples, like Pride & Prejudice or Anna Karenina, but that’s probably because those quotes come up all the time. I definitely started noticing more interesting opening lines because of the challenge prompt asking for one, so even though it was a tough one, it helped draw my attention to some great quotes!

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.

“There is a pirate in the basement. (The pirate is a metaphor but also still a person.)” – The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

“I didn’t choose the wench life. The wench life chose me.” – Well Met by Jen DeLuca

“Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love. It did not end well.” – Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

“Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much” – Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling

“We were all villains in the beginning.” – Renegades by Marissa Meyer

“Kell wore a very peculiar coat. It had neither one side, which would be conventional, nor two, which would be unexpected, but several, which was, of course, impossible.” – A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab

“Joost had two problems: the moon and his mustache.” – Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

“In my first memory, I am three years old and I’m trying to kill my sister.” – My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult

“If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you are better off reading some other book. In this book, not only is there no happy ending, there is no happy beginning and very few happy things happen in the middle.” – The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket

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

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