Do you have a favorite incipit (see details)

What’s an incipit? It’s the opening line in a book or novel. I recently read an article featuring 8 of the all-time best:

“Call me Ishmael.” Moby Dick by Herman Melville.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

“All unhappy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Anna Karenina by Leon Tolstoy.

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Book of Genesis Ancient Scripture.

“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 by Jane Austen (1813)

“The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley.

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” 1984 by George Orwell,

“It was a pleasure to burn.” 1984 by Ray Bradbury.

And I would add two of my favorites:

“I was sick—sick unto death with that long agony…” The Pit and the Pendulum by Edgar Allen Poe.

“You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter.” The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Add your favorites!