The Most Elegant Opening Sentences In All Of Literature

“'That doesn't sound like a school trivia night,' said Mr.s Patty Ponder to Marie Antoinette, 'That sounds like a riot.'”

— Liane Moriarty, amazon.com

“It's scary how many details I remember about the night Karen left.”

— Matthew Norman, amazon.com

“Southern women are unique; there is no disputing that.”

— Alessandra Torre, amazon.com

“A private plane sits on a runway in Martha's Vineyard, forward stairs deployed.”

— Noah Hawley, amazon.com

“They were abandoning him.”

— Michael Punke, amazon.com

“The week before I left my family and Florida and the rest of my minor life to go to boarding school in Alabama, my mother insisted on throwing me a going-away party.”

— John Green, amazon.com

“How's that you godforsaken monster?”

— Chet Williamson, amazon.com

“The house stood on a slight rise just on the edge of the village.”

— Douglas Adams, amazon.com

“On the night after the day she had stained the louvered window shutters of her new apartment on East 52nd Street, Beth saw a woman slowly and hideously knifed to death in the courtyard of her building.”

— Harlan Ellison, amazon.com

“Pulling my goggles up, I stopped and blinked, looking out into the night with my own unaided eyes.”

— Matthew Mather, amazon.com

“I've watched through his eyes, I've listened through his ears, and I tell you he's the one.”

— Orson Scott Card, amazon.com

“I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ.”

— Gillian Flynn, amazon.com

“I've started dreaming of Portland again.”

— Lauren Oliver, amazon.com

“The Hegemony Consul sat on the balcony of his ebony spaceship and played Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C-sharp Minor on an ancient but well-maintained Steinway while great, green, saurian things surged and bellowed in the swamp below.”

— Dan Simmons, amazon.com

“The night before he went to London, Richard Mayhew was no enjoying himself.”

— Neil Gaiman, amazon.com

“This is what happened.”

— Stephen King, amazon.com

“He began his new life standing up, surrounded by cold darkness and stale, dusty air.”

— James Dashner, amazon.com

“In nineteen minutes, you can mow the front lawn, color your hair, watch a third of a hockey game.”

— Jodi Piclout, amazon.com

“I wore a black suit and a white shirt, a black tie and black shoes, all polished and shiny: clothes that normally would make me feel uncomfortable, as if I were in a stolen uniform, or pretending to be an adult.”

— Neil Gaiman, amazon.com

“The buzz in he street was like the humming of flies.”

— Robert Galbraith, amazon.com

“I pace in our cell in Erudite headquarters, her words echoing in my mind: My name will be Edith Prior, and there is much I am happy to forget.”

— Veronica Roth, amazon.com

“'There are places you can go,' Ariana tells him, 'and a guy as smart as you has a decent chance of surviving to eighteen.'”

— Neal Shusterman, amazon.com

“When I think of my wife, I always think of her head.”

— Gillian Flynn, amazon.com

“There was once a young man who wished to gain his Heart's Desire.”

— Neil Gaiman, amazon.com

“There is a pile of clothing on the side of the train tracks.”

— Paula Hawkins, amazon.com

“So intent was Frank upon solving the puzzle of Lemarchand's box that he didn't hear the great bell ring.”

— Clive Barker, amazon.com

“Twenty minutes after the war ends, I'm watching stumpers pour up out of a frozen hole in the ground like ants from hell and praying that I keep my natural legs for another day.”

— Daniel H. Wilson, amazon.com

“My sweater was new, singing red and ugly.”

— Gillian Flynn, amazon.com

“I warn you that what you're starting to read is full of loose ends and unanswered questions.”

— Jack Finney, amazon.com

“It was a pleasure to burn.”

— Ray Bradbury, amazon.com