It was a dark and story night...

One of the keys to writing a great book is to have a great opening line. Here is a small sampling of my personal faves:

*It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the house-tops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.

Edward George Bulwer-Lytton Paul Clifford

*There once was a boy by the name of Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.

C.S. Lewis The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

*They met -- Colin and Julie --not very long before they were born.

Mildred Cram Forever

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

Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice

*One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies.

O. Henry The Gift of the Magi

*It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

George Orwell 1984

*The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.

Samuel Beckett Murphy

*It was a wrong number that started it, the telephone ringing three times in the dead of night, and the voice on the other end asking for someone he was not.

Paul Auster City of Glass

*We started dying before the snow, and like the snow, we continued to fall.

Louise Erdrich Tracks

*I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.

Dodie Smith I Capture the Castle

What are some of your favorites?