What are some of your favourite great first sentence or so you have read in a novel?

I rather like Victor Hugo's opening of the unabridged version of "Les Miserables." I don't remember the exact phrase, but it was something like: "What we are about to relate has no relevance to the story." What better way to "hook" a reader?

Also, Charles Williams' "War in Heaven":
"The telephone was ringing wildly, but without result, since there was no-one in the room, but the corpse."

And.... if poetry counts, who can resist T.S. Eliot's: "April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs from the dead ground?"

As you will probably gather, both dmg and I love Toni Morrison.


"Jazz"
"Sth, I know that woman.  She used to live with a flock of birds on Lenox Avenue.  Know her husband, too.  He fell for an eighteen year old girl with one of those deepdown, spooky loves that made him so sad and happy he shot her just to keep the feeling going.

"Beloved"
124 was spiteful.  Full of a baby's venom.

"Love"
The women's legs are spread wide open, so I hum.  Men grow irritable, but they know it's all for them.  They relax.  Standing by, unable to do anything but watch, is a trial, but I don't say a word.

"Paradise"
They shot the white girl first.  With the rest they can take their time.  No need to hurry out here.  They were seventeen miles from a town which has ninety miles between it and any other.  Hiding places will be plentiful in the Convent, but there is time and they day has just begun.

Those are some good quotes. I haven't read Toni Morrison. What titles do you recommend for someone new to Morrison's work?

I would think the 'trilogy' - Beloved, Paradise & Jazz.  What do you think DMG?  I picked up Jazz first - and it's my favourite.

yeh, Beloved, Jazz and Paradise comprise her highly-touted "trilogy." Each is set in a critical period in black American history ... Beloved, just after emancipation, ... Jazz, in the Harlem Renaissnance .... Paradise, in 1975, just after the Civil Rights movement

.... they're meant as a triology, or so i'm told.

i like Song of Solomon alot too ... her only book with a male lead character ....

i remember this question being asked once before on a board .... someone chose Dickens' A Christmas Carol .. pretty good choice

Marley was dead: to begin with.  There is no doubt whatever about that.  

Quote :

Marley was dead: to begin with.  There is no doubt whatever about that.

Dead is Dead.  No doubt about that...

LOL, kind of ironic.

Who was the comedianne who used to say that?  Madeline Khan.  Dead is dead.  And unfortunately she is.  I just found out.