Booking Through Thursday - Beginnings

Here’s another idea about memorable first lines from books.
What are your favourite first sentences from books? Is there a book that you liked specially because of its first sentence? Or a book, perhaps that you didn’t like but still remember simply because of the first line?

I'm not sure that I remember any of the first lines from books that I have read! I remember the famous, "It was the best of times. It was the worst of times." However, I have to admit that I have never read the source book! Even though I don't remember the first lines of the books I read, I think I have always really liked the first lines of Douglas Adams' novels. Who couldn't love books that begin with, "It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on earth has ever produced the expression 'as pretty as an airport.'"? (The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul)

All of Adams' books start out just warped enough to make you wonder what will come next. The description of Arthur Dent's house in the first paragraph of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is certainly one that leaves you curious: "The house stood on a slight rise just on the edge of the village. It stood on its own and looked out over a broad spread of West Country farmland. Not a remarkable house by any means -- it was about thirty years old, squattish, squarish, made of brick, and had four windows set in the front of a size and proportion which more or less exactly failed to please the eye."