Favourite opening line/chapter to a book?

[Tanya]

Introductions can sometimes say a lot about a book, we have to admit that they can be quite influential.

What's your favourite opening line/opening chapter to a book?

[Rosie]

In nineteen minutes, you can mow the front lawn, color your hair, watch a third of a hockey game. In nineteen minutes, you can bake scones or get a tooth filled by a dentist; you can fold laundry for a family of five....

In nineteen minutes, you can stop the world, or you can just jump off it.

In nineteen minutes, you can get revenge.

-Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult

I also love the beginning of her novel My Sister's Keeper and the opening of TFIOS.

[Heather Lamb]

Favorite opening lines are from The Voyage of the Dawntreader "There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it." and Going Bovine by Libba Bray "The best day of my life happened when I was five and almost died at Disney World."

[David Zebarah]

"In the beginning the Universe was created.  This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."

[Danno]

gotta love Good Omens

ack... *too, gotta love them all, really

[Kristi Marie Winters]

"I am constantly torn between killing myself and killing everyone around me." It's the beginning of chapter 2 in Will Grayson,Will Grayson.

My favorite chapter title is "Life sucks, then you die, I should be so lucky." I believe it's from Eclipse by Stephanie Meyer.

[Emily Kleinschmidt]

A book from my childhood, Fairest by Gail Carson Levine--

"I was born singing. Most babies cry. I sang an aria."

[Neira]

"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." , fist line of Anna Karenina. 

[Nushie NushNush]

Definitely-

"Mr and Mrs. Dursley of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much."

[Danno]

so many aweswome ones.  so, sticking with the book i just finished: 'It rained toads the night the White Council came to town.

[Clark Dean]

"Alice was Beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on he bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, 'and what is the use of a book,' thought Alice, 'without pictures or conversations?'"

- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol.