There’s only one chance to make a good first impression. That’s especially true in books where the reader is asked to invest time and (often) money to travel to the end of the story. We don’t usually stop to consider the importance of the opening lines of a novel, or even a short story. Yet those lines, sometimes just one sentence, must hook us and reel us in.

You may recall some favorite opening lines from books you’ve read or recognize famous first sentences from titles you didn’t know … yet. How many of these opening lines have hooked – or will hook – you into great books?:

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” – Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
“Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday; I can’t be sure.” – The Stranger by Albert Camus
“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.” – Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into an enormous insect.” – The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
“I was born in the city of Bombay…once upon a time. No, that won’t do, there’s no getting away from the date: I was born in Doctor Narlikar’s Nursing Home on August 15th, 1947. The time matters, too.” – Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
“It was a pleasure to burn.” – Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.” – A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
“It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love.” – Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
“I am an invisible man.” – Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
“Every summer Lin Kong returned to Goose Island to divorce his wife, Shuyu.” – Waiting by Ha Jin
“Ships at a distance have every man’s wish aboard.” – Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
“All children, except one, grow up.” – Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie
“It was love at first sight. The first time Yossarian saw the chaplain he fell madly in love with him.” – Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
“It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.” – The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” – Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” – Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy