ITT: greatest opening sentences

Past the flannel plains and blacktop graphs and skylines of canted rust, and past the tobacco-brown river overhung with weeping trees and coins of sunlight through them on the water downriver, to the place beyond the windbreak, where untilled fields simmer shrilly in the A.M. heat: shattercane, lamb's-quarter, cutgrass, sawbrier, nutgrass, jimsonweed, wild mint, dandelion, foxtain, muscadine, spine-cabbage, goldenrod, creeping charlie, butter-print, nightshade, ragweed, wild oat, vetch, butcher grass, invaginate volunteer beans, all heads gently nodding in a morning breeze like a mother's soft hand on your cheek. An arrow of starlings fired from the windbreak's thatch. The glitter of dew that stays where it is and steams all day. A sunflower, four more, one bowed, and horses in the distance standing rigid and still as toys. All nodding. Electric sounds of insects at their business. Ale-colored sunshine and pale sky and whorls of cirrus so high they cast no shadow. Insects all business all the time. Quartz and chert and schist and chondrite iron scabs in granite. Very old land. Look around you. The horizon trembling, shapeless. We are all of us brothers.

Some crows come overhead then, three or four, not a murder, on the wing, silent with intent, corn-bound for the pasture's wire beyond which one horse smells at the other's behind, the lead horse's tail obligingly lifted. Your shoes' brand incised in the dew. An alfalfa breeze. Socks' burrs. Dry scratching inside a culvert. Rusted wire and tilted posts more a symbol of restraint than a fence per se. NO HUNTING. The shush of the interstate off past the windbreak. The pasture's crows standing at angles, turning up patties to get at the worms underneath, the shapes of the worms incised in the overturned dung and baked by the sun all day until hardened, there to stay, tiny vacant lines in rows and inset curls that do not close because head never quite touches tail. Read these.

huck finn

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You liked that chestnut tree huh

"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins."

>>9723036

Kafka's first sentences were godly.

>>9723036
>Dorito, light of my life, cheese on my fingers. My hunger, my munchies. Do-ree-toe: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Do. Ree. Toe. It was chips, plain chips, during lunch, weighing one-point-eight ounces in one hand. It was Nacho Cheese for snacks. It was Cool Ranch at school. It was Salsa Verde in the shopping line. But in my mouth it was always Dorito.

>>9723165
Love the opening paragraph of the castle in particular:

>1
Arrival
I
t
was late evening when K. arrived. The village lay deep in snow.
There was nothing to be seen of Castle Mount, for mist and darkness
surrounded it, and not the faintest glimmer of light showed where
the great castle lay. K. stood on the wooden bridge leading from the
road to the village for a long time, looking up at what seemed to be
a void.

>>9723040
Why do people hate this so much? It's actually quite good IMHO. Some of his best prose.

>>9723184
fuck i fugged up

also the german is much better

>>9723182
LMAO, that's genius!

>>9723036
i liked that one about the catamite and the bishop

also op is a pseud of the highest order

Well hello there my name is ishamel

He was the first man who is a man who was a man who is not the man who was a man of a lord who is the man who was the only reason why the lord had a son or the son and son of a man with their eyes to read book books are considered the death penalty of a book or death of the blind son lord of discovery book of literature read by the man of discovery and book of English book and book edition edition for read read the book and read it read by read books and poetry essays books books read by yourself read the book and read the books you have been writing for a while and reading the novel book read the novel and poetry of discovery novel novel book edition novel novel and read the novel book edition novel book read by yourself and book book read the novel and read the novel novel and poetry of literature poetry poetry and book read the novel novel and poetry book book read by book read the novel and read the book and read the books book read by book read the novel and poetry of literature read by authors keep your thoughts on the point where I am not read by the books

Divine Comedy and GR have pretty good starts.
Lusiads has the worst start I know.
>>9723262
Lel.

>>9723270
>Lusiads has the worst start I know
Why?

>>9723274
A man ought not to drag a dedication on for that long.

>>9723285
Why?

Kindly refer to me as Ishmael.

>>9723270
Agree. The first line, even, is poor.

>>9723186
It is, do not waver in the face of the infinite masses of roachies that infest this board.

My diary desu

>>9723134
This. It flows really well, like a good rap song.

>>9723186
I posted it sincerely

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>The opening line is a declarative statement.

D
R
O
P
P
E
D.

>>9723262
Oh! Hi. Didn't see you there.

>>9723165
My favorite is from In the Penal Colony
>"'It's a machine like no other,' said the officer to the explorer, as he surveyed the machine with a somewhat admiring look, although he was so familiar with it."

It was a pleasure to burn.

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>*record scratch*
>*freeze frame*
>"Yup, that's me. You're probably wondering how I ended up in this situation. It's actually a funny story..."

>>9724761
>"Let's back it up a bit..."
>*footage of mother going into labor*
>"Whoa, whoa, whoa, not that far back!"

>>9723165
>Kafka
The final Kafka redpill is acknowledging that he was a shite storyteller. I mean, nearly everything he ever wrote was taken in some degree from real life. The man was a prose engineer to the highest degree but he couldn't spin a yarn to save his life.

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>>9724761

>ywn fight in the Free Canadian Army

"Enter at your own peril, past the bolted door
where impossible things may happen that the world has never seen before"

Thus Spoke Zarathustra's first page is absolutely brilliant

I am uncertain at which point during the last 48 hours my mother was declared dead.

>>9724820
>I mean, nearly everything he ever wrote was taken in some degree from real life.
for which author was this not the case?
you can retract your idiotic statement now

>>9724820
nice copy pasta but for Kafka that's not even true

"Stately, plump Buck Mulligan...."

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>>9723040
>>9723186
I love The Pale King. Some of is best fiction in my opinion.

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>>9724820
>>9724919

>>9723182
grand

>>9723165
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bk-L2xVdw1s

>>9725005
what's the gif from?

>CRASH!

>>9725039
Real life, son.

>>9723036
Coyly, plush Bing Mellowson came on the maidenhead boring a bit of leather on which a hammer and a taser lay tossed. He pulled the flaps apart and he moaned:

"Dura lex, sed lex".