I wasn't sure about it, having read and suppressed Moby's Dick in my undergrad years, but I went and searched and now can say for sure that the first line in the novel is not "Call me Ishmael." The first words in the novel say:
"The pale Usher—threadbare in coat, heart, body, and brain; I see him now.  He was ever dusting his old lexicons and grammars, with a queer handkerchief, mockingly embellished with all the gay flags of all the known nations of the world.  He loved to dust his old grammars; it somehow mildly reminded him of his mortality."

Also I am completely surprised that they missed out on the beginning of Alice in Wonderland and at least one Terry Pratchett. Take the opening of Wyrd Sisters:
"
Starring Three Witches, also kings, daggers, crowns, storms, dwarfs, cats, ghosts, spectres, apes, bandits, demons, forests, heirs, jesters, tortures, trolls, turntables, general rejoicing and drivers alarums"
or
"Everything starts somewhere, although many physicists disagree."

And much as I dont like her, Ann Ryand's Anthem which says, if memory serves me right (it doesn't generally), "This is a sin to write" or some such thing.

All in all looks like a very biased canonical version of the best lines but then to each their own.

Would think that Lolita and P&P should have been the top two.

Nishant
On 2/2/06, Udhay Shankar N <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Heh. I agree with maybe one or two of this list. What are your
favourite first lines?

http://www.litline.org/ABR/100bestfirstlines.html

Udhay




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Nishant says
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