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'It is said - and it is true - that just before we are born, a cavern angel holds his finger to our mouths and whispers, "Hush! Don't tell what you know."'
-- Roderick MacLeish, Prince Ombra
[Edited to add: I have been reminded that I didn't talk about why this is my favourite opening line. Partly it's the idea; it's not new to the novel - "it is said", and has been said by various people for a long time - but when I read the novel, it was new to me. But it's also, perhaps even more, the way MacLeish tells it. Had the wording been even slightly different, I don't think it would have stuck with me the way it has.]
I also have a soft spot for the opening sentence of Clifford Stoll's The Cuckoo's Egg, just because it implies a completely different book when shorn of its context:
'Me, a wizard?'
'It is said - and it is true - that just before we are born, a cavern angel holds his finger to our mouths and whispers, "Hush! Don't tell what you know."'
-- Roderick MacLeish, Prince Ombra
[Edited to add: I have been reminded that I didn't talk about why this is my favourite opening line. Partly it's the idea; it's not new to the novel - "it is said", and has been said by various people for a long time - but when I read the novel, it was new to me. But it's also, perhaps even more, the way MacLeish tells it. Had the wording been even slightly different, I don't think it would have stuck with me the way it has.]
I also have a soft spot for the opening sentence of Clifford Stoll's The Cuckoo's Egg, just because it implies a completely different book when shorn of its context:
'Me, a wizard?'
