I just started reading The Towers of Trebizond, which is often cited as having one of the best first sentences from a novel:

‘Take my camel, dear,’ said my aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return from High Mass.

I thought about some other favorite first lines (some longer than 1 sentence) from novels:

“I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. That is, my feet are in it; the rest of me is on the draining-board, which I have padded with our dog’s blanket and the tea-cosy.” – Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle

“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again” -Daphne Du Maurier, Rebecca

“He came there in the off-season. So much was off. All bets were off. The last deal was off. His timing was off, or he wouldn’t have come here at this moment, and also every second arc lamp along the peninsular highway was switched off.” – Denis Johnson, Resuscitation of a Hanged Man

“My father had a face that could stop a clock. I don’t mean that he was ugly or anything; it was a phrase the ChronoGuard used to describe someone who had the power to reduce time to an ultraslow trickle.” – Jasper Fforde, The Eyre Affair

“She could not remember a time when she had not known the story; she had grown up knowing it.” – Robin McKinley, The Hero and the Crown

“Taran wanted to make a sword; but Coll, charged with the practical side of his education, decided on horseshoes.” – Lloyd Alexander, The Book of Three

“The Miss Lonelyhearts of the New York Post-Dispatch (Are-you-in-trouble?–Do-you-need-advice?–Write-to Miss-Lonleyhearts-and-she-will-help-you) sat at his desk and stared at a piece of white cardboard.” Nathaniel West, Miss Lonelyhearts

“No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be an heroine. Her situation in life, the character of her father and mother, her own person and disposition, were all equally against her. Her father was a clergyman, without being neglected, or poor, and a very respectable man, though his name was Richard — and he had never been handsome.” – Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“It was about eleven ‘o clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills.” – Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep

Over at the Constant Reader, a couple of first sentence tests

Do you have any favorites?