Want Some Words–Come and get ‘em

Some of my favorite opening lines from novels:

• Call me Ishmael. — Moby Dick, Herman Melville
• to wound the autumnal city. — Dhalgren, Samuel R Delany
• The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed. — The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower I), Stephen King
• It was a pleasure to burn — Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury

These are the ones I can remember just offhand, the ones that sank their barbs into my brain, and landed me on their green shores. All books that I highly recommend, by the way. (I would also recommend other books, and do so, here and there, but this is about first lines not just great novels.)
What first lines have sucked you in; what ones do you remember the most? What first line made you pick up a book and not put it down.
Comments please.

Matchfield silver gelatin print 20×24

Caleb Charland is a fine photographer, who happens to work with my wife. From: Aperture Foundation | Caleb Charland

Using the laws of physics as a springboard, Caleb Charland puts elements such as fire, water, and man-made compounds to the artistic test in his series Demonstrations. In these alchemic images, he captures scientific phenomena in moments of still life as well as full-tilt action, calling to mind such forebears as Harold Edgerton and his freeze-frame milk droplets.

He uses a 4×5 camera, and the silver-gelatin print method, and painstakingly arranged compositions, to make his haunting, magical images.
More of his work can be seen at Susan Maasch Fine Art

Found Nathan Ota over on Juxtapoz. I really liked the print School’s Out –>
Which can be found at DVA Gallery

Wag
Collage on Masonite
approx 6×8 inches

Rhizomatic#1 is about a squatted art and community space that took place in Brighton in January 2001. It was organised by an anarchist … all » collective called SPOR, which developed from the original Spiral Tribe founders with a focus of providing active spaces of freedom within local communities, based on the thought that “without somewhere to be free then freedom is nothing more than an abstract idea”. They base their activities on a method of action that draws inspiration from Hakim Bey’s concept of ‘temporary autonomous zones’ and from a Deleuzian notion of the rhizome which they put into action. They consciously organise a network that does not attempt to maintain a permanent political presence but which rather appears at indeterminate intervals, inspired by the mushroom which fruits intermittently on the basis on an ongoing mycelium. Their experiments inspire and spread this network of ideas, people, connections and actions.

Directed by Matt Lee the film was made by Indifference Productions and Weigh In, Way Out Productions, independent film-makers active in Brighton, UK.

About 23 minutes long. Enjoy

Killian’s Irish Red Camel
12×9 inches
Mixed Media Collage on 140lb Watercolor Paper

Self Portrait
anyone who says the square peg
does not fit in the circular hole
has never seen a crazy bitch with a hammer

From Tricia Warden’s Attack God Inside
Published by Henry Rollins’ 12.13.61, the book is out of print. Too bad–some dark, amazing, harsh, poetry there.
But her(older) book Brainlift is still there. At a damn good price, by the way.