Great opening lines - book, song or speech

[All uphill]

"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again."

Oh!

There's a book I haven't read. On my list

 

[All uphill]

"The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there"

From the wonderful "Go-between"

 

[Sea of vapours]

“It was the day my grandmother exploded.”
Iain Banks, 'The Crow Road'

 

[tom73]

I expected my sentence and I believe it was just. Standing as I do in view of God and Eternity, I realise that patriotism is not enough, I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.
Edith Cavell , on the eve of her execution

 

[All uphill]

“It was the day my grandmother exploded.”
Iain Banks, 'The Crow Road'

That's brilliant. I have to read that too.

 

[glasgowcyclist]

I expected my sentence and I believe it was just. Standing as I do in view of God and Eternity, I realise that patriotism is not enough, I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.
Edith Cavell , on the eve of her execution

I've learned something today.
Thank you.

 

[Venod]

I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand.

 

[cyberknight]

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral Arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.

Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.

 

[cisamcgu]

"It is important, when killing a nun, to ensure that you bring an army of sufficient size. For Sister Thorn of the Sweet Mercy convent Lano Tacsis brought two hundred men".

Red Sister by Mark Lawrence

(Not a great book, a rather blood thirsty Harry Potter type book - but fun)

 

[cyberknight]

The sky above the port was the colour of television, tuned to a dead channel.

 

[cyberknight]

A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct.

 

[Oldhippy]

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try

 

[tyred]

I remember him as if it were yesterday as he came plodding to the inn door...

Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson.

 

[AndyRM]

The sweat wis lashin offay Sick Boy; he wis tremblin.

Trainspotting - Irvine Welsh

Fab idea for a thread by the way @All uphill, chapeau.

 

[geocycle]

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.