Question of the Day

This is one we've done before, but not for a long time now, and it's always so much fun... What's your favorite opening line of a novel?

My favorite is Dickens' opening of A Tale of Two Cities: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so." I'll never, ever get over reading that for the first time.

Mr. Shakes' favorite opening line is from Tolstoy's Anna Karenina: "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Love that one, too.

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