This is especially bad when compared to a great first sentance:<p>"The man in Black fled across the Desert, and the Gunslinger followed." - (Steven King, 1982 "The Gunslinger") [1]<p>1: <a href="https://litreactor.com/columns/the-top-10-best-opening-lines-of-novels" rel="nofollow">https://litreactor.com/columns/the-top-10-best-opening-lines...</a>
Perhaps my favourite best first sentence:<p>Bother Francis Gerard of Utah might never have discovered the blessed documents, had it not been for the pilgrim with girded loins who appeared during that young novice’s Lenten fast in the desert.<p>From "A Canticle for Liebowitz"
I don't even have to think about it:<p>"That branch of the Lake of Como, which turns toward the south between two unbroken chains of mountains, presenting to the eye a succession of bays and gulfs, formed by their jutting and retiring ridges, suddenly contracts itself between a headland to the right and an extended sloping bank on the left, and assumes the flow and appearance of a river."<p>That's the beginning of "I Promessi Sposi" (The Bethrothed) which is one of the most important books of italian literature, and IMO has one of the worst incipits ever written.<p>And I feel the 1834 english version[0] is actually more readable than the original.<p>[0] <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/35155/35155-h/35155-h.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.gutenberg.org/files/35155/35155-h/35155-h.htm</a>
On the other hand, George R.R. Martin's first sentence of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is amazingly pithy; I was admiring it last night:<p>"The spring rains had softened the ground, so Dunk had no trouble digging the grave."
<i>Commander B. G. Robinson is very feminine and graciously endowed: everything she has two of are perfectly matched, coordinated, and move with a wonderful grace that is called “woman.”</i><p>Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “The Outrageous Okona” shooting script
adapted by Harper Cole<p>Someone obviously has a different idea of TNG than Gene Roddenberry.<p>Edit: Link
<a href="http://adamcadre.ac/18lyttle.html" rel="nofollow">http://adamcadre.ac/18lyttle.html</a>
I remember an entry from 2003 that wasn't a winner, but has stuck in my mind ever since... and maybe you'll see why.<p>It was a dark and stormy night. The rain plastered the cheap dress enticingly to my thigh as I bent to peel the still-warm gum from the sidewalk."
From 2014. ( <a href="http://adamcadre.ac/14lyttle.html" rel="nofollow">http://adamcadre.ac/14lyttle.html</a> )<p>"Obama chuckled. “You mean the Chaos Emeralds?”"
Using this in conjunction with GPT-2 (<a href="https://github.com/openai/gpt-2" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/openai/gpt-2</a>) to make full stories out of these sentences should be fun.<p>Update: It's at least "interesting" if not fun; here's a story generated from the 2019 winner using the GPT-2's medium sized model<p><a href="https://pastebin.com/raw/hWn7DNEC" rel="nofollow">https://pastebin.com/raw/hWn7DNEC</a>
Didn't this article have a longer title originally?<p>Is it me or have titles on HN been changing a lot more frequently than they used to, in the last few weeks?
Subjective it may be, but the greatest opening line in all of literature is surely:<p>"The beet is the most intense of vegetables."<p>From Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins.
You'll maybe want to start with this year: <a href="http://adamcadre.ac/19lyttle.html" rel="nofollow">http://adamcadre.ac/19lyttle.html</a><p>This one got me, “The shadowy figure stood alone in the rain on the street corner under the dim yellow streetlight, casting a long thin shadow down the alley perpendicular to him.”<p>Perpendicular?
I recently listened to this <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0128pyh" rel="nofollow">https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0128pyh</a><p>I found it quite enlightening to see some of the thought that goes into an opening sentence.