I doubt this will make the top ten list of openers, but this is from the book I am currently reading. It isn't literary, nor is it poetic. But it certainly grabbed my attention:

"I shall not say why and how I bacame, at the age of fifteen, the mistress of the Earl of Craven. Whether it was love, or the severity of my own father, the depravity of my own heart, or the winning arts of the noble Lord, which induced me to leave my paternal roof and place myself under his protection, does not now much signify; or if it does, I am not in the humour to gratify curiosity in this matter."

- Harriette Wilson's Memoirs: The Greatest Courtesan of her Age by Lesley Branch, editor

I like Rebecca's opening: "Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley again" (approximation), and from Ahab's Wife, which I have quoted before: "Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last."

I thought this opening line from The Bone-Pedlar by Sylvian Hamilton was a good one:

"In the crypt of the abbey church at Hallowdene, the monks were boiling their bishop."

Definitely "Rebecca" and Shirley Jackson's "The Haunting of Hill House". For NF, I quite liked how Barbara Tuchman opens "The Guns of August".

OT...Sheriz: Thanks, I needed a good laugh! I got the virus alert mentioned and was feeling quite sick until I saw it wasn't just me.
I cannot come up with anything better than those mentioned but it is a truth universally acknowledged that a good opening line makes you sit up and take notice!

I've always liked "It was the best of times; it was the worst of times...." I believe it is the opening line of Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities."

In my opinion there is one, and only one, opening

"It was a dark and stormy nightÂ." from the unfinished and I guess it wonÂt ever be finished Snoopy Âs novel

But until today I havenÂt known this line was a real one written by the Victorian novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton at the beginning of his 1830 novel "Paul Clifford", shame on me , never heard of him nor of his novel

A funny opening is from Baghdad without a Map and Other Misadventures in Arabia by Tony Horwitz , who happens to be Geraldine Brooks husband

Some men follow their dreams, some their instincts, some the beat of a private drummer. I had a habit of following my wife.

grelobe

I had a t-shirt once that had famous opening lines of novels on it in various fonts. It started with "Call me Ishmael".

What an awesome t-shirt, deep_roots!

Here's the first line from the top book on my nightstand:

"I believe that what separates humanity from everything else in this world--spaghetti, binder paper, deep-sea creatures, edelweiss and Mount McKinley--is that humanity alone has the capacity at any given moment to commit all possible sins."

Hey Nostradamus by Douglas Coupland

grelobe-there is a famous contest (link below) for the worst pretend opening line of the year, named after Bulwer-Lytton. Some of them are hysterically funny.

Here is a link that might be useful: The 2010 Bulwer-Lytton winners!

I love first lines. Here is the first line of the book I'm rereading after many, many years:

"I went back to the Devon School not long ago, and found it looking oddly newer than when I was a student there fifteen years before."

John Knowles' A Separate Peace

cc: loved the link but I didn't get all the puns. Is it me or are they somewhat US oriented?
I can't do cryptic crosswords either :-( !!

"They used to hang men at Four Turnings. Not any more, though."

Opening lines from one of my favorite Du Maurier novels: "My Cousin Rachel."

What makes a great opening line? Most novelists don't actually grab us with the first line; it takes a while to accomplish that. I went back over the opening lines of some of my favorite books and didn't find anything particularly amazing. I do have favorite opening lines, but they aren't always from my favorite books or authors. I think many of those on the linked list are mostly good in retrospect -- after the reader has read the story.

Now great "openings" are a different matter. They may take several lines or even paragraphs to draw the reader in.

To me, a great opening "line" is one that surprises, amuses or intrigues. They get me interested and then it's the author's job to keep me interested. Some of my favorites:

"Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin."
- A.A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh

"The magician's underwear has just been found in a cardboard suitcase floating in a stagnant pond on the outskirts of Miami." Tom Robbin: Another Roadside Attraction

"Christmas crept into Pine Cove like a creeping Christmas thing: dragging garland, ribbon, and sleigh bells oozing eggnog, reeking of pine, and threatening festive doom like a cold sore under the mistletoe." Christopher Moore The Stupidest Angel.

And one more Christopher Moore, from The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove "As dead people went, Bess leander smelled pretty good."

I submit this opening line from the novel 'Dazzled' by Canadian writer John Gray.

"I was an a**hole in 1984."

I may have the year wrong, and the word was spelled without asterisks. The book is described on the cover as "an outrageously funny novel." I picked it up one day while browsing at the library. It was outrageously funny, though not scatological as the opening line suggests it may be.