Top 7 Best (Worst?) Opening Lines to Novels I’ve Never Written

1. If Jennifer had not arrived until after the paint dried, it might all have ended differently. As it was, it would be 36 hours before any of us got any sleep and none of our lives would ever be the same again.

2. It was the first time I had ever stolen anything in my life, and it felt good, really good. I found myself asking myself why I had not been doing this for years.

3. Millicent made sure that everything was in order before leaving the house that morning. All of the dishes were washed and put away, the counters were cleaned, and the floor swept. She adjusted the curtains to be precisely two-thirds of the way open, watered all of the plants, and placed some lively cockroaches in the tarantula aquarium.

4. We were standing in the parking lot of a truckstop in the outskirts of Bakersfield just before sunrise drinking bad coffee in Styrofoam cups when a big rig painted bright purple with a stuffed Oscar the Grouch doll chained to its grill pulled up and the largest trucker you’ve ever seen in your life jumped out.

5. All her life Jane told the story of how she had once met Robert DeNiro. What most people never would have believed is that the story was actually 100% true. What they also never would have believed was that DeNiro never forgot Jane either.

6. Jack was in that state of not-quite-awake/not-still-asleep when he distinctly heard the sound of an electric can-opener. He jerked awake, sure he must have been dreaming; after all, he didn’t even own an electric can-opener. Unfortunately, it was not a dream.

7. Like everyone, I’ve had to give up a lot of dreams over the years, but the one dream I promised myself I would never give up is that some day I would visit Graceland.