As an avid reader, I’ve come to learn that the first line of any novel is so essential to its endurance, for a first sentence, if powerful and direct, can become the book’s defining feature, and all I need is to be reminded of that very sentence to be transported back, reviving and reminiscing on the experience of first encountering the story. As an ode to all the people and places that have helped shape me over the years, here are some of my favorite opening lines:

1. “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 far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.” –Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

2. “When I think of my wife, I always think of her head.” –Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl

3. “Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet.” –Celeste Ng, Everything I Never Told You

4. “Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.” –J.K Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

5. “It was a pleasure to burn.” – Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

6. “I’m not a bad guy. I know how that sounds – defensive, unscrupulous – but it’s true. I’m like everybody else: weak, full of mistakes, but basically good.” –Junot Diaz, This Is How You Lose Her

“In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. ‘Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,’ he told me, ‘just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.’” –F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

8. “First the colors. Then the humans. That’s how I see things. Or at least, how I try. Here is a small fact. You are going to die.” –Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

9. “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

10. “If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.” –J.D Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

11. “We shot dogs. Not by accident. We did it on purpose, and we called it Operation Scooby. I’m a dog person, so I thought about that a lot” –Phil Klay, Redeployment

12. “My name is Kathy H. I’m thirty-one years old, and I’ve been a carer now for eleven years.” –Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

13. “I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975.” –Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

14. “Why at the beginning of things is there always light?” –Richard Flanagan, The Narrow Road to the Deep North

15. “Princeton, in the summer, smelled of nothing, and although Ifemelu liked the tranquil greenness of the many trees, the clean streets and stately homes, the delicately overpriced shops, and the quiet, abiding air of earned grace, it was this, the lack of a smell, that most appealed to her, perhaps because the other American cities she knew well had all smelled distinctly.” –Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah

"We don't have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I could say that's what I want in life." –Marina Keegan, The Opposite of Loneliness

17. "Tyler gets me a job as a waiter, after that Tyler’s pushing a gun in my mouth and saying, the first step to eternal life is you have to die.” –Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

18. “The eleventh apartment had only one closet, but it did have a sliding glass door that opened onto a small balcony, from which he could see a man sitting across the way, outdoors in only a T-shirt and shorts even though it was October, smoking. Willem help up a hand in greeting to him, but the man didn't wave back." –Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

19. “I still remember the day my father took me to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books for the first time.” –Carlos Ruiz Zafon, The Shadow of the Wind

20. “To have a reason to get up in the morning, it is necessary to possess a guiding principle. A belief of some kind. A bumper sticker, if you will.” –Judith Guest, Ordinary People