Great Lines

Young adult librarians are always compiling lists of great first lines from ya literature for booktalks or displays. I was thinking about them this week, because I've been culling our short story entries from a teen activity we had recently, and there were some catchy lines in the stories our local middle schoolers and high schoolers submitted to us. This one, from an 8th grade boy, may be my favorite:

This was the woman [he] was going to marry, he was sure of it . . . “Hello. May I ask your name, hot lady?”

These are some of the first lines most recently posted on one of my professional list servs. I haven't read all of these books, but if you haven't read Speak yet, go do it NOW. And if you decide to read Feed, talk to me first.

I have been in love with Titus Oates for quite a while now--which is ridiculous, since he's been dead for ninety years. But look at it this way. In ninety years I'll be dead, too, and then the age difference won't matter.
-The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean

Things had been getting a little better until I got a letter from my dead sister. That more or less ruined my day.
–Dead Girls Don't Write Letters by Gail Giles

It's the first morning of high school. I have seven new notebooks, a skirt I hate, and a stomachache.
–Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

We went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck.
–Feed by M.T. Anderson

Better brace yourself, / loser. / Because you / are about to be dumped. / Big time.
–What my Girlfriend doesn't Know by Sonya Sones.

Toyo watched carefully as his uncle prepared to kill himself.
–Samurai Shortstop by Alan Gratz

My name is Francis Joseph Cassavant and I have just returned to Frenchtown in Monument and the war is over and I have no face.
-Heroes by Robert Cormier

The thing about a cavity search is this: it has nothing to do with the dentist.
-Born to Rock by Gordan Korman

All I want is a maple bar, but I don’t think these kids with the guns care about what I want.
-Inside Out by Terry Trueman