The funniest-ever opening lines of books

The opening line of a book needs to catch a reader's attention. It's vital. The author wants you to feel compelled to read on, interested in what happens next and even surprised.

But we love it when writers choose to make that crucially important opening line funny – and what a feat when they have only a few words to play with. In fact, you have to be something of a literary great to get it right.

There aren't many genuinely funny opening lines, but we've done the hard work for you, selecting 32 of the most humorous, bizarre and mirth-filled opening lines of books from literary history. Not only do we hope that these lines will brighten up your day, they might compel you to pick up some of these literary masterpieces, too.

The funniest lines in books

at AmazonAuthor: Douglas Adams"In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."

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at AmazonAuthor: Iain Banks"It was the day my grandmother exploded."

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at AmazonAuthor: Bill Bryson"I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to."

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at AmazonAuthor: Douglas Adams"It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on earth has ever produced the expression ‘As pretty as an airport.'"

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at AmazonAuthor: WH Manville"I don’t know how other men feel about their wives walking out on them, but I helped mine pack."

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at AmazonAuthor: William Goldman“This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it.”

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at AmazonAuthor: Max Barry“As a boy, I wanted to be a train.”

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at AmazonAuthor: Janet Evanovich"For the better part of my childhood, my professional aspirations were simple–I wanted to be an intergalactic princess."

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at AmazonAuthor: Chuck Palahniuk"If you're going to read this, don't bother."

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at AmazonAuthor: Louis Sachar"We’re going to tell you about three of the children in Mrs. Jewls’s class, on the thirtieth story of Wayside School. But before we get to them, there is something you ought to know. Wayside School was accidentally built sideways. It was supposed to be only one story high, with thirty classrooms all in a row. Instead, it is thirty stories high, with one classroom on each story. The builder said he was very sorry."

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at AmazonAuthor: Roald Dahl"It's a funny thing about mothers and fathers. Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you could ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful."

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at AmazonAuthor: Peter De Vries“It wasn’t until I had become engaged to Miss Piano that I began avoiding her.”

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at AmazonAuthor: John Wyndham"When a day that you happen to know is Wednesday starts off by sounding like Sunday, there is something seriously wrong somewhere."

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at AmazonAuthor: Jonathan Maberry"When you have to kill the same terrorist twice in one week, then there’s either something wrong with your skills or something wrong with your world. And there’s nothing wrong with my skills."

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at AmazonAuthor: Norman Maclean"In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing."

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at AmazonAuthor: Monica Drake”Balloon Tying For Christ was the cheapest balloon manual I could find."

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at AmazonAuthor: Terry Pratchett"They say the world is flat and supported on the back of four elephants who themselves stand on the back of a giant turtle."

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at AmazonAuthor: Dodie Smith"I write this sitting in the kitchen sink."

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at AmazonAuthor: Christopher Buckley"Nick Naylor had been called many things since becoming the chief spokesman for the Academy of Tobacco Studies, but until now no one had actually compared him to Satan."

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at AmazonAuthor: Ha Jin"Every summer Lin Kong returned to Goose Village to divorce his wife, Shuyu."

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at AmazonAuthor: Mark Twain“After I’d been dead about thirty years, I begun to get a little anxious.”

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at AmazonAuthor: Vikram Chandra“A white Pomeranian named Fluffy flew out of the a fifth-floor window in Panna, which was a grand-new building with the painter’s scaffolding still around it. Fluffy screamed.”

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at AmazonAuthor: Tom Robbins“If this typewriter can’t do it, then f*** it, it can’t be done.

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at AmazonAuthor: Seth Grahame-Smith“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.”

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at AmazonAuthor: Colin Meloy“How five crows managed to lift a twenty-pound baby boy into the air was beyond Prue, but that was certainly the least of her worries.”

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at AmazonAuthor: E.B. White"'Where's Papa going with that axe?' said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast."

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at AmazonAuthor: Meg Cabot"Sometimes it seems like all I ever do is lie."

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at AmazonAuthor: Jeffrey Eugenides"I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974."

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at AmazonAuthor: Franz Kafka“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect."

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at AmazonAuthor: Ellen Raskin"The sun sets in the west (just about everyone knows that), but Sunset Towers faced east. Strange!"

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at AmazonAuthor: Alan Partridge"When I was 8 years old, I suffered a nosebleed so profuse and generous I bolted from the schoolyard and sought solace in the first class countryside of Norfolk."

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at AmazonAuthor: John Green"The morning after noted child prodigy Colin Singleton graduated from high school and got dumped for the 19th time by a girl named Katherine, he took a bath. Colin had always preferred baths."

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at AmazonAuthor: Kenneth Cook"He sat at his desk, wearily watching the children file out of the room, reflecting that, this term at least, it was reasonable to assume that none of the girls was pregnant."

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• Enjoyed these opening lines? Read our guide to literature's greatest opening paragraphs.

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