Top Ten Tuesday: In The Beginning And At The Very End

It’s Top Ten Tuesday (brought to you by the Broke and the Bookish) and, although I’ve already done one post today - read it here - as today’s topic is a favourite of mine, I decided to crank out another.

The topic is beginnings and endings and so I’m doing five of each - five of my personal favourite opening lines and five fantastic closing lines.  What is interesting is that several of the books here - 1984, A Tale of Two Cities to name but two - could have been included both for their opening and closing lines.  In the interests of variety, however, I decided only to include one from each.  So, anyway, here we go……

Opening lines

1.         It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.  George Orwell, 1984

2.         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.  Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

3.         The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.  L. P. Hartley, The Go-Between

4.         All children, except one, grow up.  J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

5.         In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.  J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

Closing lines

6.         So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.  F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

7.         The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from

            pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.  George

            Orwell, Animal Farm

8.         But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that

            enchanted place on the top of the Forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be

            playing.  A. A. Milne, The House at Pooh Corner

9.         He reached the top of the bank in a single, powerful leap. Hazel followed; and together they slipped away, running easily down through the wood, where the first primroses were beginning to bloom.  Richard Adams, Watership Down

10.       Turning him over one saw that he could not have suffered long; his face had an expression of calm, as though almost glad the end had come.  Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front