Memorable opening lines

I believe in America. America has made my fortune, and I raised my daughter in the American fashion. I gave her freedom, but I taught her never to dishonor her family. She found a boyfriend, not an Italian. She went to the movies with him. She stayed out late. I didn't protest. Two months ago he took her for a drive, with another boy friend. They made her drink whiskey and then they tried to take advantage of her. She resisted. She kept her honor, so they beat her like an animal. When I went to the hospital her nose was broken. Her jaw was shattered, held together by wire. She couldn't even weep because of the pain, but I wept. Why did I weep? She was the light of my life. A beautiful girl. Now she will never be beautiful again. [sobs] Sorry. I went to the police, like a good American. These two boys were brought to trial. The judge sentenced them to three years in prison and suspended sentence. Suspended sentence! They went free that very day! I stood in the courtroom like a fool, and those two bastards, they smiled at me. Then I said to my wife, "For justice, we must go to Don Corleone."

Possibly the most memorable movie opener ever.

I can't think of many now, but one that stands out, especially mixed with the general atmosphere of the game, and with the music:

These are the end times.
There was no hope of survival.
This is how you died.

My hotel's as clean as an elven arse.

Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.

From three of my favourite books:

• I once knew this girl who thought she was God. She didn't give sight to the blind or raise the dead. She didn't even teach anything, really, or and she never told me anything I probably didn't already know. On the other hand, she didn't expect to be worshipped, nor did she ask for money. Given her high opinion of herself, some might call that a miracle. I don't know, maybe she was God. Her name was Sati and she had blonde hair and blue eyes. - Sati, Christopher Pike

• I woke up, rolled over carefully to prevent the pincushion in my head from doing major damage, opened the eye with the astigmatism, and focused on the window with it's mesh screen and bars.
  "Oh,no," I groaned, "I've fallen down the rabbit hole again." - The Cracker Factory, Joyce Rebeta-Burditt

• "My life is scribbling and scratching and half finished pages at dawn. If anything, I've learned you can't always go home... You can't always be warm inside. That without love, we're never more than strangers in paradise!" - Strangers in Paradise Vol. 1 Issue 1, Terry Moore

Now these ashes have grown cold, we open the old book.
These oil-stained pages recount the tales of the Fallen,
a frayed empire, words without warmth. The hearth
has ebbed, its gleam and life’s sparks are but memories
against dimming eyes – what cast my mind, what hue my
thoughts as I open the Book of the Fallen
and breathe deep the scent of history?
Listen, then, to these words carried on that breath.
These tales are the tales of us all, again yet again.
We are history relived and that is all, without end that is all.

The calendar said early March, but the smell in the air said late October. A crisp sun shone over Cellar Hollow, melting the final bits of ice from the bare trees. Steam rose from the soil like a phantom, carrying with it a whisper of autumn smoke that had been lying dormant in the frosty underground.

[NSFW]
Charlie Chaplin - Final Speech from The Great Dictator - YouTube

Probably what you need.

Hey, you. You're finally awake. You were trying to cross the border, right?

"In the beginning, the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move."

"Good Morning, Morgan. Today is Monday, March 15th, 2032."

“H#Y,” the wriggling mass of flesh burbles, “G$Hsy%3whY&Xtr1p%3?”

"Who am I? What am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going? Loved by no one. Needed by no one. If my existence holds no meaning, then why am I here?"

Your intro made me think of
Styx - The Best Of Times

"I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice — not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because he was the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany."
-- A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving

“He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster...when you gaze into the abyss the abyss also gazes into you... "

• Friedrich Nietzsche

Max Payne : "One thing you can count on: You push a man too far, and sooner or later he'll start pushing back. "
Max Payne 2: "The past is a puzzle, like a broken mirror. As you piece it together, you cut yourself, your image keeps shifting. And you change with it. It could destroy you, drive you mad. It could set you free."
Max Payne 3: "I ain't slipping, man. I'm slipped."

Three great book intros, without thinking too much:

1 - "You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a winter's night a traveler. Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade. Best to close the door; the TV is always on in the next room. Tell the others right away, "No, I don't want to watch TV!" Raise your voice--they won't hear you otherwise--"I'm reading! I don't want to be disturbed!" Maybe they haven't heard you, with all that racket; speak louder, yell: "I'm beginning to read Italo Calvino's new novel!" Or if you prefer, don't say anything; just hope they'll leave you alone."

2 - "When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin. He was lying on his back as hard as armor plate, and when he lifted his head a little, he saw his vaulted brown belly, sectioned by arch-shaped ribs, to whose dome the cover, about to slide off completely, could barely cling. His many legs, pitifully thin compared with the size of the rest of him, were waving helplessly before his eyes."

3 - "Mother died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; I can’t be sure. The telegram from the Home says: YOUR MOTHER PASSED AWAY. FUNERAL TOMORROW. DEEP SYMPATHY. Which leaves the matter doubtful; it could have been yesterday." - This book (The stranger by Camus) also has one of the best ending sentences ever.

Interrogator: Who the fuck are you?
Me?
Me, I'm... NOBODY.

--

America is an irradiated wasteland. Within it lies a city. Outside the boundary walls, a desert. A cursed earth. Inside the walls, a cursed city, stretching from Boston to Washington D.C. An unbroken concrete landscape. 800 million people living in the ruin of the old world and the mega structures of the new one. Mega blocks. Mega highways. Mega City One. Convulsing. Choking. Breaking under its own weight. Citizens in fear of the street. The gun. The gang. Only one thing fighting for order in the chaos: the men and women of the Hall of Justice. Juries. Executioners. Judges.

--

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more.”

--

Do not stand
By my grave, and weep.
I am not there,
I do not sleep—

--

In eighteenth-century France there lived a man who was one of the most gifted and abominable personages.

--

A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct.

--

Who controls the past, controls the future. Who controls the present, controls the past.

They say that the prospect of being hanged in the morning concentrates a man’s mind wonderfully; unfortunately, what the mind inevitably concentrates on is that, in the morning, it will be in a body that is going to be hanged.

この世界には 人の運命をつかさどる 何らかの超越的な 「律」 神の手が存在するのだろうか。

少なくとも 人は自らの意志さえ 自由には出来ない。

Berserk

It was a pleasure to burn.
It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed.

War. War never changes.

Rise and shine, Mister Freeman. Rise and... shine. Not that I... wish to imply you have been sleeping on the job. No one is more deserving of a rest... and all the effort in the world would have gone to waste until... well, let's just say your hour has... come again.

The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world. So, wake up, Mister Freeman. Wake up and... smell the ashes...

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...