Best First and Last

1. "They were frantic, calling out to him, but they were dead, as dead as the ancient dead, and he was alive, he was needed at home, it was a no-brainer, no one could possibly blame him for this one, and making a low sound of despair in his throat he kicked off his loafers and threw his long ugly body out across the water."-“The Falls,” George Saunders (From Pastoralia)
2. “What could be worse than having to be seen resorting to your own life.” -“Sororally” by Gary Lutz (from Stories in the Worst Way)
3. “We were fractious and overpaid. Our mornings lacked promise. At least those of us who smoked had something to look forward to at ten-fifteen.”-Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris
4. “She brought him what she had promised and they did it in his car, on the top floor of the car park, looking down onto the black flat roofs of buildings, and she said, or she thought she said, ‘I like your skin,’ when what she really liked was the color of her father’s skin, the mottled white of his arms, and the clay color at the roots of the hairs along his arms.”-“You Drive” by Christine Schutt (from Nightwork)
5. “Discuss the regulars. They sit in a line like ugly, huddled birds, eyes wet with alcohol.”-Ablutions by Patrick Dewitt
6. “As a girl, Becca hadn’t resembled Drew Barrymore at all. But now, at twenty-five, especially after gaining a few pounds, she had grown used to comments from bartenders and store clerks, and the half-startled looks from passerby.”-Still Holding by Bruce Wagner
7. “I saw my ex-husband in the street. I was sitting on the steps of the new library. Hello, my life, I said. We had once been married for twenty-seven years, so I felt justified. He said, What? What life? No life of mine.” -“Wants” by Grace Paley (from Enormous Changes at the Last Minute)
8. “A screaming comes across the sky.” -Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon

read more:

http://flavorwire.com/75066/first-impressions-our-30-favorite-opening-lines-in-literature

http://flavorwire.com/167171/famous-last-words-our-20-favorite-final-lines-in-literature