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First impressions are important, especially when it comes to novels. I have fantastic visions of Danielle Steele and John Grisham cracking cats-o-nine-tails on the backs of a dozen minions, pressing them to think harder, to think outside the box, for that one perfect opening sentence that will draw the reader in with a tantalizing taste of things to come.

But if there were a competition for the best opening passage ever, I think Gore Vidal would probably win for Myra Breckinridge:

I am Myra Breckinridge whom no man will ever possess. Clad only in my garter belt and one dress shield, I held off the entire elite of the Trobriand Islanders, a race who possess no words for “why or “because.” Wielding a stone axe, I broke the arms, the limbs, the balls of their finest warriors, my beauty blinding them, as it does all men, unmanning them in the way that King Kong was reduced to a mere simian whimper by beauteous Fay Wray whom I resemble left three-quarter profile if the key light is no more than five feet high during the close shot.

Now that’s some fancy writin’, ain’t it?