Shakespeare has Juliet say, What's in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other word would smell as sweet.
F. Scott Fitzgerald describes Daisy Buchannan with the image, The exhilarating ripple of her voice was a wild tonic in the rain.
These lines, and so many others in literature, ring out to readers as beautiful, astute and original. Let's look at some other great lines in literature to start figuring out what makes them so memorable and what it means to turn a phrase.
18 Great First Lines √+ First Lines of Famous Novels (with explanations)
A few of the many techniques we may have identified.
Inversion: To the circus my uncle Tom and I went before he disappeared.
metaphor: She is the ice cream that startles your senses before making you queasy.
parallelism: The smaller they are, the more they complain.
chiasmus: I am not scared that I am determined, but I am determined because I’m scared.
Here's an exercise to challenge and humble us. Create a document and try to create--while turning a memorable phrase--a first line that examines four of the following:
a lousy day
a mean teacher
an awkward situation
how she felt powerful
how he felt lost