I was going through a box containing notes from seminars I’ve done in the past, and came upon a handout called “Creative Lead Sentences,” which I had used in a writing seminar once upon a time. These are not renowned classics, like “Call me Ishmael” and “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” or even “In the beginning God created…”, but creative leads from contemporary writing.

The best lead sentence of all time (that I’ve seen) was written by Ed Lahey in the Chicago Daily News. The article was about an intellectual who was in prison for murder, and who was killed after he made a homosexual pass at a fellow inmate. Here is Lahey’s lead, which no doubt caused him to laugh out loud at his desk when it popped into his head:

“Despite his fine college education, Richard Loeb ended his sentence yesterday with a proposition.”

Isn’t that great? Here are some other leads I collected for that handout.

• “First, let me say that I am not a candidate, but if I were, I would never insult my fascist, obnoxious opponents” (Mark Russell in a TV Guide article).
• “Given the choice between Carter and Reagan, I would rather be sick” (John Alexander in The Other Side).
• “Because of the seriousness of our national and international situations, I’d like to say some things about ice cream” (Andy Rooney in a column).
• “I have written this small book because a thousand times in my career I have groped for it and come up empty-handed” (Arthur Plotnik, The Elements of Editing).
• “There are two schools of thought on tape-recording an interview: Yes and No” (John Brady, starting a chapter in his book The Craft of Interviewing).
• “Does television make you sick? Then this is for you: there will soon be at last three entire television networks you can watch only in the hospital” (a Newsweek article).
• “Your body is like a superbly engineered luxury automobile: if you use it wisely and maintain it properly, it will eventually break down, most likely in a bad neighborhood” (Dave Barry).