“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
“It was a bright day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” George Orwell, 1984
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” - Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
“There was once a boy named Milo who didn’t know what to do with himself-- not just sometimes, but always.” Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth
"Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.’ James Joyce, Ulysses
“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” JRR Tolkien, The Hobbit
“A screaming comes across the sky.” Thomas Pynchon , Gravity’s Rainbow
“When I was nine years old I hid under a table and heard my sister kill a king.” Frances M Hendry, Quest for a Maid.
“Who Is John Galt?” Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.” William Gibson, Neuromancer
“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” Daphne Du Maurier, Rebecca
“There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.” C.S.Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader