Kenneth Pearce knew the routine so well that he could perform his duties with his eyes shut – not that he’d dare to do that in a prison.
The Enemy Within, by Edward Marston
“Sth, I know that woman.”
Jazz, by Toni Morrison
“Once upon a time when the earth was younger and time was slower and it took three days to cross from one end to the other of Nineveh, that great city, there lived in the village of Gath-hepher a prophet named Jonah.”
The Journey with Jonah, a play by Madeleine L’Engle.
Later, not a single person will recall seeing the lady board the flight at Hobart Airport.
Here One Moment, by Liane Moriarty
“The crowded career of George Washington afforded him little leisure to indulge his vanity or gratify his curiosity by conducting genealogical research into his family.”
— Washington: A Life, by Ron Chernow
“My daughter,
The first thing I need to tell you—and after that I want to tell you everything—is that I never meant to leave you for this long.”
—The Shutouts by Gabrielle Korn
“It was in June of 1935 that I came home from my ranch in South America for a stay of about six months.”
— The ABC Murders, by Agatha Christie
Pain is a fire.
Twelve Months, by Jim Butcher
He was coming down the hill when they struck.
The Dragons of Archenfield, by Edward Marston
“It was June twenty-first, the longest day of the year.”
The Whole Truth, political novel from 1979 by John Ehrlichman
“In our house on North Congress Street in Jackson, Mississippi, where I was born, the oldest of three children, in 1909, we grew up to the striking of clocks.”
One Writer’s Beginnings, by Eudora Welty
“The cat slunk in the door with angry grace and snarled to Old Nathan, 'Somebody’s coming, and he’s bringing a great blonde bitch-dog with ‘im.’”
Old Nathan, by David Drake. (Note: This is a story collection, and the sentence is from “The Bull.”)
“The King’s court was in no hurry to return to England, that late autumn of 1120, even though the fighting, somewhat desultory in these last stages, was long over, and the enforced peace sealed by a royal marriage.”
— “A Light on the Road to Woodstock”, first of three short stories about Brother Cadfael in A Rare Benedictine, by Ellis Peters
“I shook the rain from my hat and walked into the room.”
Mickey Spillane, I, The Jury from 1947 (in a recently-acquired compilation of Spillane novels).
“Lyssa hefted the bloodstained burlap sack and shoved her way through the door of the Kingmaker, tracking sooty slush on the expensive carpet.”
Kill the Beast by Serra Swift
“The City of London is eerily quiet on a Saturday morning in mid-summer.”
The Roma: A Traveling History, by Madeline Potter.
“Now it so happened in the days of old Yedo, as Tokyo was once called, that the storytellers told marvelous tales of the wit and wisdom of His Honorable Honor, Ooka Tadasuke.”
The Case of the Marble Monster and Other Stories, retold by I. G. Edmonds (The quote is from “The Case of the Stolen Smell.”)
Jamie Farr held the body in his arms and ignored the blood that was dripping onto his smock.
Peril on the Royal Train, by Edward Marston
What was Klinger doing in Britain? (sorry, couldn’t resist).
A severed head spun across black sky.
The Gripping Hand, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
This was in the spring of 1858 – well before his Army days. 
“It was the green heart of the canyon, where the walls swerved back from the rigid plain and relieved their harshness of line by making a little sheltered nook and filling it to the brim with sweetness and roundness and softness. Here all things rested.”
All Gold Canyon, by Jack London. This story formed one of the vignettes in the Coen Brothers movie The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs, and the brothers filmed the story precisely as it was written by Jack London.
“If you had set out in the summer of 1660 to travel the four miles from Boston, Massachusetts, to the village of Cambridge, the first house you would have come to after crossing the Charles River would have been the Gookins’.”
Act of Oblivion by Robert Harris
“You are made from the remnants of stars.”
Eating the Sun: Small Musings on a Vast Universe, by Ella Frances Sanders
“Chuiliu blew on the white and blue rain blooms as she clutched tight their navy stems.”
A Palace Near the Wind, by Ai Jiang
Millie Jenks was in agony.
The Unseen Hand, by Edward Marston