Yes!
You got it.
Everyone has guessed the ones I knew, due to my late arrival.
Here are some more, randomly picked from my shelves. Some easy, some more difficult.
“Corde, who led the life of an executive in America–wasn’t a college dean a kind of executive?–found himself six or seven thousand miles from his base, in Bucharest, in winter, shut up in an old-fashioned apartment.”
““I’ve watched through his eyes, I’ve listened through his ears, and I tell you he’s the one.””
“Once upon a time when the world was young there was a Martian named Smith.”
“The Salinas Valley is in Northern California.”
“On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays it was Court Hand and Summulae Logicales, while the rest of the week it was the Organon, Repetition and Astrology.”
“Once upon a time when the world was young there was a Martian named Smith.”
Stranger in a Strange Land
“On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays it was Court Hand and Summulae Logicales, while the rest of the week it was the Organon, Repetition and Astrology.”
The Once and Future King.
And I’m sure the one in between is something by Steinbeck, but I have no idea what.
“The French Lieutenant’s Woman” - John Fowles
"Charlie Asher walked the earth like an ant walks on the surface of water … "
A Dirty Job - Christopher Moore
“My first memory is of a time ten years before I was born, and the memory takes place where I have never been and involves my daddy whom I never knew.”
No Googling! Only I may google, and that’s to check others’ answers (I didn’t google the answers I supplied myself). Preferably brains only, though you may check in your own bookcases (no libraries or bookstores!)
East of Eden ?
Right on all three, and
she got the title. Yay!
“The first facet was purpose.”
-
An Oblique Approach, Eric Flint & David Drake
“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”
Hmm… I don’t know any more of the unsolved ones… so I’ll just throw out a couple more.
Ok, this one has a prelude before the first chapter, but I like the first chapter’s first sentence better, so I’ll include both.
“This is the room of the wolfmother wallpaper … It was a bright, defrosted, pussywillow day at the onset of spring, and the newlyweds were driving cross-country in a large roast turkey.”
And this one’s a bit harder because it’s such a short sentence.
“It was love at first sight.”
My (unconfirmed by Google) guess is Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson.
My submission:
“The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn.”
“They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Of course they became heroes.”
Catch-22.
William Gibson, Neuromancer.
Hmm … The Picture of Dorian Grey?
Well done, Fretful!! (And I was terribly disappointed that I came to this thread too late to answer your Strong Poison submission. You and I have bonded over Lord Peter before.)
Well, then, I’m done. 
Sorry to see no one’s tried the (I thought) very easy one I submitted from the non-fiction shelves, though.
A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein?
? What does this mean? Was I supposed to put the author?