The Internet Book Database of Fiction

It's been very quiet on the forum lately. I thought I'd try to encourage some activity, so here's a new question for everyone to chime in on:

What's your favorite opening line from a novel (not necessarily from Mr. Modesitt's works)?

I'll start...

"The building was on fire, and it wasn't my fault."
Blood Rites, Dresden Files # 6 by Jim Butcher

"I am afraid."
Barrayar, by Lois McMaster Bujold

Incidentally, the odds Murphy's law was named after the wrong guy is 100%. It should clearly have been named after me !

Sometimes it is the combination of the first and second lines:

The Prince was dead. Since the King was not, no unseemly rejoicing dared showed in the faces of the men atop the castle gate.

The Hallowed Hunt by Lois McMaster Bujold

The angels of darkness made the Roof of the World their home, and after deceiving the followers of light who had eagerly welcomed them, they wielded the ancient and dreadful weapons of Heaven and vanquished those who rejoiced in the light.

The Chaos Balance by L.E. Modesitt

...
"The door dilated."

I don't know if this has actually been used, but Robert A. Heinlein claimed it is an excellent opening for a science fiction story.

"I was bathing in the lake when I saw the unicorn."

Perhaps not the best of all time, but it comes from my personal all time favorite novel, "Ariel, a book of the change." It's a book that I've read and reread so many times that I could likely rewrite it nearly verbatim from memory alone.

"A typewriter shattered my destiny." The Time in Between by Maria Duenas. This was an interesting book I read about four years ago. It's about a young woman in Spain around the beginning of WWII.