The first sentence in the book you're reading

[angerball]

"What I really want to do is direct."

- The Skin Gods by Richard Montanari

 

[ktmay93]

"All the bells in Norfolk were ringing for Elizabeth, pounding the peal into Amy's head, first the treble bell screaming out like a mad woman, and then the whole agonising, jangling sob till the great bell boomed a warning that the whole discordant carillon was about to shriek out again."
The Virgin's Lover by Philippa Gregory.
'Tis an excellent book, so far. :]

 

[Frozeninside]

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral Arm of the Galaxy lies a unregarded yellow sun.

 

[helgi]

Three smiling knights meandered over the hills of the countryside.

 

[sparkchaser]

Three smiling knights meandered over the hills of the countryside.

Isn't that the first sentence in your book?

 

[angerball]

'She got to the parking lot earlier than usual.'

- Out by Natsuo Kirino

 

[linds.]

A cold December wind was blowing, and Theresa Osborne crossed her arms as she stared out over the water.
Message in a Bottle, Nicholas Sparks

 

[tyche]

He knew the injury would be fatal.

Myrrens Gift, Fiona McIntosh

 

[angerball]

The snow started to fall several hours before her labor began.

- The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards

 

[letterHead]

There were four of us - George, and William Samuel Harris, and myself, and Montmorency.

 

[bartleby]

Two mountain chains traverse the republic roughly from north to south, forming between them a number of valleys and plateaux.

Under The Volcano by Malcolm Lowry

Bit of a tortuous opening line... and following 50 pages!

 

[Ronny]

THIS IS THE story of what a Woman's patience can endure, and what a Man's resolution can achieve.
-from The Woman In White by Wilkie Collins

I really liked this one.

 

[Ell]

I was pensively penning the outline of the inkstand's circular, quivering shadow.

- The Wood Sprite from The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov.

I like what follows even better:

"In a distant room a clock struck the hour, while I, dreamer that I am, imagined someone was knocking at the door, softly at first, then louder and louder. He knocked twelve times and paused expectantly."

 

[BeerWench13]

From the arable river lands to the south, the approach to Montefiore appears a sequence of relaxed hills.

Mirror, Mirror by Gregory Maguire

 

[Ronny]

Winters were colder in those days, they remembered that.

-from Jacob's Ladder by Donald McCaig

 

[MonkeyCatcher]

The town of Candleton was a poisoned and irradiated ruin, but not dead; after all the centuries it still twitched with tenebrous life - trundling beetles the size of turtles, birds that looked like small, misshapen dragonlets, a few stumbling robots that passed in and out of the rotten buildings like stainless steel zombies, their joints squalling, their nuclear eyes flickering

-- Wizard and Glass - Stephen King

 

[angerball]

^Wow, MC...is that a re-read? If not, you are in for such a treat.

 

[BeerWench13]

She stood dappled in grime and moonlight beneath the drifting branches of the shade tree and watched through the window.

Offspring by Jack Ketchum

 

[dovener's cape]

"Hapscomb's Texaco sat on Number 93 just north of Arnette, a pissant four-street burg about 110 miles from Houston."

The Stand by Stephen King

 

[Robert]

Regular sleep had been impossible in the hot and windless night so typical of the hurricane season in Jamaica: the occasional slight zephyr venturing in through the window rarely had enough energy to penetrate the mosquito net and cool him.

Ramage's Prize by Dudley Pope