A selection of first sentences

The most important things are the hardest things to say.
The Body - Stephen King

The boy with fair hair lowered himself down the last few feet of rock and began to pick his way towards the lagoon.
Lord of the Flies - William Golding

The yellow cushion looked too frivolous in the oven, so Enid Marley went and fetched a black one.
Murder's Little Sister - Pamela Branch

The solution to my life occurred to me one evening while I was ironing a shirt.
The Office - Alice Munro

Moxon knew that somebody was following him.
He Never Came Back - Helen McCloy

Now that I'm dead I know everything.
The Penelopiad - Margaret Atwood

Mr Peter O. Jones, editor and publisher of the Brennerton Star-Gazette, was standing in a bathroom in a hotel in New York City, scrubbing his nails.
Mischief - Charlotte Armstrong

They came to the house on different days, at different hours and by different routes, and the first two came by train.
The Pavilion - Hilda Lawrence

Monday - and he woke with the happy knowledge that before the end of the day was out he would have murdered his wife, Lydia, lying next to him now, snoring wantonly and evenly as though she had a busy engine lodged in her throat.
Deathday - Angus Hall

All night and most of the day they had been driving, through mountains, and desert, and now mountains again.
How Like an Angel - Margaret Millar

It was not until the third night that they came for Eliot.
The Pencil - Edmund Crispin

If you were riding along in a bus and, through the window, saw a man who was supposed to have died a year ago, you would be startled, wouldn't you?
What Would You Have Done? - Charlotte Armstrong

In the old brown house on the corner, a mile from the middle of the city, we ate bacon for breakfast every morning of our lives.
Monkey Grip - Helen Garner

On 11 November 1997, Veronika decided that the moment to kill herself had - at last! - arrived.
Veronika Decides to Die - Paulo Coelho

I arrived in the Alice at five a.m. with a dog, six dollars and a small suitcase of inappropriate clothes.
Tracks - Robyn Davidson