Ten on Tuesday - That's Novel!

Today's Ten on Tuesday topic is an interesting one - 10 Sentences That You Think Would Make Great Opening Lines for a Novel. I did try to write a few opening sentences on my own, but here's an example: "She sat down to knit, and as her yarn unwound from the ball, so did her memories begin to unwind." My attempts were a bit cheesy and of the "It was a dark and stormy night" variety, so I went with the alternative prompt, Share Your 10 Favorite Opening Lines instead.

• “I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974." -- Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex

• “Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet.” -- Celeste Ng, Everything I Never Told You

• “Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person.” -- Anne Tyler, Back When We Were Grownups

• "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." -- George Orwell, 1984

• "The king stood in a pool of blue light, unmoored." -- Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven

• "In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing." -- Norman Maclean,  A River Runs Through It 

• "I'm pretty much fucked." -- Andy Weir, The Martian

• "There was a hand in the darkness and it held a knife." -- Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

• “Where’s Papa going with that ax?” said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast."  -- E.B. White, Charlotte's Web

• "Elspeth died while Robert was standing in front of a vending machine watching tea shoot into a small plastic cup." -- Audrey Niffenegger, Her Fearful Symmetry

These are all from books that I've read and found the first lines intriguing. I remembered that thought-provoking line from Her Fearful Symmetry, but did have to look up what novel it came from. I can't recall anything about the book itself, but the first line certainly stuck with me. Perhaps the book is worth a re-read!

What are your original or favorite opening lines?