it was a dark and stormy night

“With a novel, which takes perhaps years to write, the author is not the same man he was at the end of the book as he was at the beginning. It is not only that his characters have developed--he has developed with them, and this nearly always gives a sense of roughness to the work: a novel can seldom have the sense of perfection which you find in Chekhov's story, The Lady with the Dog.” 

~Graham Greene

“It is only a novel... or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language.”   

~Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“There's no need to build a labyrinth when the entire universe is one.” 

~Jorge Luis Borges

A collection of first lines in novels, selections from The Sun article, "It Is No Longer Necessary To Write Novels" [April 2013], with a few additions of my own:

"I know who I am, but I don't know whom I am." 

"I'm allergic to alcohol: every time I drink it, I get lightheaded and befuddled."

"I live in a mobile home: my body." 

"The first Reform Jew was Jesus." 

"The problem with living in the moment is that you can never go on vacation." 

"In high school I was voted Most Likely to Float into Space."

"Eggs never expect to be broken." 

"Laughter itself is funny." 

"I love referring to myself as 'yours truly'." 

"Birds sing a cappella." 

"Does Bob Dylan ever get a Bob Dylan song stuck in his head?" 

"So I often hook my foot over the side of the mattress. Sort of anchors me to my side of the bed." 

"Apart (of course) from Wagner, apart from Mozart's compositions for the clarinet, Schubert was one of the select composers who could occasionally transport him to the frontier of tears." 

"The very size of the cathedral was a surprise." 

"Every night after I say my prayers, it gives me great pleasure to think of murdering Angel Musseldorf." 

"It's her life, and she's in the middle of it." 

"It was a dark and stormy night."