What a first line already tells you

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

· Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813)

There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.

· Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (1847)

The Time Traveller (for so it will be convenient to speak of him) was expounding a recondite matter to us.

· H. G. Wells, The Time Machine (1895)

All children, except one, grow up.

· J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan (1911)

Call me Ishmael.

· Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (1851)

"Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents," grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.

· Louisa May Alcott, Little Women (1868)

You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter.

· Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.

· F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925)