Favorite First Lines

A couple of days ago I announced the new Writing Challenge, in which asked you guys to take the first sentence of my new book The Spindlers and write the next 200 words. This got me thinking about first lines in general.It's amazing that sometimes the very first words leap straight off the page and into your heart. So to help further inspire you all in your writing, here are some of my favorite first lines in books! I'd love to hear what some of yours are!

And don't forget to get me your challenge submissions by 6.20.12!

Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road and met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo...
-James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember the distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.
--One Hundred Years of solitude Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say they were normal, thank you very much.
--Harry Potter, dur

Strike spotted her: baby fat, baby face, Shanelle or Shanette, fourteen years old maybe, standing there with that queasy smile, trying to work up the nerve.
--Clockers, Richard Price

It's a funny thing about mothers and fathers. Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you could ever imagine, they still think he or she is wonderful.
--Roald Dahl, Matilda