in which I succumb to a meme

[truepenny]

First lines of ten favorite books (which turned out to be a smorgasboard of mystery, fantasy, children's literature, and sometimes all three):

The primroses were over.
--Richard Adams, Watership Down

Snow was falling on Riverside, great white feather-puffs that veiled the cracks in the facades of its ruined houses, slowly softening the harsh contours of jagged roof and fallen beams.
--Ellen Kushner, Swordspoint

Harriet Vane sat at her writing-table and stared out into Mecklenburg Square.
--Dorothy L. Sayers, Gaudy Night

It was a dull autumn day and Jill Pole was crying behind the gym.
--C. S. Lewis, The Silver Chair

Although the label on the hair shampoo said Paris and had a picture of a beautiful girl with the Eiffel Tower behind her bare shoulder, it was forced to tell the truth in tiny print under the picture.
--Margaret Mahy, The Changeover

"Aunt Bee," said Jane, breathing heavily into her soup, "was Noah a cleverer back-room boy than Ulysses, or was Ulysses a cleverer back-room boy than Noah?"
--Josephine Tey, Brat Farrar

The unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone.
--Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn

Polly sighed and laid her book face down on her bed.
--Diana Wynne Jones, Fire and Hemlock

The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring cleaning his little home.
--Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

Ever since his arrival at the Hotel Algonquin, Hamlet had spent most of his time sleeping.
--Val Schaffer, Algonquin Cat