CALL ME ISHMAEL
Opening sentences from Moby Dick
By Herman Melville

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago - never mind how long precisely - having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world.

IT IS A TRUTH UNIVERSALLY ACKNOWLEDGED
Opening paragraph of Pride and Prejudice
By Jane Austen

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. However little known the feeling or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.

IN THE BEGINNING
The first three verses of the Bible

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.