We were made, once. My twin, Pearl, and me. Or, to be precise, Pearl was formed and I split from her. She embossed herself on the womb; I copied her signature. For eight months we were afloat in amniotic snowfall , two rosy mittens resting on the lining of our mother. I couldn’t imagine anything grander than the womb we shared, but after the scaffolding of our brains were ivoried and our spleens were complete, Pearl wanted to see the world beyond us. And so, with newborn pluck, she spat herself out of our mother.

Affinity Konar, Mischling (2016)

The headline appears one afternoon on several news websites almost simultaneously: GOVERNOR PACKER ATTACKED!

-- Nathan Hill, The Nix (2016) 

The christening party took a turn when Albert Cousins arrived with gin.

-- Ann Patchett, Commonwealth (2016)

The first time Caesar approached Cora about running north, she said no.

-- Colson whitehead, The Underground Railroad (2016)

This is a tale of a meeting of two lonesome, skinny, fairly old white men on a planet which was dying fast.

-- Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions (1973)    

One minute it was Ohio winter, with doors closed, windows locked, the panes blind with frost, icicles fringing every roof,  children skiing on slopes, housewives lumbering like great black bears in their furs along the icy streets.

-- Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles (1950)

Once upon a time there was a Martian named Valentine Michael Smith.

-- Robert Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land (1961)

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.

-- William Gibson, Neuromancer (1984)

Bel Rose traveled without escort, which is not what court etiquette prescribes for the head of a fleet stationed in a yet-sullen stellar system in the Marches of the Galactic Empire. 

-- Isaac Asimov, Foundation and Empire (1952)

Maud’dib’s Imperial reign generated more historians than any other era in human history. Most of them argued a particular viewpoint, jealous and sectarian, but it says something about the peculiar import of this man that he aroused such passions on so many diverse worlds.

-- Frank Herbert, Dune Messiah (1969)

Time is not a line but a dimension, like the dimensions of space. If you can bend space you can bend time also, and if you knew enough and could move faster than light you could travel backward in time and exist in two places at once.

-- Margaret Atwood, Cat’s Eye (1988)

I’m the Vampire Lestat. Remember me?

-- Anne Rice, The Queen of the Damned (1988)

"Ah, don't begin to fuss!" wailed Kitty. "If a woman began to worry in these days because her husband hadn't written to her for a fortnight! Besides, if he 'd been anywhere interesting, anywhere where the fighting was really hot, he 'd have found some way of telling me instead of just leaving it as 'Somewhere in France.' He 'll be all right." 

-- Rebecca West: The Return of the Soldier (1918)

Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen sat one morning in the window-bay of their father's house in Beldover, working and talking. Ursula was stitching a piece of brightly-coloured embroidery, and Gudrun was drawing upon a board which she held on her knee. They were mostly silent, talking as their thoughts strayed through their minds.

-- D. H. Lawrence: Women in Love (1920)

My true name is so well known in the records or registers at Newgate, and in the Old Bailey, and there are some things of such consequence still depending there, relating to my particular conduct, that it is not be expected I should set my name or the account of my family to this work; perhaps, after my death, it may be better known; at present it would not be proper, nor not though a general pardon should be issued, even without exceptions and reserve of persons or crimes.

-- Daniel Defoe: Moll Flanders (1722)

I am extremely concerned, my dearest friend, for the disturbances that have happened in your family. I know how it must hurt you to become the subject of the public talk: and yet, upon an occasion so generally known, it is impossible but that whatever relates to a young lady, whose distinguished merits have made her the public care, should engage every body's attention. I long to have the particulars from yourself; and of the usage I am told you receive upon an accident you could not help; and in which, as far as I can learn, the sufferer was the aggressor.

-- Samuel Richardson: Clarissa (1748)

In the matter of Jezebel's Daughter, my recollections begin with the deaths of two foreign gentlemen, in two different countries, on the same day of the same year.

-- Wilkie Collins: Jezebel’s Daughter (1880)