First lines

It's the first day of the year and it seems an appropriate day to talk about great "firsts," those opening lines in novels that grab you and don't let go. The most famous one, of course, is "Call me Ishmael," and we all know that's from Moby Dick. And I'm pretty sure most people would recognize "It's a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." I'm quoting the great Jane Austen in Pride and Prejudice. But here's one you may not immediately recognize: "It was a pleasure to burn." (Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451) Or how about this: "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there." (L.P. Hartley, The Go-Between)

My favorite opening line from 2010: "I was lying dead in the churchyard." This is from the second installment of Alan Bradley's beguiling and often hilarious series about Flavia de Luce, girl detective in post-war England and one of the most intrepid heroines in recent memory. Last year I also rediscovered a treasure from the past, I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith, that begins this way: "I write this sitting in the kitchen sink."

Opening lines are critical, whether writers like to admit it or not. They can be agonizing to construct and sometimes present an obstacle that is almost impossible to overcome.
Herewith for your response are two opening lines that you've never seen before:

"She left me in the autumn, after giving me her darkest secret just as she would any thoughtful gift, with kind generosity, and then, having at last let go of this burden of the past, she put down her brushes, her palette knife and the other accoutrements of an artist's life and, smiling, died."

Or this:

"Betty Jones spent the last day of her life in the same way she did every other day, in the relentless pursuit of attention."

My question to my faithful blog followers is: Would either of these lines compel you to read on?

This is not a scientific study, but I'd love your opinion anyway, unvarnished, please.

In the meantime, Happy New Year, happy reading and let's hope 2011 is a hell of a lot better than 2010!