A good start

These are the opening lines of the books/plays I’ve read in the past couple of months. I’ll update with the titles and authors in a couple of days if anyone wants to venture a guess. I’m obsessed with opening lines, I suppose they don’t necessarily make or break a good story, but the really famous ones are always remembered. This quick quiz at the BBC site is kinda fun, I was surprised I got 8 right, since it has been so long since I've read most of them, and I thought my memory was very bad.

(HINTS: 3, 4, and 5 are plays by the same author, not all of these works were written in English)

1) Petrograd smelt of carbolic acid.

2) In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.

3) – and so, fellow parishioners, here’s to our freedom!

4) Hide the Christmas tree properly, Helena.

5) Well, Ballested, have you got it to work?

6) I am nothing but a corpse now, a body at the bottom of a well.

7) That’s good thinking there, Cool Breeze.

8) I first met Dean not longer after my wife and I split up.